Jump In

I get to visit Mexico in winter and I look forward to morning swims in the Sea of Cortez.

I’m usually alone when I wade into the cool water. I’m not a brave swimmer. I head north for about fifteen minutes, hugging the shoreline, then reverse.

Swimming in Mexico might seem an obvious activity, but I came to swimming late in life, taking lessons in my thirties. I love the unique solitude of traveling this foreign space alone with my thoughts fleeing before me like a startled fish. I always feel slightly altered when I emerge onto the warm sand.

I started writing seriously about the same time I learned to swim, and they are not dissimilar. On a good day, writing feels like a process of submergence and resurfacing. I leave my desk thinking of creatures still lurking in the shadows of my imagination.

I only swam once this winter.

I was tormented by some invisible sea creatures that left painful welts all over my arms and torso. Other obstacles arose—big surf, early wind, cold temperatures. The barriers piled up. And anyway, the new puppy needed walking.

Back home, I found myself, for the first time in long time, unable to write. Diving into the unknown waters of a blank page felt impossible. Yes, the puppy needed walking, but that wasn’t the problem. I felt frozen by THE EVERYTHING of 2025. Whenever I tried to slip into the water, I’d feel stung by the latest horror and lost about how to move forward.

And yet what to do but get back to it? As Maira Kalman wrote about London recovering from the Blitz, “Flowers lead to books, which lead to thinking and not thinking and then more flowers and music, music. Then many more flowers and many more books.”

Doing nothing at all doesn’t seem helpful, so I got back in the water literally and figuratively.

I did a Polar Plunge to support Special Olympics, an organization that has brought much joy to my sister. I hesitated at the water’s edge. But at the word, “Go!” I surged forward with scores of goose-fleshed strangers, and the water wasn’t so cold in their company.

I’m back at my desk too with no guarantees of flowers, music, or books, but I’m trying. Perhaps this is the way forward: all of us, together, jumping in.