Immersion as transformation

It’s a steep climb down to the water, but it’s safe via the steps and the ramp, the grade notwithstanding. Much safer than the original staircase had been, rickety and rotten in places. It had been a brilliant idea to get rid of that contraption and replace it with the short staircase and longer ramp — an altogether easier engineering feat down the 20-or-so-foot cliff face to the lake. Once at the bottom, one arrives on the enormous rock that supports the swim ladder. Though it doesn’t sit true against the rock, it has not moved one inch in the decade-plus that we’ve been using it to get into the lake for swimming. That ladder is as if part of the rock: timeless, solid, reliable.

Last summer, the lake was low (see photo) but this summer, the lake is high — so high, the top rung of the swim ladder is often under water, while last summer the very bottom rung was clear. Last summer, the swimming was not appealing, but this summer the dips into the lake for a refreshing cool-off have been sublime. Each time, I am reminded of the transformative experience that is full immersion into water, which changes from shock-cold to pleasant-cool through a possibly not unique Canadian-summer-swimming-process of courage, patience, and acclimatization: Feel the sun’s heat. Desire the lake’s cool. Change into swim gear. Make the descent. Take each ladder-step down into the water. Wait. Feel the change from shock to pleasure. Push off. Immersion!

The transformation is felt on the skin, but experienced in the mind, too. Ahhhh, this body of water receives this human body that, with some swimming skill, is held as if suspended. Maybe not life changing, but certainly mood altering, thought shifting. And worth every shiver of trepidation down into it.

I have played in the shimmering turquoise waves along Mexico’s Mayan peninsula; swum in both Pacific and Atlantic oceans; even snorkelled at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, but this summer’s swims in Lake Winnipeg at the foot of our own Clifftop Cottage have been among the most memorable for me, as I continue to transition my way into post-career life: this Third Act of mine, that is becoming, in its own way, as transformative as any dip below the surface of a summer-cold lake has ever been. The descent into it has held equal parts trepidation and abandon, but, now, fully immersed into the no-longer-working-a-job rhythm, I experience the mind altering shift to change, acceptance, and joy.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.