The Lessons Lake Tahoe Taught Me

It has been over 6 months since I swam the length of Lake Tahoe and I thought I would post something about my swim long ago.  There are two questions that people ask me about this marathon swim.  The first is "why would you want to do that?"  The truth is, that's not an easy question to answer.  One answer is simply, because I think I can.  If I'm truthful though, I also had an expectation that the swim would change me in some radical way or that I would have some big revelation about the meaning of my life.  I thought I would be broken down until I found some core element of myself.  Immediately after the swim I was so grateful, thrilled amazed that I had actually swum all that way, but it also felt strangely anticlimactic.  I had done what I had set out to do and now it was over.  I went back to work the next day and life continued.  As time has passed however, I have come to realize and appreciate the ways that training for and completing this swim has changed me.

The second question people ask me is "what do you think about all that time?"  The answer to this question is both simple and complex.  The short answer is "swimming."  I know that sounds like a smartass answer, but it's true.  While I'm swimming I think about every stroke.  I think about where I'm placing my hands in the water.  I think about breathing.  I think about keeping position with my support kayak.  There were also a few other things running through my head during my swim.  About a week before, a good friend of mine told me "you should think of that time swimming as a gift."  She was right.  Every moment of that swim was a gift.  It was gift to be in the middle of that beautiful lake in the middle of the night.  How many chances are there in life to do something like that?  The biggest gift of all was the time and energy that other people gave to me so that I could have this experience.  I had two friends who kayaked for me through the night giving me food and encouragement and two pilots who I barely knew at the time who guided me safely across.  The fact that all of those people were out for me was overwhelming.  I thought about the fact that being in that water was a gift and a privilege. At about 4 in the morning, a lullaby that my dad used to sing to me popped into my head.  I knew that dawn was coming at some point and I was looking forward to it, but it seemed to be taking forever.  The chorus of the song goes "Oh my Joanie don't you know that the stars are swinging slow and the seas are rolling easy as they did so long ago.  If I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time that the world is always turning toward the morning."  The idea of timelessness of nature and inevitability of the passage of time really spoke to me in those moments.  No matter what happened that night in the lake, the sun would rise in the morning. When daylight finally arrived and I could see where I was in the lake I thought about what my friend and training partner told me: "just swim until you run out of water."  What he meant was, don't look for the finish.  It doesn't matter how long you've been swimming or how far you have to go.  You're going to swim until you finish so just keep swimming.  I'm going to admit that I wasn't entirely successful at not looking at the finish, but it never looked any closer until I was right on top of it.  So I put my head down, remembered this advice and repeated it to myself as a mantra "just swim until you run out of water, just swim until you run out of water."  Those times when I was truly caught up in only the present: the sounds of my breathing and splash of my hands entering the water, the feel of the water on my skin and the sight of the stars above, were true bliss.

These months later, I feel a quiet strength and confidence within myself.  The simple, subtle, obvious lesson that I learned is that every moment in time, whether it's amazing, tragic, boring, painful or joyful will pass.  Nothing we experience will last forever.  All we can ever do is to experience and accept each and every moment for what it is.  Almost exactly 1 year after swimming the length of Tahoe I expect to give birth to a baby boy.  I hope that as I embark on this new adventure I can remember to accept each moment as the gift that it is.