No More Hierarchies

Aden and I participated in the inaugural Swim Across America - Denver (www.swimacrossamerica.org) event on Sunday at Chatfield Reservoir, about twenty minutes from home. SAA has been around since the 1990's, with a mission to raise money for cancer research and trials, and the Denver effort raised over $200,000 for our local partner, The Children's Hospital. When we arrived on a clear, sunny and already-warm Sunday morning, colorful hot air balloons were rising into the air around us while hundreds of jovial swimmers wandered around half-dressed getting their arms marked, gathering autographs (from the 16 Olympians assembled) or pondering the need to wear a wetsuit.

The announcer kept reminding the assembled crowd of high school, college and Masters swimmers that this was "not a race, but an event" and to keep in mind the purpose of our swim. One high school coach standing near me chuckled at the announcer's admonition, saying "I told him that he could remind them - I wasn't about to get in their way."

But the lack of race-day tension was a pleasant change, and I loved that my focus was to stay right next to Aden in her first official open-water event.  Many first-time open-water swimmers feel anxious when lining up in the crowded chute for a walk-run-dive start, or worry about the temperature or sighting the buoys. Many understandably feel nervous about the lack of vision, not seeing the bottom in the murky dark below.

Aden has swum many casual (and cold!) miles with me in Flathead Lake, near my parent's home, and didn't show any nerves for this swim. When I said, "Let's go! Head off to the right side," she charged into the 72-degree water without hesitation. Throughout the mile swim I breathed to my left and she breathed to her right and we sighted on each other throughout. Occasionally we bumped shoulders or adjusted course to avoid a swimmer, but the mile rectangle went quickly and soon enough we emerged, dripping, from the water to cross the finish line together. One of my favorite swims - ever.

Part of the joy was in not racing, not worrying about times or rankings. The older I get, the more I push back against being ranked, placed and ordered.  Such numeral hierarchies take away from my sense of self, the pride in any uniqueness I might possess.  My swim not centered on Olympian speed but on blue skies, the nearby foothills, and sharing a moment with my girl.

The writer Sonia Krasikov captures this perfectly in her short story, "Ways and Means" for The New Yorker (Aug 27, 2018, p68):

"This primeval view of life as a hierarchy was what she'd fled by going to art school, where she was taught that true creators stood outside society's assorted chains. People who thought for themselves approached life not hierarchically but territorially, like ospreys or rice farmers, tending to their unique terrain."

I can't carve out meaningful space for myself in a rank of hundreds of local swimmers, or thousands of national writers, or billions of people on planet Earth, but I can find deep meaning in my familial relationships, in my neighbors and community, my assorted clans at work and at the pool. Anything I create derives from inspiration sprung in these locales, these peoples. My territory, my happy place, like swimming with my gaze on my daughter's face.