Trusting the ocean

I just realized there will be quite a few days where it's just me, the sand, and the ocean in Maui.

The ocean.

I love the water. Swimming through the waves. And there's no ocean warmer (that I've experienced). I've always been a good swimmer. We have a pool in our backyard and my shoulders are broad and strong. I used to think there wasn't a better feeling that floating with the waves, moving soothingly through you.

I go to the beach all the time, Venice or Santa Monica usually, to read or think or close my eyes and be. But It's been a few years since I've been in the ocean. This year I surprised myself when I was watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Gorgeous, gorgeous French film, one of my favorites of the year), and there was a beach scene with crashing waves, and then again in the film Into the Wild-- I was alarmed. Frightened. I radiated the fear so much so that N felt it sitting next to me. I haven't gotten past my phobia.

The summer after I graduated living in San Diego, I almost drowned. I was stuck in the under current. N and I had rented surf boards. The current picked up, the waves were rolling in and building. We were getting pummeled. N took my board. We thought it would make it easier for me to swim back to shore. It was a terrible choice. I had nothing to cling to and keep me afloat, as I fought the undercurrent that tore at me, trying to pull me out to sea. The current separated N and I. And I tried to swim out of it. Overmatched. I struggled to keep my head above water, fought to get to shore. But the ocean overwhelmed me over and over again. I wanted to yell for help and had the stupidest thought that it would be embarassing. I'd never felt like I might die before, but when I felt that, I screamed with all the breath I had. No one could hear me over the roar. And I was the only one in the water. But some surfers saw me and made their way over to help. They pulled me out and I dragged my feet up the beach, pretending I was okay. Don't worry about me, I'm fine, I tried to say, but it came out it in incoherent wheezes. Once on the dry, hot sand, I collapsed, hyperventilating on my knees.

I haven't swam in the ocean since.

I refuse to have a phobia about something I love.

So ocean, here I come. Soon. Now.

Just so ya know: If you get caught in an undercurrent, you're supposed to swim away from the shore, out further into the ocean. Which is completely the opposite of instinct. But I did my research after the incident.