May 2022
1,151 Words
I live in the Mid-Atlantic, a surfing region blessed with enough swells to catch the bug of sand-sculpted chocolate squares, but not enough to stay in shape for the next one without cross-training. It’s a microcosm of the surf-trip problem we’ve all run into when, after three consecutive days of multiple sessions, symptoms of nipple chaffing, rib soreness, and rubber arms sink in well before the stoke wanes. I’ve taken to swimming in the mornings, waves or not, to stay in shape for both local swells and the all-day Nicaraguan offshores this July. I’ve been in the water at 7 a.m. every weekday since Thanksgiving unless work or family obligations arise. Hail, snow, 40 mph sideshores, air temperatures in the teens, it doesn’t matter. I wear a 4/3 with the whole nine yards but honestly the cold isn’t the bad part; it’s the swimming, which I hate. Always have. I’m a sprinter, and surfing does not lend itself kindly to those of us preprogrammed with fast-twitch muscles, at least not in between waves, and God forbid you snap a leash in consequential conditions. So although I don’t know how far I swim in conventional units of measurement, I try to swim until I “need” to stop, then go a little further.
After my first week I noticed that I tended to reach my limit around the same yellow three-story house with an observatory on top, one easily identifiable in the unbroken row of houses behind the dunes. I swim different intervals every day, but everything is bookended by that house: sometimes it’s all the way down in one go, sometimes it’s two halves at a quicker pace, and sometimes it’s all the way down and halfway back before I stop to rest so I can sprint the remaining distance back to the jetty where I start.
At this halfway point is a house under construction, and sometimes I see the construction workers watching me. I can’t recall the first time I noticed them, but by now it’s probably happened ten or twelve times. They are too far away for me to tell if anyone has been there multiple times, but they are close enough that it is clear they are watching. I’ve seen some of them wear reflective green vests and I’ve seen some of them wear hard hats, but it’s always all of them facing me, standing several feet apart, in what I can tell is silence. Sometimes they’re standing on the second story balcony, sometimes they’re in the depths of the open-walled interior, and once I saw one, alone, standing on the roof. Sometimes I notice them when I’m on the way down before they disappear back to work by the time I turn around. Other times it’s on the way back as I’m running out of gas. Whenever it happens, I’m never looking for them; I’m lost in the focus of self-sculpture when my breathing-induced sideways glance brings them into my life. It’s always sudden, like a spotlight has turned on while I’m dancing alone in my darkened bedroom, and I’m then unsure of how long I falsely believed I was alone. But I guess, for better or worse, nobody is truly alone these days.
I have developed what feels like a relationship with these people, one of anonymous acknowledgement at a distance. They see me, I see them, we think about each other, yet we can’t even see each others’ faces, let alone speak to each other. When I notice them I can’t help but wonder how I must look. Insane? Inspiring? Annoying? What’s funny is that I am, evidently, enough of a spectacle to justify a work break, one which I imagine happens with some camaraderie (“Yo, swimmer’s back,” as everyone drops what they’re doing), and yet I view our actions as equivalent. After all, they’re out there too, in the elements, using their bodies to exert their will on the universe at an hour that requires awakening far before what most people find enjoyable. What seems different to me is that they are out there against their will while I am there by choice. Do they look at me with envy, then? That at that moment, in that arena, I am there by choice while they are, I assume, working to sustain a higher purpose like supporting a family or owning property? Or do they see me as a fool, one with the chance to sleep in, stay warm, be comfortable, who still chooses to reverse the exact states of existence which they are trying to achieve? And is surfing not the same thing? An escape for those of us so insulated from the essences and truths of the universe that we feel we must throw ourselves into them while the rest of the world does everything in their power to escape them?
I’ve come to realize that thoughts like these underpin all of my most memorable swims, and I have only the construction workers to thank. In their silent, gently inspiring presence, I find myself basking in a blissful weightlessness of both mind and body as they psychically nudge me towards enlightenment. For this reason I deeply cherish my relationship with them, but sometimes I’m conflicted by that fact. Is it a sign of our increasingly alienated society that I so thoroughly enjoy something so antisocial? Or is this a beautifully human expression of what all this digital interconnectedness is trying to replicate? I can see them and they can see me, but what I can’t shake is how much I feel from only that. There is no social performance and everything is left unsaid, and that makes it pure to a degree that I’ve never felt from anything else.
Contrast this with the run-ins I’ve had with other people on the beach who awkwardly ask me why I’m swimming or if they can post the video they took of me, which I always politely request they refrain from doing. I always walk away from these interactions feeling something negative towards these strangers. Call it disappointment, and it only adds to my infatuation with the construction workers. I want to tell them that I think we feel the same ways about each other even though I doubt they think I respect them. I’d like to know if they know I can see them. I’d like to know if I inspire a similar flourishing of thought in their minds. I hope they at least feel like they share something with me. But I don’t know how to get to the house they’re building, and I have never seen any of them when I return to my car a few blocks down. I don’t want to, because if I do I know I’ll talk to them, and then I’ll have broken our spell.