why i swim
thoughts after reading Bonnie Tsui's "Why We Swim"
I was going through a reading slump lately, and one of the books that butterfly-kicked me out of my doldrums was Bonnie Tsui’s Why We Swim. It’s nonfiction, outlining stories of outstanding swimmers - why they started and why they kept going. What I expected to be a fun little novel with stories about how humans coexist with water turned out to be a deep dive into human motivation and perserverance.
Growing up, I was terrified of the water. This may come as a surprise to many of my friends, who have seen me in my later years become A Beach Person - always game for a beach trip, schedules and budget allowing, and usually one of the first in the water, even just to squish my toes in the wet sand as the shore ebbed and flowed.
When I was younger, my family would stop over at beach resorts on our way to my dad’s province of Pangasinan, and they would always make fun of me because I never once stepped foot on the beach. I only ever got in the pool when my dad would let me sit on his back as he floated to the deep end, and screamed bloody murder when he would let me go in an attempt to get me to learn how to swim.
I subtly avoided all pool parties growing up, saying I had forgotten my swimsuit, or I’ll go after for merienda, I have something with my family earlier that afternoon. I never took real swimming classes. Even the ones we had in high school, which wasn’t even scary by any means given that the pool was only four feet deep, I would conveniently have my period almost every other class. I think I got in the water a total of two times that semester.
I’m not quite sure what scared me so much, but I do remember when it changed. One of my best friends invited me to Boracay for her seventeenth birthday. It wasn’t exactly an offer I could have - or wanted to - refuse. I was young! I was allowed to do things! So I went. I remember my dad looking at me with worry as I left, him knowing better than anyone that I couldn’t swim for shit. (My friends knew too, and they constantly reassured me there would be life jackets.)
Our first day there we rode a flyfish - one of those big inflated monstrosities that you have to ride and hold onto while a speed boat drags you around the ocean in an attempt to flick you off it. We had life jackets, of course, and I had secured mine extra tight (again, the fear). My friends reminded each other that if it gets too tough to hold on, just let go - one of their brothers had sprained his toe trying to hold on for too long. I was determined to stay dry, but I suppose at one point I was more scared of getting injured over a stupid beach activity rather than plummeting to my imminent death. I reminded myself that the life jacket was there for a reason, plugged my nose, and let go.
There is a moment when you fall into a big expanse of water, even with a life jacket on, when you are fully submerged in the quiet of the blue. I remember that moment vividly - opening my eyes to nothing around me but green and blue and salt, sunlight streaming through in clear rays, and the distant whirr of the speedboat. I remember thinking, if this is how I die, it’s not a bad way to go.
And then I floated to the surface.
It’s definitely not when I learned how to swim, but that was the first moment I can ever recollect facing my fear of the water - or facing a fear of anything, really. It was that moment that I realized feeling small - a tiny, moveable object in the vastness of the sea - didn’t mean having to feel helpless.
After that, my love for the water grew. Though not as exponentially as you might think.
My first boyfriend came from a family of swimmers. His dad had swum competitively in his youth and became a coach when he grew older, and his younger brother taught the neighbor kids on weekends. On the few occasions we went to the beach together, he would literally swim circles around me. By this time, I already loved the water, but I just didn’t have the skill to back it up. I would dog paddle from one point to another, still by the shore, or I would get off boats swaddled in a life jacket and hang off the outer rigs, while he would swim under me and, upon rising to the surface, encourage me to let go. I loved being in the water; I just couldn’t trust myself in it.
My first trip to Siargao in 2018 was the first time I had gotten off a boat without a life vest. We were paused in between islands, our guides having said this was the best place to snorkel and free dive. For once in my life, I felt encumbered by the goddamn life jacket. I shrugged it off, half-jumped into the water, and prayed I would stay afloat. I was rewarded with the most beautiful scenes of life underwater, as seen through the worn-down plastic of my rented goggles, again reminded that something great awaits when you take the plunge.
A trip to Cebu in 2019 was the first time I’d swum out from shore. There was a raft at the edge of the sectioned off area of the ocean deemed safe for swimming, floating alongside the buoys. My friends peer pressured me into swimming after them after saying they’d finish the alcohol on the raft. It took me much longer to get there than it took them (I may have been a master of the dog paddle and my own version of the frog, but neither are the most time-efficient strokes), but I got there. I ambled awkwardly on the raft, stuck my head over the edge and marveled at how deep and clear the water was. Not quite sure what gave me the energy to swim back, but we all got back to shore, giggly and sunburnt.
My latest beach trip, this year to Palawan, found me with a sort of nihilistic confidence. The tour boat we were on didn’t have enough life jackets for the entire group, and a girl seated across from me who had disclaimed she didn’t know how to swim was left without one. Once more suffocated by the life vest I had strapped on, I took it off and offered it to her. When we were getting off the boat to transfer to smaller canoes to get into the lagoon, the tour guide had singled me out, asking me if I was okay without a life jacket. I shrugged and said, if I die, I die, but wouldn’t it be kind of funny?
One of the reasons Bonnie Tsui outlines why humans swim in her book is survival. I resonated with this reason the most, even though the examples cited were people who literally have had to fight for their lives or livelihood by getting through the water. There’s something so powerful about a story of survival, of pushing through and forward despite the odds.
Swimming for me has proven to be survival in my own way - learning how to conquer a fear, to move slowly but surely from one point to the next, and believe that I can do it. It’s surviving by learning how to trust myself, even if it means being a little stupid and reckless about it sometimes.
Surviving for me means pushing through to the other side of fear.
(Though looking back, I really should take proper swimming lessons.)