It Happens

Here, your mind is a wide open prairie on a smooth spring morning. This is your favorite place: there are no distractions, no work, no phone, no music; only momentum.

You exchange pleasantries with another swimmer as you wade in, knee-deep. “How is it?” You ask her.

“Nice this morning. Not too cold. Not wavy.” She bends an arm back to unzip her wetsuit. “Cops pulled a body out just as I was arriving.”

“What? You’re kidding.” You stand stunned, heels sinking into the silty bottom.

She shrugs. “It happens. Enjoy your swim.”

The city slouches heavily on one shoulder. The low commotion of early morning traffic noise, like a fog that never dissipates, is punctured by the roar of motorcycles or the lamentation of an ambulance. Engines and rubber and tons of steel clatter and rumble along Lake Shore Drive, an eight-lane highway that spoons the shoreline. 

On your other shoulder, the soft, quiet pull of a gauzy sky. Lake Michigan is a slate flag undulating in a brisk breeze. The head of a golden retriever glides closer to shore, stick firmly clenched in jaw. Mute sailboats bob at the edge of the earth, like opal pyramids pointing towards Heaven. The vast maw of the lake sucks the sound from the city.

The balance is off.

You wade deeper, pulling the drawstring of your wetsuit zipper up your spine. You fasten the velcro tab at the nape of your neck. You dip your hot pink latex swim cap into the lake and open it up, turn it inside out, then stretch it over your head. The brightly-colored cap highlights your whereabouts for boats and for the lifeguards who will arrive later when the beaches begin to crowd with vacationing families and suburban teens.

Waist-deep, you bend your knees and stretch the rubber collar of your wetsuit to let the lake in. The cold water shocks your flesh. Your heart skips two beats. You spit into your goggles, rinse them, and suction them to your face, inhale deeply and thrust forward. Your arms crawl, pulling you through the lake, legs kick rhythmically, toes pointed to maximize efficiency. Your heart rate spikes. Five strokes, breathe—you open your mouth at the corner to keep from swallowing a wave. Five strokes, breathe—the odd intervals keep you looking at alternating sides. 

To your left is the steel-reinforced concrete lake wall, slimy and barnacled. Above it, the Lakefront Path: an artery often clogged by bicyclists, runners, sightseeing tourists, and sauntering downtown workers staring at their phones. Beyond that is Lake Shore Drive and seven-figure condos with floor-to-ceiling windows which glint in the glow of a rising sun. In the afternoon, the skyscrapers cast deep shadows into this stretch of lake. To your right, an empty expanse of harbor. “The Playground” will soon fill with idling powerboats, piloted by spoiled north shore kids. They wear floral-print board shorts and monokinis, and spend hours sipping Old Style or White Claw, flashing toothy selfies for Instagram.

Most days, the lake is cloudy and you can’t see five feet. Here, disaster lurks. Your head is up more than down, looking around for stronger swimmers who might barrel towards you through the din like an eighteen-wheeler rounding a switchback on a narrow mountain pass. You watch for drunks on Sea-Doos, veering too close to shore. You imagine the aftermath: concussed and drowning, no lifeguards nearby to save you. Far-fetched, sure, but possible—it happens. 

Today though, the lake is crystalline. In the close hug of your wetsuit, through foggy goggles, you see the downed light post resting on the bottom. You wonder what kind of car wreck launches a light post that far: careening over a guardrail and past a sloping concrete beach, fully fifty yards from Lake Shore Drive. You shiver through a cold pocket and try to regain your rhythm—five strokes, breathe, five strokes, breathe. Garbage litters the rocks, twenty feet below your nose. You see shapeless plastic and metallic things, sun-faded and sand-covered; beer bottles, soda cans, and an entire park district trash can. You spy a solitary fish sucking between stones and debris. It’s a sallow and pitted creature, not even worth a second glance. You become tangled in a fishnet of weeds, so you pause briefly, treading water as you remove them from your face and between your fingers. Your wetsuit buoys you; you bob at the surface like the beacon that marks your turnaround point. You think again about the body. It happens.

The waves push and pull. You gain speed. Your arms are tiring, shoulders burning with the effort. Your neck is raw where you mismatched the velcro. You find your rhythm. You no longer need to count your strokes to breathe. It happens: your body remembers. It’s like writing a letter to an old friend, or fingering a C-major scale on your junior high trumpet. 

A pair of swimmers pass you on their way back to shore. You envy the efficiency of their stroke, the power in their arms. You rock gently in their wake. You sneak a peek back—they’re already disappearing into the distance. 

You crawl towards the marker, the furthest you’ve made it this season. The waves are getting choppy as you take a wide turn around the beacon and head towards the beach. Eight hundred meters down, eight hundred to go.