EMER O’REILLY-HYLAND ON…
Swimming for glory
I’m all for being brave, but it takes a lot of effort, and pain. We need oodles of bravery for the bigger issues in life, but there are times when feeling the fear and doing it anyway is too big an ask; and on one particular issue, I’ve been a total wimp. This problem raises its embarrassing little head about this time every year. The thing is (I’m blushing), I can’t… well, it’s not that I tota lly can’t, I mean I can a bit, but not really… you see, I can’t actually… swim.
I have all the excuses. I was a speccy-four-eyes kid, and with my bottle-end glasses left behind on my beach towel, I couldn’t see the sea. I could go on, but the upshot is, I tried several times to learn. I took lessons, but really, too much trauma and wet hair.
You’d be amazed how I’ve fudged it for decades. At Nikki Beach parties in Marbella, I lolled on my back in the pool, looking nonchalant, with one hand resting by the edge. I created my own personalised swimming stroke, a hodgepodge of breast stroke and doggy paddle, that any superior lady in Quinta would put down to protecting my hair from the chlorine. In other words, I’ve fooled everyone. Until last year.
We took a boat for a week, with another family, island-hopping around Corfu. We were a party of eight – four adults and four long-limbed teenage girls, each Olympian swimmers, more or less.
Two things struck me as we sailed forth. The first was beauty – the sheer magnificence of the water, with mountains in the distance, bathed in Aegean sunshine. The second was magnitude – the vast, imposing Ionian Sea, into which seven out of eight of us couldn’t wait to dive.
We dropped anchor in a pretty cove, with a sandy beach and a line of restaurants. The magnificent seven poised on the bow, ready to dive and swim ashore for lunch. I calculated the distance and depth. Not too far – you could practically smell the calamari, and the water was so clear you could see the bottom. But I wasn’t fooled; it was way out of my doggypaddle league. I could lose a lot of weight on this holiday, I thought.
Then Aquaman himself came to my rescue, in the form of my husband, who produced a little something from his carry-on – too large to be Xanax, too small to be a lifeboat. It was a peculiar shape, squishy and bright pink. Oh God, it’s arm bands, was my initial thought. But no, it was what’s called an aqua belt (think swimming ring for aerobots). He winked as he strapped the wide, sponge corset around my waist; the effect was more Teletubbies than Kim Kardashian. The long-limbers went into full assessment mode. They looked a little nonplussed at f irst, then the eldest one pronounced it cool, dived off the side and propelled towards calamari and onshore posing. The others followed. It seemed I wasn’t a complete embarrassment. I tentatively took the steps, clinging to the bottom rung just to be sure. It held me up. Blimey O’Reilly, this works, I thought. I whooshed myself off. Aquaman was lurking, but I no longer needed him. I was perhaps more Free Willy than Ariel, but that was the point, I was in deep water, buoyant, and I was free. I realised what everyone else has known – the world looks more beautiful from in the water than out, and I felt laughter erupt from my deepest core.
For the first time in my life, I swam ashore like everyone else. I was a member of the swim crew. I could exclaim, “What a glorious swim!” I may not have conquered fear, but I had done something much more profound. I had beaten it, cheated it, doggy-paddled past it, and given it the two fingers. And that, my friends, is utter joy.
“I was perhaps more Free Willy than Ariel, but that was the point, I was in deep water, buoyant, and I was free...”