Deep Water

(Creative Nonfiction) "I didn’t know I had a water phobia. I knew every time I entered deep water, my body betrayed both my logical mind and my deep love of swimming."

Rocks and Waves at Big Sur by Henrique Pinto

It was early summer and my roommate Ryan had invited my boyfriend James and I to take a spontaneous trip to Big Sur River Gorge. We went the long way, Highway 101 to Highway 1, so we could spend as much of the trip as possible admiring the Pacific coast. We stopped for lunch and as we ate on the deck, I took in the expanse of the bluest ocean I’d ever seen. My roommate informed me the rich blue ombre was created by the shallow coastal shelf followed by an abrupt drop off. By the deep water.

I hadn’t told my travel companions I had a water phobia because I didn’t know I had one. I knew every time I went into deep water, my body betrayed both my logical mind and my deep love of swimming. I grew up playing in the cold waves of the Northern California coast. I had no conscious fear of water, but whenever my feet couldn’t touch the ground, I’d hyperventilate, my muscles would tighten, and I’d sink.

It was a short hike to Big Sur River Gorge. There were few people there and we eagerly jumped in and began to swim. It was early summer, and the Santa Lucia Mountains fed the river with cold, swift water. A waterfall cascaded down the rock face where the river spilled into the gorge. There was a small beach on the other side of the current and my roommate, Ryan, swam easily from one side to the other. I stopped where the current began, and doggy paddled in place. My body began to rebel the way it always did, but I was so used to it I paid no attention.

“You have to swim underneath the current!” Ryan called. I was not scared. I was confident I could do it. Ryan had made it look so easy. I dove down as deep as I could in the water but was pushed aside by the rushing water. I surfaced and gasped for breath. I tried again. No luck. I was already exhausted from the cold and from the lack of oxygen in my muscles, but I was not a quitter. I tried and tried repeatedly while my companions looked on until at last I entered the current instead of swimming under it. The force of the river drove me downstream and deep underwater, and as I panicked, I had a flashback, a memory of a dream I had when I was very young:

I am a mermaid. I am a mermaid in deep water surrounded by pale blue light. There are bubbles coming out of my mouth and for some reason I can see my own shadow. I struggle. I look down and realize I have legs and am kicking, wildly, helplessly, as I sink.

I swam desperately upward toward the light until I reached the surface and thrust my head above. I sputtered and flailed as my companions looked on. One of the locals recognized the seriousness of my struggle and quickly jumped off a boulder and swam over to me. He dragged me to a large, flat rock where I flopped over like an ugly fish, wrecked by my foolish attempt to prove myself.

We drove the short way home up highway 17 and stopped in Santa Cruz for burritos, where I felt warm for the first time since jumping into the gorge. As Ryan and James chatted over the meal, I remained silent and contemplative. I couldn’t stop thinking about the flashback I had while I was in the current.

I wondered “Why does my body behave that way when I get in deep water? Is that memory really a dream? Could it be a memory?” and when I got home, I wrote both my mom and dad an email. I told each of them about the dream and asked if they had any memory of any near-drowning experiences. They both replied with the same story.

“Yes. You almost drowned at the YMCA when you were two,” my mom said. “Your dad tried to teach you how to swim by throwing you in the water, and you almost drowned.”

It would make a better story if I had told you this earlier. With the audience fully aware of my struggle, you would have rooted for me as I attempted to swim under the river’s strong current at Big Sur River Gorge. When I surfaced from near drowning, I would have arrived on the other side of the current, clambered my way up the rocks to join Ryan, and the whole gorge would have erupted in triumphant applause. In a Hollywood movie, that would have been how I overcame my water phobia. But that’s not real life. That’s a trite narrative that likely drives many people to an early death in the name of shallow ideals.

I have a history of engaging in risky behavior with water. I once jumped into an unheated pool in the middle of winter on a dare. I dove into the ocean under the full moon as a drunk, heartbroken teen. I tried to swim in the choppy surf in Pacifica and was dragged underwater by the undertow repeatedly until my high school sweetheart fished me out. None of that did anything to relieve the symptoms of my phobia. It probably made it worse.

After my experience at the gorge, equipped with the hard-won knowledge that I had a true phobia, I began approaching my time in the water more mindfully. Anytime I went swimming, I calmed my body down by taking slow, deep breaths. Instead of throwing myself into risky situations in order to ‘overcome’ my fear, I taught my body to feel genuinely safe in the water. The short-term effects were immediate, and eventually my phobia went away.

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