On Cold Water Immersion

I'm a bit obsessed with cold water swimming. I love swimming - in lakes, in lidos, in rivers - wherever the water is crisp and clear and gorgeous. This poem is about how it feels to jump into the cold water, and come out smiling. It's a poem for all the cold water swimmers, ice-breakers and dry robe botherers out there! 

The evidence on cold water immersion is inconclusive

but these visible breath 

blue sky birdsong mornings 

still bring goosebumps blossoming, 

cutting through the central-

heated weekday malaise, until 

you remember your body again. 

These Sundays are sacred. 

Salvation a wide lake tangled 

in morning mist and duck weed,

mallards calling from the shallows. 

Deep breaths, tentative steps,

skin sparkling fresh with chill as the  

mirror-soft surface slips from toe 

to ankle, knee to hip, waist to shoulder. 

Call it secular worship, call it self-

indulgence, call it the miracle of falling 

in reverse, when every muscle loosens,

jaw unclenched. Here, you are held. 

This lake is opaque in ways 

that do not frighten you – you are 

unknowable too. You are a glory 

of blood and bone, warmed and 

warming, buoyed by the green 

and blue distance ahead, above, 

below, beyond. You are not yet 

a selkie, but your wetsuit  is

second skin, a transformative 

object, the freedom you can’t quite 

fathom on land. The slick slip of 

bedrock, sweet rot of wet leaves, 

the taste of water coating your lips, 

and the stillness. It is not easy to love 

the water this way, but ease is only 

one kind of luxury, and the shock 

of the cold reminds you:

I have lived, I will live, I am alive. 

Image via unsplash.com