Lessons by the Sea

by Liz Salamy Abess

First Place winner of the 2019 Memoir Writing Contest
California Writers Club, Sacramento Branch

The cold, ominous day warned me not to swim. Waves crashed on shore with angry force in response to the churning ocean. Yet, even then, the Santa Cruz ocean beckoned me with its clashing peace and power. As I neared the water’s edge the salty smell and spray of the surf seduced me like whiskey to a drunk.

     My best friend, Susan, and I spent two weeks every summer on the beach, our annual playground. I was eleven when we found ourselves—newly declared blood sisters—with her parents and our brothers in a lonely line of townhouses on La Selva Beach. Most days I savored the sunshine on my head, sand between my toes and water on my rail-like body.

     But on Wednesday the marine layer of fog refused to burn off. We skipped barefoot down to the water’s edge and dodged a few waves before deciding the chill made the blackened Pacific less alluring. Our older and wiser brothers rented wetsuits for the day. When they finished swimming Susan and I asked if we could borrow them.

     Down on the bottom deck we slid into those oversized suits like knights donning their shining armor, thrilled we’d be swimming despite the sub-fifty-degree outside temperature. We didn’t mind the loose fit; we cuffed the rubbery black neoprene at our wrists and ankles until our hands and feet were exposed.

     Once armed against the cold we traipsed across the white sand from her parents’ rented unit, five hundred yards to the sea. I spotted no other die-hard swimmers around to witness our swagger; her parents read books and drank cocktails on the third-floor deck. A couple walked their dog—in jackets and long pants—in the distance.

     We skipped through the foamy surf where it met the sand and jumped beyond the baby waves. Once deep enough, I dove into the roaring water, warm inside in my wetsuit. Susan followed. I paddled to the ideal depth and turned around, hoping to catch one of the breakers for a bodysurf ride. I passed on more waves than I rode in the charged sea, well acquainted with the waves’ power; if I mistimed a wave it would smash me into the hard ocean floor. 

     My elation diminished fifteen minutes later when I noticed cold water inside my wetsuit. Though I continued treading at the break point, my buoyance was sinking along with my heart. Why wasn’t I able to ride more waves?

     “Hey, do you have water in your suit?” I asked, swimming closer to Susan. “I think it’s coming through the neck part and weighing me down,”

      “Yea, mine, too,” said Susan still eight feet away.

      “We should probably go in,” I said. Fear glazed my thoughts like clear nail polish, hardly noticeable.

      “Yeah, let’s go.” I heard her teeth-chattering voice and felt colder.

      The sky grew darker as we inched toward shore. I couldn’t touch the ground yet, so my typical dancer’s leaps were out of the question. The shoreline summoned, only forty feet away. Despite our reputation as little fish, I recognized after a few minutes we weren’t getting closer.

      I glanced at Susan and sensed her struggling. Why was this taking so long? I kept swimming diagonally, trying to generate security by shrinking the side-by-side space between us and the land. 

      “I feel like I’m not going anywhere,” I said, four feet from Susan.

     “Me neither. Is it the wetsuits? We’ve never had trouble before!”

     “I don’t know. Paddle harder.” I ordered us both. I was seven months older; she was more athletic. 

     I cupped my hands and pulled at the menacing seawater in a sloppy breaststroke, legs frog-kicking behind. Land teased thirty feet away, close, but not reachable. Water in my wetsuit swelled around my ankles as I fought against the retreating waves.

     “I’m not sure I can do this,” I said, breathing faster. Did I have the strength to make it to shore?

     “We have to keep swimming.” Susan gasped out the words between strokes. I recognized distress in her high-pitched mandate. Was she trying to convince me or herself? She’d always led me in our childhood adventures, whether jumping off my garage roof like Mary Poppins or sneaking out at night with the boy across the street.

     “I’m. Kinda. Scared.” I said between breaths, scouring the beach for a rescuer. 

     I spied her parents standing, staring from the deck, a sandy football field away, books and cocktails down, leaning with hands on the deck rail, fully dressed in jeans and sweatshirts. Their body language spoke concern, but they were too far away to know our danger level—our heads were still above water. They’d never reach us in time if we sank. I scanned the shore and saw no one else.

     As I continued to paddle in, the water tugged me out, folding me like a flip phone, open, close, open, close. The agonizing forward movement seemed pointless, draining the energy from my body in slow motion. The water filling the gap at the top of the wetsuit with each dip below the surface now enveloped my arms and legs, increasing the weight I dragged through the water.

     As my exhaustion grew, I struggled to stay above water. A mouthful of salt-water gagged me. I coughed and sank. I bobbed up and again sank down. More coughing. Is this really happening? I dug inside myself for mental strength.

     Ten minutes after the conflict began, I saw Susan progressing. If she can make it, I can. The comforting four-foot gap between us now extended back to eight feet. She was eight—now ten—feet closer to shore than me, her black mass surfacing like a whale or a shark.

Seeing twenty feet of water still between me and rest, isolation weighed me down as much as the incoming water. I’m alone out here. I timed inhales with desperate lifts from passing swells to avoid more salt-water intake. Rise. Breath. Sink. Repeat.

     Several minutes later during a wave boost, I saw Susan crawl onto the beach and collapse near a pile of brown seaweed. In a split-second I recognized she’d made it. I bore no surprise or resentment she beat me . . . . again.

     After catching her breath, she rose to all fours to cheer me on.

     “Come on, Liz, you can do it. Keep going,” she said as she climbed to her feet.

     “I don’t know if I can make it.” My voice fatigued, like my body.

     “BAFF, you have to make it!” She pleaded.

      “I’m so tired . . . . ” I paddled. 

     “I need you to make it. Keep swimming.” Her voice caught. Our eyes met and held.

     Ten yards of water loomed ahead. My arms and legs drooped with the saltwater still invading the wetsuit. Both my battle and the ocean continued raging, now thirty minutes since I dove in. I could tap the ocean floor with my feet, but the undertow toward sea cancelled my forward motion.

     I leapt.

     Then a wave crashed at my back, propelling me toward land. Another wave. Five feet away. With each new wave nudging me onward and upward, the weight of the water in my wetsuit encumbered me more. I dropped to hands and feet and mustered my remaining energy to crawl my way to safety.

     I flopped on the sand next to Susan, grateful to be on land. Without speaking she tugged the tight ankle bands of my wetsuit, first one leg then the other, draining a gallon of sea water, popping my puffed-up Michelin Man costume.

     After a few minutes I sat upright beside Susan and faced the ocean, reflecting on the terrifying experience. “We could have drowned,” I said. She nodded, looking at me with tears in her eyes. We hugged for a long time.

     We later discovered we’d been in a dangerous rip current. A rip current is a powerful channel of fast-moving water—often moving faster than an Olympic swimmer—travelling swiftly back toward the sea in an ongoing loop. We should have swum parallel to land to escape its force.

     I still love the ocean—and Susan and I are still best friends—but, now I respect it and realize it’s not just my playground, but a force of nature. The sea stole some of my childhood innocence, forcing me to face harsh realities of life: rip currents and challenges exist, ready or not.

     I faced death that day and survived. I learned to surf the waves tossed at me in life, breathe through the struggles, persevere through the exhausting seasons and walk out a survivor. My greatest youthful realization that daunting afternoon is that situations might not always unfold the way we expect or imagine, but we’re stronger than we know. We can choose to swim our way through our trials in life . . . . or let them pull us under.