Morning Swim

We meet at the stairs that lead down to the beach. It’s quiet, the ocean is still. People are still asleep. We head down, each step softened by the purple clover, daisy’s, Queen Anne’s Lace and tips of goldenrod growing through the gaps in the wood. I hold onto the railing at the bottom and jump onto the mat of sea sandwort stretching like a starfish across the sand. Waves and wind have swept away the bottom step. 

We stand on the sand and contemplate the water. It’s 8:03am, the tide is high, and the July jellyfish are gone. I’m wearing my bathing suit. G and A are in their pyjamas. G spends her summers swimming off an island in Georgian Bay, where waves lap against huge outcroppings of smooth rock, the kind you can stretch out on and warm your body, far from neighbours. A swims with her partner in the early morning on a quiet Prince Edward Island beach. Bathing suits hang in their hands. Do we need these? they ask.

Our beach community is a collection of families and cottages, built on former farmland that stretches to the beach. We’ve known each other for years. No one ever skinny dips, no one ever drinks alcohol on the beach. These aren’t rules, just traditions, left over from the grandparents who built this community. 

They slip off their pyjamas and step into their suits.

The Northumberland Strait is the warmest ocean water surrounding Nova Scotia this time of year, but still, I wince at the cold. I can’t find the path, the area that is cleared of rocks early in the summer when the tide is out. It lines up with a powerline at the top of the bank, guiding us through the rocks to the smooth sand. It should be there, but the water is dark this morning under the grey sky. I can’t see the bottom. Our feet slip on the rocks until we bounce and tiptoe into the deeper water. When our feet hit the sandy bottom, G stretches her head back and embraces the sky with open arms. A smiles. G is wearing her grandmother’s gold choker, a leather necklace and long beads. Her hair is wild. Without a word, she stretches her arms forward and dives in. A little kick, like the flick of mermaid's tail, splashes behind her. At this point in my morning swim I usually sink slowly into the water, quietly screaming as my warm shoulders hit the cold. I always leave my hair tied in a knot on my head, a dry island, protected from the wet. But not any more. I want to dive in like G, I want to seize the day, I want to feel alive in the quiet of the morning. 

We swim to the raft and back then scull and chat until we’re ready to go in for a cup of hot coffee.

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Our Adirondack chairs are usually wet with dew first thing in the morning. We wipe them off with an old towel then cover them with sheepskins from inside. My boys were raised on these sheepskins from Lismore Sheep Farm up the road. Now the collection has expanded and they soften many surfaces inside the cottage. The sun doesn’t hit this corner of the deck and sometimes there’s a chill, especially after a morning swim, so I bring blankets outside too, just in case. I grind the coffee beans and spoon them into our drip coffee maker the night before. This keeps things quiet in the morning. All we have to do now is press brew. We sip coffee from the Fire King mugs I’ve been collecting from the second-hand store in town. There are blue and white dots, orange flowers, and red grids like a Connect 4 game. On that particular morning after our swim, we join the legion of women all over the world discussing Miranda July’s new novel All Fours. Thank goodness for the big pot of coffee- this book was a three cup conversation and we barely scratched the surface. There’s sexuality, sex, relationships, identity, hotel rooms, motherhood, peri-menopause, waning estrogen and trauma to cover. And like the myriad discussion points, Miranda July herself is a multi-hyphenate - a performance artist, musician, writer, actress and film director. I am inspired by people who stretch in many directions, who don’t put boundaries around their work. People who dive in.

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In other news - I’ve been thinking about putting a collection of recipes together that I’ll file under Better The Next Day. Recipes like Maida Heatter’s Tiramisu, made even better by Sally McKenney of Sally’s Baking Addiction. I’ve made this recipe twice in the last month and I have to say, it’s very good and possibly even better the next day, especially with coffee. You can find the recipe here. Last summer’s better the next day revelation was Alison Roman’s key lime pie. It also features in my podcast episode with Jill Barber. It’s her favourite too.

Please let me know if you have a submission. I’ll have it with coffee on the deck.