JUST GET IN THE WATER

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The two main bloodlines competing for dominance within me are Russian Jew and Irish. Some other vagabonds throw their genetic two cents around, but they’re the two main tyrants at the table. And among the many wonderful things the Jewish and Irish people are known for, being water borne people is decidedly not in the mix. The Irish believed that the devil came from the water, choosing to remain gathered on their green isle, and the Jews have been wandering the desert in fearful escape and self-imposed exile since before they even named themselves.

            Rounding us up in a boat, where exactly are we going and why are you rounding us up? This usually doesn’t end well for us, no thank you very much.  A little float in the Dead Sea… sounds OK… I guess… the Jewish side reluctantly accommodates. An accidental, drunken sojourn on a cruise, alright! Back by nightfall, if you please… chimes the Irish end of the table. Voluntarily getting into the ocean, swimming, where there are jellyfish and rip currents and SHARKS are you kidding me? The fish already nibbled us in the ponds and lakes I grew up in, and that was unnerving enough, I’ll have you know.

But I live in California now and I love the ocean, though I do not understand it and am fearful of it, as genetically required. My children, however, are not. I am quite thankful for that, and continue to perpetuate the myth that everything is going to be OK and there’s nothing to be afraid of. So they bob and frolic in the water, and do other things that Californians naturally do, like speak low, be casual about everything, and order kale. I should allow them to fit in, even if I stick out like a gleaming white thumb.

But the little bastards are not the greatest swimmers. At least not as great as they think they are. Regardless of my instructions regarding their strokes, rip currents and the dreaded undertoad, my girls have graduated themselves past playing in the sand and skipping in the shallow waves, all once so lovely and relaxing. Now they are in the water up to their damned necks which means I have to be in there to. Besides number two daughter’s seizure disorder that requires me with her in any amount of water, the German shepherd in me will not allow children to be unsupervised in the massive, hungry Pacific. The Pacific Ocean that is, let’s just admit it together, cold as fuck.

I distinctly remember the first time I stuck a toe in the great Western waterway. I had come out to California for the first time as a senior in high school to visit my Uncle. Cool Uncle John who lived in San Diego, listened to Peter Frampton, and always sported a tan under his muscle shirts, even in the winter. Hell, yeah I want to go to California! I’m gonna live there someday! I’ll be at the beach every day, buddy, you better believe it! Not this muddy, pond “beach” crap, where we have to squish our disgusting, filth-ridden way out to shoulder deep, the dirty water full of starving bluegill that nip at any exposed flesh. Close your eyes and pretend you’re David Hasselhoff. Only way younger and surrounded by Cali-babes. There you go.   Not stuck in a tiny, crowded, muddy pond at all. I’m at the BEACH!

So that first glorious day at a southern California beach, my balloon was full and primed and happy, only to be pricked by the awful reality of 57 degrees Fahrenheit. No one had told me, I had never asked, and the Internet wasn’t around yet for me to properly vet my upcoming adventure. I was gloriously pissed, at John, at the Pacific, at the world, and it never really wore off. How could these world-famous beaches be full of water the same Goddamned temperature as the Irish Sea trapping my ruddy-faced relatives! Don’t give me any scientific reasons involving the Gulf Stream or whale farts, either, I really don’t care and it’s completely besides my childish point.

Over the years I’ve tried to get in and get past it. Over and over and over. The most I can last is 30 minutes of painful joy. It’s great to be in the water but in the end it sucks just as much as it’s fun.

Then the girls received hand-me down wetsuits, and it was all over. They’re in the water for 3 hours at a time, tempting the sharks in their baby seal costumes as they bob and sunburn their very eyelids. So I had to get one too, or die of hyperthermia.

And what a fantastic, wonderful world a wetsuit allows. The water feels as warm as floating off the end of the Florida Keys in summer. Lapping at my very soul, riding the waves on a board and feeling like a part of the great whole of the ocean, of the beginning and end of all life that connects us all. Refreshed and drained all at once, basking in the wonderment of the interconnectedness of all things. At every second, life is created and destroyed with each wave, with each inhale and exhale of the universe and I bask in the flotsam of unformed space and time.

Hell, no, I’m not on a surfboard. I look like a lumbering idiot on those things! Besides I’m not some hippy floating through the shark corridor in my own massive seal costume, arms and legs dangling over a reverse-sushi plate for a bored great white to sample. I’ll be riding the little waves on a boogie board close to shore, like the scared little kid that I am.

But it is objectively fantastic to be in the water. To not be sitting like I have so often, like so many other parents. Kind of watching their kids while reading a shitty book, or more likely stuffing my face and looking at my stupid phone constantly. Beep beep bleep bleep. Beach is nice, kids still alive. Beep bleep beep.

So now I just get right in the water. Stuff my giant self into the great black wetsuit. It must really be slimming, as it takes a team to cram me into it. I’m pretty sure I look like an extra from Baywatch. Relegated to a stunt double from a helicopter shot distance, I’ll grant you, but I’m on the set! And in the water and with my kids and being embraced by the great mother Pacific. And those are the hours that I’ll always get back, that I leave some of myself in.

The last time out was when I felt that for the first time. Connected to the ocean. We were suddenly surrounded by dolphins, a dozen of them, the curious pod complete with a new baby trying to get her fat little self back in the water with furious thrusts of her tiny tail. Pelicans flying overhead in effortless formations, sandpipers dancing on the shore. All of us together. No more fear, worry, anything. And the murky, kelp-filled water suddenly became clear. I could see the sand and rocks on the bottom. Almost six feet deep, and I could even see a… SHARK! A five-foot long goddamn shark right in front of me!

“OK kids, everyone out of the water. Let’s take a break.” I said, waiting for all of them to swim and stride out. Eat me first, you bastard.

“Why? I don’t wanna come out. How come?”

I didn’t answer any of them until we were out of the water.

“I saw a shark. A little leopard shark but let’s let it swim away. I don’t even know if they’re dangerous but let’s take a little break.”

No arguing, no fear either. Snacks and flushed faces and I took out my handy IPhone to ask Google, the great autistic oracle of our time, about leopard sharks.

“Hmm. Harmless. One known incident ever. Skindiver in the 1950’s with a nosebleed. Harassed by 6-foot leopard shark. No injuries. All right kids let’s go back in!”

I put my sandy phone back in the giant bag and we picked up our boards. Harassed. It sounded better in a British accent. HARE-assed. Quite. Rather. The Lee-o-pahrd shark did quite HARE-ass me that day…

We are so brave it’s ridiculous. Swimming with sharks. Bad-ass Californians, that’s what we are, I told all the kids. Don’t get a nosebleed or you’ll be HARE-assed.

So much easier to be brave with the Internet. So much easier to brave the Pacific with a wetsuit. So much better to just get in the water.