Swim Like a Dog
I must have been about 10. I have rough memories of being in or about fifth-grade. I can identify the last of my elementary years by what types of friendship bracelets we were making. Braids and beads were for 4th, and by this point I was getting into macrame and embroidery thread. This was the era of the candy-stripe and chevron knotted adornments. Four, five, sometimes six whole knots across to make up vibrant, woven pieces that I wore around my ankles, often hanging on all the way to the holiday break before the weakened connections at the knot would give way, long after my sandal tan had faded, and I had to navigate thick socks over my artwork.
My family would find a week every summer to spend adventuring in the Mt. Baker wilderness. Sometimes that meant leaving behind my big sister who was a proper teenager and not interested in hiking with her little siblings – and actually had agency to make her own choice. It also usually meant without my dad who spent much of the year in Southeast managing fish plants in various remote parts of Alaska. So, really it was down to my mom, my older brother – who, with his frosted tips and baggy Nike shorts also didn’t want to spend time hiking with the family but was lacking that all-too-important agency. And our chocolate lab, Jake.
Jake was my best friend during these trips. My soul critter buddy who would scramble up rocks ahead of me, leaving me hoping he had some natural navigation instincts left in that overly-domesticated brain. Always making sure he had me in sight as we made our way uphill, he had abundant energy and a keen sense for where his snacks… errr….. people were. One of the things Jake and I had most in common was that, once water was in sight, we were in it. 30 years later and I can vividly remember the harsh cold of the alpine lake on my young skin. My feet tingling as I kicked off into the suddenly deep water. Taking a few strokes out, doing my very best to mimic a playful otter, I found myself drifting out into the icy, clear water. There’s a sensation when you’re at that age of hovering between safety and the unknown. Between mom wrapping me in a warm towel and pulling out sandwiches on a broad, warm rock and pushing further into the cold, inviting magical world of the water. Pausing for a moment to look for those anchors of safety, I saw my mom and brother catching up to us on the shore, mom offering a supportive, “just make sure you can get back!” before returning to her post as lifeguard.
I was racing Jake now. He had been hovering nearby, coming out of his reverie and realizing that he was not on any sort of mission, he cracked the silence of the afternoon mountain stillness with a gargled “a-woo”. My brother kicking into gear, realizing he could accomplish two things in one motion. By hurling a stick well out into the lake from his perch atop a nearby boulder, Jake was zeroed in and on the move, unable to resist, his annoying little sister in tow. He sure will get a kick out of comparing her to the dog the rest of the day. This might even buoy him through the rest of the week.
I’ve never been particularly fast at anything, and swimming is no exception. As Jake was now full-steam back towards me, my legs beginning to feel numb, my mom calling that it’s time to come out, I caught a swift paddle from the pup that raked down from hip to knee. “Owwwwe!” I called as my unfazed competitor continued his shoreward push. Aching, and tingling, and laughing and now with a nice red welt down my tanned, sturdy, adolescent thigh, I stepped out of the water into my mom’s warm embrace. What a moment, what a day, what a life, sitting on the hard, sun-warmed stone, Jake with his woody prize, me with my PB&J, the sun re-heating me from the outside in, still slightly out of breath, and feeling heavy with the pure joy of a cold, wild swim.
