Exclusive: Breaking Waves Chapter 7
Come Dive with Me
It’s all go in book publishing world… Breaking Waves is now available for pre-order at Foyles and on Amazon as well as at Waterstones, and I’ve just had my first troll review from someone who hasn’t even read it…hooray! Waterstones were actually brilliant at taking it down within an hour as clearly it cannot be reviewed before it is actually published (unless it’s a media review) but seriously - what is that all about? [I’ve just had another look and you bloody lovely Substackers have given me reviews from my early version and excerpts. Thank you
and - you have absolutely made my day 🫶💕✨]Anyway onwards and upwards in this peculiar world we now exist in.
Back on planet normal, I will continue to share my excerpts as the pre-order options increase and we continue to hurtle towards actual publication in March 2025.
I have previously shared excerpts from Chapter 1: The Shape of Water, Chapter 2: The Taste of an Iceberg, Chapter 3: Drowning, Chapter 4: The First Breath, Chapter 5: The Body Keeps the Score and Chapter 6: Tits, Bums, Lumps and Bumps. Today I would like to introduce you to Chapter 7: Come Dive With Me.
This is for you 🌊💕
Chapter 7: Come Dive With Me
Chapter 7 is all about community. It is about the ‘coming together’ we experience around the open water, and quite fittingly - as I consider the world of internet trolls and the like - it is about kindness, acceptance, and connecting in person, as real people. There are quite a few incredible women featured in this chapter; the excerpt I have chosen to share with you today is about the founder of an incredible open water swimming community: The Bluetits Chill Swimmers. What I love so much about this is how Sian, the founder, explains that it doesn’t matter how you show up at the water’s edge, you don’t even have to get in the water, it’s just about knowing that you can show up in whichever way you need to, and you will be welcomed. There is no pressure, there are no demands or expectations. These communities present an opportunity to feel the love and support of humanity, and to know you are not alone.
It’s that simple.
I hope you enjoy it, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🫶
“What Sian began on the coast of Pembrokeshire in 2014 has become a truly global community, encompassing 120,000 worldwide members as of 2024. The Bluetit team describe it as ‘a free to join confident and capable community through cold water dipping and adventures in the outdoors … giving people the space to feel safe, valued and accepted for whoever they are and allowing them to find happiness, get fit, gain courage and heal’. I am a member of my local Bluetits group in the South of England, and wherever I am in the world, if I want to find a swim buddy or get local swim knowledge, it is they that I seek out. I had the most wonderful swim in a sea pool in Westward Ho! on a visit to my in-laws in Devon by joining up with the Bluetits down there.
The sea was ferocious, and I had never swum in a man-made sea pool before, but there lay the glorious Victorian Rock Pool, nestled on the rocks or consumed by the ocean depending on the tides, like an optical illusion. This sea pool was constructed around 1870 and is a place to sit, paddle, chat, dip, contemplate life and marvel at the landscape. My daughter, Charlotte, braved the experience with me, giving her an insight not just into the exhilaration of the sea in February, but into how open water groups embody what it means to belong. On our visit, the wind was extraordinary, the waves buffeting the walls of the pool, foam swirling in and around us in our oasis of calm. We were able to lean on the edge of the pool, staring into the wild Atlantic, feeling like we were on the edge of the world, and the next minute we were laughing arm in arm with women who we had just met, our giggles being whipped away by the wind, sharing the connection of a moment that would stay with us forever.
I wonder if Sian realises the magnitude of what she has created with Bluetits, but on chatting with her I think she does. She describes how the ethos of the Bluetits is everything she ever planned it would be, and how it makes her smile on a daily basis. It is a gathering of lovely humans who come together because of water, in the spirit of acceptance, love, healing, encouragement and friendship, without needing to be friends. People who congregate in that moment, and then happily disperse.
One of the things that makes it so special is that although you may swap numbers, and you may even become the best of friends, it’s more than fine to walk away and never contact people ‘on the outside’. As Sian puts it: ‘We’re not impinging on other people’s lives. We have a marvellous time together, talk shit and leave.’ This is what is so liberating, and why such life affirming experiences occur. The conversations, the moments, the vulnerabilities are contained by the water, they do not follow us home or pop up in our workplace. How beautiful and rare it is to be part of something where there is no expectation, no obligation, just the feeling of care and being held in the moment.
I reflect on the people I have met because of the water, in just the way that Sian describes: a woman battling for her life in between chemotherapy sessions, a Hillsborough survivor, an army veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, a bereaved mother, a couple going through IVF, again. Sometimes I tell them about myself, about Brian, about being unwell. Sometimes we don’t go to those places at all, we just laugh and share cake. What’s extraordinary is how we can touch on the most deep and fundamental issues that life presents, and five minutes later be chortling like schoolchildren. If I tell some of my story, I think it is the knowing that it won’t bring them down, that they won’t feel they have to message me afterwards, won’t need to follow it up, that makes me so free to speak. In the difficult times we can just talk, and don’t need to carry the weight of each other’s reactions in moments of unique transience. We can come together, and then we can let it be.”
Chapter 8 excerpt next…if you like this please do share! It means the world 🙏
And if you would like to support my writing but don’t have the capacity to upgrade right now, you can always buy me a cuppa. With my eternal gratitude 🫖🫶
As always
Love & lemons 💕🍋
Em xx
I loved this. Sian is one amazing woman to have come up with the foundation for this community. I've never heard of anything like it. And you, Dear Em, I am so grateful for this introduction to the healing power of acceptance and comradery in the joyful act of swimming. Wow.
xx
Congratulations on your published book!