Friday dip: a note on fear; part 2

Thoughts to wash over you for the weekend

As you were

Ahem...finally following on from ‘a note on fear; part 1’ - typed on my phone in Italy (I blame August for the delay). That’ll teach me to release something in two parts. ‘LEARN NOT TO OVERCOMMIT EMMA!!’. Honestly, I can’t even say ‘no’ to myself 🤣

I’m sure you’ve all been on tenterhooks for 4 weeks since I wrote:

The fact is I did something, which for me, is the stuff of nightmares, but I’m never fucking doing it again. So did I overcome?

I don’t think so.

So what exactly did I do on holiday that was the stuff of nightmares? Well...

Photo by Manuel Meurisse on Unsplash

A bit of context

I was asked this week what I’m afraid of, and to be honest, not much these days. The fears I do have, however, tend to fall into the very literal categories as opposed to the ‘fear of failure’, ‘fear of making a fool of myself’, ‘fear of not being liked’ stuff which I have largely overcome - what with being a bear of a certain age and all. The creepy crawlies, beasties, death type fears do still rear their heads at the appropriate moments, and many fears loom large through my open water activities:

• Fear of drowning

• Fear of being alone

• Fear of the unknown

• Fear of caves (hold that thought)

• Fear of sharks

• Fear of fish (i.e. huge pike at the bottom of a lake as opposed to battered with chips)

• Fear of what lies beneath

• Fear of the dark

• Fear of buoys (I always have to spell that out verbally. Boys don’t scare me at all)

• Fear of ‘partially submerged manmade objects’- which is apparently called submechanophobia...

I could go on.

What I have noticed about these fears, is how compelled I feel to face them. For some reason ‘I must overcome!’. Now overcoming my fear of spiders was one thing (see part 1) - that was kind of necessary in order not to impact my daughters, and because spiders are unavoidable, but a lot of these other things I could simply choose to ‘not do’: swimming at night, swimming in sea lochs with jellyfish, swimming in glacial frozen lakes, touching buoys (seriously terrifies me!!!!), swimming in kelp forests. I have done all of these things to prove to myself that I can - but why?

There remains something VERY primal about entering open water which can cause my fears to resurface in a missed heartbeat. I’m sure it would make my hands clammy if they weren’t already wet.

Photo by hay s on Unsplash

The cave

In my book, Breaking Waves, I describe a glorious night swim in a natural warm pool in Israel. I was living on a kibbutz with my boyfriend, and a group of us snuck out one night to take a dip in the ‘Sachne’ pool:

At night we would sneak down to the Sachne like furtive teenagers, pushing tea lights ahead of us on the water, entering what felt like milk under the deep blue moonlit sky, our pheromone filled intoxication to gee us on. Holding each other close in the water, cuddling up into crannies in the rocks, I dreamily looked up to see the cave ceiling...absolutely alive.

Crawling with crabs, creatures, spiders, and the stuff of nightmares. I swam back to the shore in cartoon-like fashion - my feet peddling like a mill wheel to get the holy fuck out of there, becoming acquainted with another element of open water - the fear. This is not MY environment; I am merely a guest and I must show respect.

Something about caves speaks to my deepest fears - that which you cannot see, being trapped, the slimy touch, the limited air, the creatures that lurk...fairly reasonable I think?

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

Just add water

So what, I wonder, made me swim into one when on holiday in Italy? Ok - it was fluorescent water (which made a difference), it was on the ‘things to do’ page I had meticulously googled, and I was feeling BRAVE. Already on the holiday I had jumped off a (small) cliff into the sea after my youngest daughter. My biggest fear there being that the poor residents of Puglia would be exposed to my own personal tow floats and full moon when my bikini succumbed to gravity.

I must explain at this point, that my two daughters are very different when it comes to fear. My youngest is a national gymnast, is used to flinging herself into the air, is fearless to an extent that terrifies me, and will try anything. With her gorgeous red hair she literally reminds me of Merida from ‘Brave’ (crossed with Taz the Tasmanian Devil). My eldest is basically ‘Fiver’ from Watership Down. Her eyes widen to the size of dinner plates when confronted with a new flavour of crisps and a tremble is never far from the surface.

As for my husband, well he’s a fire-fighter and international rescue worker, trained in water rescue and working in confined spaces, so cave swimming is kinda a busman’s holiday for him.

Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash

I’m going in

As we entered the cave, it was glorious (although very busy), the water was a fluorescent bluey-green, and we swam together, cocooning Fiver (obvs), swimming further in until the natural daylight fell away. Then suddenly, it was black, and I was flailing like Clarice Starling in Buffalo Bill’s cellar. That clammy hand moment, and some. Mostly because I was unable to see my daughters, which in that moment felt extraordinarily vulnerable. But then seconds later the fluorescence picked up and we were together in what felt like something out of a (slightly crowded) fairytale. Fiver’s eyes were barely contained within her full face mask, whilst Taz was busy duck diving and exploring. It was magical in its luminescence.

After a few minutes of adjustment - I noticed that at the innermost point of the cave, there was a wall from under which peeped a slice of natural daylight. I peered under the water and could see people swimming on the other side - back out in the open sea. There was no air gap below the rock.

This is a scenario where several of my fears collide. Confined space, diving under rock, not being able to make it, drowning, too many cave rescue documentaries...so obviously I said (or more I observed the words fall out of my mouth); ‘who fancies swimming through??’.

Before I’d even really gathered my thoughts, hubby was gone - risk assessment alert fully engaged, he was under, through, out the other side. His eyes probably flashing blue as he went. Then I could see his legs paddling happily away in the open sea - he’d made it! I figured he’d report back so as we waited for him to return I said to the girls ‘what do you reckon?’. Fiver said ‘let’s do it!’. Fiver?? What the actual??!..and then they were gone. Fuck.

Both girls dived deep, and Taz got straight through. I saw Fiver come up too early against the rock - in the (probably 5 meter) interminable gap between me and her dad on the other side. I braced myself to go after her, and then, she was through and I could see 6 happy legs peddling away in the open air, under the sunshine. Phew!

And then there was one. Me.

Ok. I can do this.

I removed my snorkel so I wouldn’t inhale water, took a deep breath and dived.

About 3 seconds later I came up. Perhaps it was the buoyancy of the snorkel full of air, but my head hit the rock. It wasn’t bad, but it hurt, and I probably lost some breath. I couldn’t get back down clear of the rock, and I couldn’t swim with the rock scraping my back, so I turned over and used my hands and feet to ‘crawl’ my way along the underside of the rock, facing it, my back to the sea floor, which meant I couldn’t see ahead of me.

I knew I was about half-way, from being able to look back, so there was no point trying to return to the cave to breathe, I figured I might as well go on. As my breath began to run out, it was strange because I felt with 100% confidence that I wasn’t in real danger - I only had a couple of metres to get through, and my hubby was on the other side, but as my hands searched for the edge of the rock I was desperate to breathe in. It hurt, and the strength of the urge was deeply scary, and something I knew I could only stave off for so long (like pushing out a baby I would imagine - although I can’t speak from experience as mine came out the sunroof). I kept my mouth firmly closed as I pulled myself up the other side, seeing the sunlight from under the water as I shot to the top.

I surface, breathed deeply, laughed nervously, cried inside, and as we swam back to shore, I knew in my bones that I would NEVER dive under a rock under water again. It’s a bit like when I did a bungee jump from a crane over a concrete car park in my 20s. It was incredible, but not something I ever feel the need to repeat, (and not just because my mum angrily said to me that if I ended up paralysed or damaging an organ doing something so stupid again she would not look after me). Fair.

So I continue to reflect on where I draw the line on personal risk, what fears I feel the need to face, and which ones I will walk away from. I can’t even attribute my compulsion to face fear and ‘carpe diem’ to Brian’s death as I did the bungee jump when he was still alive! I would never do one again anyway now that I’m a mother, as I won’t risk not being able to look after my girls, but there is still this curious drive to overcome.

When we do these things I wonder what we are trying to prove, and to whom? Perhaps it’s not about proving anything at all? I feel there is something within the human condition that drives us to be explorers, adventurers, survivors - even for the most ‘fearful’ and the sensible people who would never dream of doing a bungee jump or cave diving. Perhaps it’s the limbic brain wanting to create a memory bank of experience, or a rational brain desire to inspire confidence, or feel the satisfaction of achieving. Perhaps it’s adrenaline, curiosity, bravado, or maybe just plain folly.

Every now and then, something I try scares me enough for me to step back and think - I don’t need to do that again, but I have no doubt something else will entice me sooner or later. Then I will consider, question, and make a choice.

In the meantime, I’ll stick to playing with the buoys, and I might even try a new flavour of crisps.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

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What’s your approach to fear?

Do you leap in or swim on by?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Love & lemons 🍋

Em xx