Where Do You Go?

This summer, I watched with interest as 62-year-old Diana Nyad made her 4^th attempt to swim from Cuba to Key West, Florida, the first person to do so without a shark cage.  Her first try was in 1978.  

She was 55 miles from the coast of Key West, 4 days into it, when a storm hit that wreaked havoc to her swim across the Straits of Florida.  Shivering from hypothermia, with swollen lips and tongue from repeated jellyfish stings, there’s a point when the human body can’t go any further.  There’s a point when that seemingly undaunted spirit sinks.  Where is it for each of us?  Where we break is as individual as we are.  

She trained for over 3 years for this attempt.  Three years worth of work.  What is it that drives Diana to keep trying, a life’s mission to her?  And where does she possibly go in her mind to be able to swim 4 days across the ocean?  She can’t be thinking about things she has to do, grocery lists, things left undone at home.  What does she think about?  Or does she think at all?  How deep does she dig to pull out the reserves that can allow her to endure the pain and physical push needed to do what she has done, now 4 times.  I am fascinated by what the human spirit can endure.  I am fascinated by what one person can endure vs. another; it’s so varied.  

The night before she gave up, she swam among the dolphins.  Man and animal as one in the depths of the mysterious ocean.  Where do you go in your mind, Diana Nyad, to do what you do?

Photo:  Diana Nyad

Six Friends

Impromptu, a husband, sitting on Scarborough Beach on the most gorgeous first day of fall, suggests to his wife dinner with friends on the deck of the Black Point Inn to watch the sunset.

The friends are called, friends who generally have to book out months in advance to get something on the calendar, friends busy with work, adult children and very full lives.  Both couples say YES enthusiastically.  What a great idea!  They can, and they’d love to.

The six have drinks overlooking Ferry Beach while they wait for a table on the outdoor deck.  This Labor Day weekend, Black Point Inn is crowded.  The restaurant is filled with chatty two-somes – older couples, beautiful young married couples, and middle aged couples escaping their city lives wearing sun dresses, madras shorts, sandals and deck shoes.  They all have colorful cocktails in festive glasses; they sit in the white Adirondack chairs overlooking the expanse of low tide at Ferry Beach on the green, green grass; they eat delicious food.

It darkens and the fall evening chill sets in, on only day two of September, but the six get two round tables pushed together with high wicker chairs, and sit down amid sparkling outdoor candlelight.  They laugh.  They talk about kids leaving for graduate school in Chicago; kids heading to Endicott College as freshmen; kids entering senior year of high school.  They talk and laugh about old times.  They raise their glasses to make not one but two toasts.  They share eyeglasses to see the menu…and laugh about that.

After dinner, they stroll down the stone path to see the full length of Scarborough Beach under a full moon, dimmed by clouds.  Waves lap the shore.  They bask in the beauty, these six friends who have been together more than half their lives.  

A playful cat runs in and out of their single line walking back up the path, and one friend hides in the bushes ahead in the dark to ambush another.  The pranksters.  They always were.  They fall to the ground….laughing, older, grown men, playful and silly.  They run back up to the inn, slam car doors and head back to busy lives.  But they revel in the pause and laughter they just shared.  Impromptu. 

Photo:  Ferry Beach, Scarborough, ME