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NARRATOR: There was always the element
of the unknown on a swim.
Of discomfort and risk.
Fear of the cold.
Of the deep.
Of not being fit enough.
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But that plunge into shared silence is a coming home.
Everything slips away.
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We have been swimming together for years,
all over the country.
We met in the river and there was an immediate empathy.
Our thing is discovery.
We enjoy the freedom of a good adventure.
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When we try a new swim, we look at where we're going.
The tides, the weather, the route.
But at some point, we just get in.
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People have always swum, but when we started the Outdoor
Swimming Society, most people thought rivers and lakes were
dirty, dangerous, or illegal.
That's all changed.
It's the getting in we find hard, not the being in.
That step forward from the shore line, [INAUDIBLE]
calls it her eagle moment, when we
stand on the water's edge, warm and dry,
and regret what's ahead.
But we love the intensity.
In deep water, your life is always in your own hands.
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There's a beauty out there and a purity
which I think we both embrace.
It's good to swim with someone with a poet's heart.
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We will continue to seek these discomforts.
To get cold and too tired.
To find and overcome fears.
But simultaneously to experience what feels
like life's biggest freedom.
Via the simplest of choices, sink
or swim, float or flounder.
To transform from ordinary to briefly extraordinary.
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