You + I = We together, not alone

Labor Day weekend, I almost drowned. This is not a metaphor for disturbing aspects of my life that I want to make public, nor is it something my mother would want to hear. Her youngest daughter has always had an adventurous and intrepid spirit. Mom often worried about me being out there somewhere, alone (or at least barefoot and without a jacket).

I was not alone this Saturday of the holiday weekend when I might have died, however. Every month or so, I meet with one of my dearest friends at the beach early in the morning, and we sit and talk as we take in the Pacific Ocean. It is a safe and healing space for us.

It was a day like any other day. I had read the surf report the day before: low tide and fair in the morning with an ocean advisory later in the weekend. Having arrived early, I watched the surfers run from their vehicles to the shore, impatient with the distance across the sand from pavement to the shoreline. Heaven forbid they miss one ride! Seeing their anticipation brought me joy, and I watched them play until my friend arrived.

While we usually stay shoreward and talk on our visits, this day I knew she needed time alone— to listen and to meditate, to release those parts of the week that have no business occupying the weekend. So, I was prepared to leave her to herself. After all, it was the end of summer, and the water was fine.

My love for the ocean runs deep. Every day on my morning commute, I glimpse her out the passenger window and say, “Hello, Mother,” as I pass by. The Pacific is like no human mother, however. Unpredictable. Life-giving and life-taking. Beautiful and dangerous. She is a slightly tamer version of the tohu va-bohu of Genesis, the “formless and void.” Theologian Catherine Keller describes tohu va-bohu as “the depth veiled in darkness, the sea over which the Spirit pulses.” Not chaos but the Deep: powerful feminine potentiality.  

Feral child that I am, I almost feel as though I was born of the sea, as if I knew from a young age that she is the womb of life. I have always been comfortable with her, this daughter of Tiamat, inhabited by Leviathan, Scylla, the Kraken (and Jaws). I have played in her, swam in her, raced in her. But as the saying goes, never turn your back on her. 

Leaving my friend to her meditation, I made my way to the water’s edge. I had left my body board and fins in the car. Because of the high surf and the way the waves were closing out, I planned to stay close to shore. I did not want to venture further than the “swash,” that space between the breakers and the backwash, where water runs back down the sand to the sea.

I stepped into the cool water, the sand shifting under my feet. The surf was a good distance from shore and I joyfully waded in. But because of my comfort and joy I made a critical error.  I allowed my feet to leave the ground and floated on my back, eyes heavenward.

In a seeming instant, I was pulled out into the soup, needing to dive under approaching whitewater. Before I knew it, I was in the impact zone, a wave about to close out on me. I raced forward, diving under to avoid being pounded. 

When I emerged I was anxious about where I found myself, caught inside a strong longshore current pushing me up the coast, and a rip current pulling me out to sea. Making matters worse, I was quickly approaching a large jetty jutting from the shoreline.

In that instant of assessment, I knew I was not strong enough to swim out past the waves and around the jetty, and I knew that if I tried, my trajectory would pull me out and across the end of it, where I would be in lethal danger of being smashed into the rocks. 

Most of us are familiar with our sympathetic nervous system, the physiological reaction to threat that prepares us for “fight or flight.” When humans encounter a stressor, our sympathetic nervous system is activated, triggering the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine from the adrenal glands into the bloodstream. It signals the liver to release stored glucose for quick energy and increases the heartbeat to quickly transport these essential substances so our body can respond quickly and powerfully. 

For me, there was no option for flight. I had to fight. Fully activated and equipped for survival, I created a strategy to employ the waves to push me closer to shore as I made my way to the jetty, where I hoped to climb out. Although not an ideal solution, I knew this was my only hope of surviving the consequences of my mistake.  I was unsure anyone was watching me, and the lifeguards had yet to arrive at their towers.

As I slid up the face of an approaching wave, a surfer skimmed toward me. I saw the surprise on his face as he pulled up and kicked out. I slipped up and over the wave and quickly scanned the beach. No one to signal for help. I had a few more seconds before the next wave would come, and I started to swim toward the jetty. I had to reach it before I got pulled out further. 

I knew what was coming and took a deep breath.

After the first wave crashed upon me, I opened my eyes to inky darkness, tumbling about with only a glimmer of light far above me. It was deep near the jetty, where the rip current had created a channel for water to escape the shore. 

As I was pummeled, I habitually followed what I had learned from my big brother, who sometimes brought teenage me to the beach to swim while he surfed. “Relax your body. Try to curl up. Let the water carry you. You’ll pop up eventually.”

I knew this to be good advice and had employed it often all these years. However, having understanding and feeling secure are two different mental states, and this was not a typical tumble in the surf. Fear swept through me, from gut to brain, memories of being in a similar situation many years ago.

While we are familiar with the sympathetic nervous system, less is known of the mammalian cold water reflex, a set of physiological responses that occur in mammals (including humans).

This reflex is triggered by immersing the face in cold water. It slows the heart rate, constricts the blood vessels in the limbs to conserve oxygen, shifts blood to the heart and lungs, and suspends breathing. Even though swimmers can easily circumvent this response, it is still essential to our body’s autonomic reaction to stress.

Although they initiate different responses, the sympathetic nervous system and the cold water reflex worked together to provide me with a coordinated response to optimize my body’s chance for survival.

While the sympathetic response gave me laser focus and prepared my body for a rapid and dynamic reaction, the cold water reflex stepped in to help me hold my breath, conserve oxygen, and increase my chance of survival under water.

Thanks to the air in my lungs and my buoyant layer of subcutaneous fat, I did pop up to the surface. I saw I was much closer to the rocks. I had just a moment to fill my lungs with air before the next wave crashed into me, sending me again into the deep, dark, cold water. The possibility of dying was very real to me in that moment.

We often hear that in the moments before death, a person’s life flashes before their eyes. Although not well understood, research suggests that during this “life review” phenomenon the brain’s recall is triggered by stress, and the brain may remain active even after breathing ceases and the heart stops. When a person is resuscitated by medical intervention, they might describe this phenomenon in detail. 

In my case, it was not the past that came to mind but my future. My family, friendships, dreams, and hopes for the years ahead flooded my mind just as quickly as the adrenaline had flooded my body. In those 12 seconds under the churning water, I was not drowning. I was very much alive and refused to believe it was a good day to die. I had too much life to live.

Again, I emerged, and I was close to the jetty. The power of the next wave was diminished, having partially spent itself on the rocks behind me. Now, it was the proximity to the enormous boulders that frightened me the most. If I hit my head, I could lose consciousness and drown. The whitewater pounded me closer to the rocks, my enemy and my salvation. 

I knew I needed to clamber out onto the enormous stones, but I was caught between competing forces, the waves pushing me forward alongside the rocks, the rip pulling me out toward the sea. I felt rough stone under my feet, ten-ton boulders set in place to hold back the force of the ocean.

My plan was failing, my toes and fingers scrabbling for a grip. The waves and the rip buffeted me from different directions, but the current was winning, tearing my limbs away from the slippery stone.

I looked up and saw a fisherman standing on the end of the jetty above, staring at me.

With more effort than I could have imagined necessary, I wedged myself between two boulders and got my torso out of the water. The water still bullied me and the remains of the waves beat upon my back, but I was safe. Faintly, I heard a shout and saw a group of three surfers near the jetty on the beach. “Hey, are you okay?”

I waved back.

I am a person fit for exertion. I regularly hike for miles on the steep, rugged trails where I live, and I ride my bike long distances up the coast. I do squats and calf raises with heavy weights, and add stair climbing to my daily walks around campus where I work. But at that moment, I could not even begin to stand. 

The reflex that had locked the blood out of my legs to provide oxygen to my heart and brain left them without any power to move. They felt like sodden driftwood, separate from the life of my body and will.

 I looked at the fisherman above me. “Can you help me?” He stared again, unmoving. Perhaps afraid? Would-be rescuers often become victims as well. 

I heard another “Hey,” followed by, “Do you need help?” I looked up to see one of the men closer to me. “Yes!” I called back, relieved that I was not alone, after all.

After struggling through several attempts, I used all my core and upper body strength to push myself up and onto my feet. The kind stranger who had called for me came near and grabbed my hands, steadying my legs. He offered to lead me back to safety. All I asked of him was his name: Brian, the surfer who saw me on his wave and stood on the shore to look for me.

No longer a stranger, Brian never let go, except for when I offered a different hand. He carefully led me up and down the boulders to where his friend Mike stood in the water. Mike suggested I slide down the rocks and jump into the water next to him, where I could more easily walk to the shore in the sandy shallows. I hesitated as a wave of whitewater swirled past, then made the leap. Mike and Brian walked alongside me, and my last moments in Pacifica were calm and filled with kindness. 

We walked to where my friend stood on the beach at the shoulder of the jetty. She had lost sight of me until she saw me clinging to the rocks, and had been terrified for me. I was bleeding from my hands and feet, and little rivulets of water and blood ran down my legs from my knees. Mother Pacifica had washed my wounds.

The men and I had a chuckle. Maybe that evening, one of them suggested, I would laugh about it over a glass of wine. My typical bravado carried me along, even as my heart was still racing. After I assured them that their assistance was no longer needed, they headed off to grab their boards and continue on with their day.

Safely on shore, accompanied by my friend, I carefully spread out my towel, laid down on my face, and sobbed.

I needed to cry. Crying is a natural human response to trauma and indicates the parasympathetic system is countering the sympathetic response, promoting the return to physical and emotional equilibrium.

Crying is believed to release neurotransmitters and hormones, such as endorphins and oxytocin, which can help to calm us and regulate our mood.

Crying also elicits support and empathy from others, and as I sobbed into my towel, my friend placed her hand on my back. Her touch and murmured encouragement to regulate my breathing grounded me in the safety of the present and engaged my body’s ability to return to balance.

Being touched, grounded, and mindful of my breathing assisted in reducing my heart rate and increasing my sense of relief and emotional well-being. I was safe. I was not alone.

Something happened in the water that day, Labor Day weekend of 2023. Even though I made a tactical error, my body knew what to do, and took care of me. I can trust my body. I was able to rely on quick thinking and quicker reflexes. I can trust myself. I might have died, but I didn’t. On the other hand, if I were alone in the world, my death might have been inconsequential. I am not sure what all this means right now, in this moment. What I am sure of is that I am changed. 

We, each of us, are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are terrestrial— of the earth— yet born of water and spirit, laughing, speaking, dreaming, calling, weeping. Breath incarnate, children of this fantastic grand experiment we call human life. With bodies designed to survive and spirits created to flourish, we share this life’s magic in the form of We. 

We, you and I. Together. We, together, not alone. 

My story would not be a story without you, dear reader. Here we are, together across time and space.

At our most mundane and most heroic, we call out: “Are you okay?” “Do you need help?”

At our most vulnerable and our most powerful, we call out: “Yes! I need some help!” 

One warm hand received by another. And the we of strangers and friends accompany us back to our present and all our future possibilities.

Today is a great day to live, for all of us.

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Postscript: In the event that you observe someone in dangerous waters, do not enter the water unless you have a flotation device and are trained in water rescue. Instead, run for help or call 911.

Image: The author’s photo snapped before her adventure. © Yvonne Wilber