The surface is still, inviting me in.

Once in I leave behind my land self. Mum, yoga teacher, wife, daughter, friend. I am my swim self. A water me. I describe this person in adjectives – brave, ready, wonderous, free, excited, trepidated (is that a word? I’ll check later). I am breath, light, movement and nowhere else. Whatever and however I feel before I enter the water I know will change as I am swimming. It is a total reset for the whole of me.

In the depths of winter the cold shocks me into the present like a thunderbolt. It hurts and I swim noticing where and how it feels and ponder the temperature. I feel my internal gauge can hone this way more accurately with a few winter swim years under my belt. At around 8 degreees it feels like a lobster is gripping my arms and buttocks. As the temperature goes sub 5 degrees I find speaking difficult and can feel the cold through my neoprene gloves and boots. As it gets lower the initial shock is quicker to numbness and I know the feel of jubilation when I get out is partly linked with a primaeval sense of relief I have survived.

All these sensations are familiar feedback as I check in with my level of discomfort and remind myself I have coped and survived before. It must sound pretty brutal to those who do not swim in the cold. It is hard to put into words why I need this. I am as addicted to doing it as to finding words to describe why. I know it is deeper than the need to check in and listen to my body, sometimes like my life depends on it. In the colder temperatures it really does.

It takes an experienced meditator to be in the mind zone I am plunged into. I can be nowhere else but right in the moment and I need to be in that headspace. I see, I smell and I hear with way more lucidity than on land. I love noticing the changes in vegetation or the feel of the water against my skin. To me it feels different at different temperatures. Soft silk or hot arrowheads . I never hesitate , I watch some swimmers acclimitise first which seems much more sensible. I seem to leave most of my sensible self folded into the clothes I have left neatly on a sun lounger. The water calls to my irrational homing instincts and I am unable to resist that call.