Summerhome swim

a vacation dispatch from one of my favorite places

Everything is different this year, and everything is the same.

It is late afternoon, and the river is all mine. No one is in sight — no splashing kids or loud tourists in clanking aluminum canoes.

I feel the sun on my back as I freestyle against a gentle current with leisurely strokes. Will I make it back in time to organize dinner? I hope so — it’s my turn tonight.

For me, nothing feels more like summer than swimming alone in this stretch of river. I pass the new rope swing from the tree where I once swung. I hear kids' voices in the distance, but noise travels far here.

I resettle into my stroke and think of my son, who just turned seven and loves being here. I recall the summer here when I was seven. That was the year I swam across the river and back alone for the first time, as my siblings watched from the sandy side of the beach and cheered me on. I suspect this will be the summer my son does the same. 

I flip on my back for a more relaxed approach to swimming upriver, with frog kicks and a reverse breaststroke. The sun on my face and chest feels like a blessing from the cosmos. It’s as though God is rubbing my temples with eucalyptus oil, like a divine yoga instructor at the end of a hard session saying: Just enjoy this. Namaste.

Looking up from my back, the sky is azure-blue and unblemished, framed by redwoods on hillsides. An osprey soars. The redwoods cast longer shadows now, but not on me yet. From this vantage point, it feels as though I’m swimming through a canyon of trees beneath a narrowing expanse of sun and sky.

Renewed, I flip over and begin to breaststroke. That’s when I hear a siren from downriver, ringing through the sound canyon. This is the community signal marking 5 o’clock. As a child, this was how free-range kids knew it was time to fold the beach umbrellas and walk or paddle home.

As I bob for breaths, I notice the sun glistening against the river. It is an alchemy of sunlight and water that makes me feel lucky at this moment. I breathe in gratitude — for the sunlight, the water, and all the memories this evokes. It is so rare for me to be in the moment like this, to just enjoy it.

With each bob of breaststroke, I close the distance to the cabin, which my relatives built in 1919 as a retreat from San Francisco. It’s a sprawling wooden structure on the side of a hill with an outdoor shower and dramatic views of river and redwoods. My younger brother now owns it and generously hosts a week for extended family every summer. That’s why I am here this week with my partner and son.

my son kayaking with the ducks

Over the years, we’ve experienced plenty of drama at this cabin: fistfights, drunken injuries, and wicked stepmoms along with joyful events such as birthdays, babies, and family gatherings. This summer’s highlight is a love story: My niece’s boyfriend proposed to her at the ocean the other day, and we celebrated their engagement with an impromptu dinner on the deck.

After my next bob of breaststroke, I see the inlet that opens at the foot of the cabin about half a football field away. Closer to me, there’s a dead tree branch jutting out of the river and I make a mental note to avoid it. There are giant rocks along the river here. These rocks are at the bottom of the cliff where the cabin sits. I look up and see the edge of the wooden deck several hundred feet above. I don’t hear anyone up there right now and relish the peace.

With more breaststrokes, I cross the threshold from the sunny part of the river to shadowy waters where the river gets murky and mysterious. I breathe in my nose, looking for the ick of dead carp or river otters. Thankfully, I just smell river and feel the thin layer of flies hovering just above the surface.

I look upriver a hundred yards beyond the cabin and study its contours. When I was a kid in the ‘80s, there was a sandbar there, and the river was shallow enough to toss a nerf football. As kids, I remember spying on nude sunbathers on that sandbar from the deck of the cabin, to the horror of my Mormon mom who once called the police on them. Now, the river there is swallowed by water. The sandbars and shallower waters have moved further upstream. The nudists have gone elsewhere.

As I approach the rocky shores near the cabin, I stroke more aggressively because the current is stronger here. I start to feel tired and fight it. I ran several miles this morning in the nearby town where I go for cold brew and alone time. My brother Spencer, who passed away, lived in that town, which was karmic because the town is pretty gay and pretty hippie, and my brother wasn’t exactly tolerant growing up. This morning I ran to the neighborhood where Spencer used to live — across the river, down the forested street, and beyond the vineyard. I walked down a path to the neighborhood beach where he would take his white labradors and laugh as they splashed in the river. I took a breath, smelled soggy tennis balls and distant marijuana, and felt his spirit. It’s been ten years since I was last there with him.

Still bobbing in my breaststroke, I see the beach at the foot of the cabin, but it's more like a cove with a mud cliff and a ladder. Erosion has eaten away what was once a gracious mini-beach where my grandparents and their parents once swam and canoed. One of the rocks along the shore was sculpted into a diving platform where they would plunge into the river when it was much deeper there.

I switch to dog paddle, navigate around a sunken log, and find my footing on the steep river floor, feeling sand and clay. I pick up a bay leaf floating in the water, rub it in my fingers and smell its peppery pungent smell. Like so much around here, the smell of a simple bay leaf triggers so much memory.

A blue jay appears in front of me as I step onto the ladder to climb out of the river. I notice the bird’s mohawk head, and it makes a squawking-whistling noise as if welcoming me back. I check my watch and realize I made it in time to make dinner, not that precision of time matters as much here.

I step onto the steep path leading up to the cabin, then turn and look back at the river. I see my past and my present. Everything is different this year, and everything is the same.