1st August – Styhead Tarn – Richard writes:
An overcast day – we drive to Seathwaite and park – take path up valley and then off to side up wooded ravine – eventually to Styhead Tarn through intermittent showers. Dither about looking for spot to enter the water – the glowering clouds, sombre rock faces surrounding us, and darkness of the water inducing a state of confusion/panic? – finally cross swollen stream with difficulty – get to the northwest side of tarn – find a place to start – feverish haste to change from already wet things into momentarily dry swimming gear – then into the water off a steep rocky shore – the wonderful experience of being received and protected by the water from the threatening day – it could rain heavy now and it would make no difference – swimming across together to a river entry on the far side of the tarn – the familiar motion of water and wind – thoughts come – ‘swimming home’ is the name of the project but where is ‘home’? – not Kendal – have felt no actual house has been a home for ages now – always passing through – ‘in exile’ searching for a way ‘home’ –but suddenly I am ‘at home’ here, now – is ‘home’ being in water then or a state of mind induced by the swim? – if so for me it is an ‘altered state of mind’?! – as we get close to the far edge there is weed and it tangles a little – sprawl on the beach – the clouds lower and the water surface shudders – return to the water and swim back – thought of hot drink, dryish clothes and warming up – on tarn side there is a mad scramble to get clothes on and move – to head down again – all thought of going ‘home’ or going on to Sprinkling Tarn abandoned – just the need to move on and warm up.
1 August 2008 – Styhead Tarn
The climb to Styhead Tarn had been a reminder of the physical demands of climbing/walking up mountains for 1000+ feet. The coming down was even harder with legs failing almost completely by the time we approached the car.
I had waded through the river that flows from the tarn, getting footwear and legs soaked only to change from these wet clothes into a dry wetsuit in order to get completely wet in the tarn. The rain that was persistent that day, held off for half an hour as we swam the length and back, watched by a solitary angler on the far bank.
Beneath the surface in the shallows, banks of weed thickened yet held channels through which I swam Deliberately observing the weeds helped dismiss fantasies about their destructive, gripping power that had been sowed in my head by others’ fearful panicky tales. Confront the fantasy and dismiss the cognitive distortions. Having swam through the weed channels felt good.
Back to the bank, back on ‘dry’ land – it had started raining again – pulling on wet clothes. The only regret that day was not swimming to the point where the river flows from the tarn down the mountain.
25th July 2008 – Crummock Water & Buttermere
At Crummock Water, having parked on the roadside, we carried cooking equipment onto the picnic area by the lakeside, busy with day-trippers enjoying inflated dinghies and paddling up to their thighs. We cooked and ate porridge with honey and washed it down with Japanese green tea. They had never tasted so good.
Crummock Water is deeper, larger and noticeably colder than Loweswater and we agreed on a lesser swim but one that took us round the small island that sits off-shore.
Having digested and lazed in the sunshine a while, we rounded the island to discover a bank of raised rock floor which allowed us to stand up or appear to sit on the water’s surface. Swimming beneath the surface showed fallen boughs of trees scattered like debris. In the shallows I reached down and picked up a small stone whose shape echoed the line of hills opposite descending to the water line. A landscape fractal lain dormant under the water, now brought to the light of day.
We packed our things and drove the short distance to Buttermere. By now we knew whatever happened, our third swim of the day would be the shortest. We found a shingle beach to walk in from. A black and white cat, very friendly and with no obvious means of support, strolled up, rolling in the shingle, seeking attention. A flock of Canada geese landed on the water with a flourish. Our swim, brief as it was, was in full view of Haystacks. The cloud had thickened – moving towards rain and thunder as predicted. We walked in but the water didn’t deepen and we swam with weeds stroking our ankles, always able to stand up. After the depths of Loweswater, this felt rather uncomfortable. That surprised me somewhat and I longed for the knowledge of hidden depths beneath me.
After drying off, we returned to Buttermere village and a decent pint of beer before the drive home, meeting the rain at Thirlmere, discussing saxophone techniques, listening to Art Pepper live in Copenhagen in 1981 and Frank Zappa’s Gumbo Variations from 1969. Truly amazing saxophony
25 July 2008 – Loweswater
Today has been one of the high points of the summer. Richard and we began our Swimming Home project, swimming across Cumbria from Loweswater to Gurnal Dubs.
At Loweswater, the surface of the lake was littered with small pieces of vegetation fallen from the overhanging trees, like flies, dead on the surface. We pushed out into the broad water. The sun was high and full, occasionally hidden by fast moving cloud, and the steady breeze forced waves westward along Loweswater, mimicking a slight sea that added to the drama of the experience.
Pulling ourselves steadily deeper, the awareness of the expanse and depth of the water became vivid and thoughts of what lay below had to be pushed to the bottom of the thought pile.
Wearing clear goggles, in order to cope with waves by submerging and pushing through them, allowed me to see the sun’s rays cutting into the light green water below us like bullet traces. In the midst of this uncertain experience, we frequently checked in with each other as we neared the centre of the lake. The surrounding hills stood passively and images of small heads bobbing about in the middle of the vast expanse of water surrounded by mountains made for sobering thoughts about the insignificance of humanity in such a landscape.
At half way, we checked in again and agreed to continue, eventually landing at the other side with some relief before quickly pushing off again for the return. The wind and waves pushed us off course from our target line home, making for a longer route, but we landed again on the shingle beach, emerging triumphant to dry ourselves as quickly as possible to avoid the bites of persistent flies and to find the sunshine again, out of the trees. Days had never felt so good.
‘The day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and celebrate its beauty’
Quoted from ‘The Swimmer’ by John Cheever.
The vague notion we began with is of ‘altered states of mind’ induced by wild swimming and an aesthetic response to these. As the photographer Robert Frank writes ‘The project …..is one that will shape itself as it proceeds and is essentially elastic’. We agreed to act on this principal.
The project was inspired by three literary sources – a short story entitled ‘The Swimmer’ by John Cheevers, a longer journal entitled‘Waterlog’ by Roger Deakin, and a book on anthropology/archaeology entitled ‘Inside the Neolithic mind’ by David Lewis Williams which discusses altered states of mind.
The ‘missing chapter’ in Deakin’s book – which involves a swim across the Lakes – would be another aspect of this elastic project.
