Swimming became a place for me to be, to rest, to put my endless burdens down and stop the running circles of thought and sadness that consumed me
Me, I tread the surface, my legs barely moving, my shoulders out of the water, my arms, my hands pulling the water through them and effortlessly keeping me afloat. I feel happy again, truly happy. I can feel them, sense them. I know they are here, in this tiny scrap of water, deep and green.The sea conspires to wash my grief away momentarily.
Sleepily, half-awake, we obeyed and ran the short distance to the beach. The caravan was beside dunes which gave onto an enormous beach: a huge sweep of sand, bookended on one side by a pier full of trawlers, rocks on the other, with an endless arpeggio of beaches beyond. Normally crowded and busy, in this weather, at this time of the morning, it was deserted.
After the deaths of my father, my mother, my sister, swimming became a place for me to be, to rest, to put my endless burdens down and stop the running circles of thought and sadness that consumed me. I began swimming in winter whenever I could. I took overnight trips to Kerry in November, January, drove 200 miles, went straight to the beach when I got there, often in darkening skies, threw myself in.
Where I want to be is a tiny corner of southwest Kerry, on the Ivereagh peninsula, a series of tiny, stunning beaches and coves on the Kenmare River and around one of the headlands, on the Atlantic. Caherdaniel is the village, Derrynane is the harbour which hosts a sweep of famous beaches, but my soul-palace, my haven is on the other side of Lamb’s Head, the peninsula that bookends the long beach in Derrynane.
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