As a child, I viewed the enjoyment of a summer by how many days straight I'd wear my bathing suit. It was easy. I lived right on Lake Michigan, the shore was a short walk down a hill, through a cherry orchard next to a wooded walk of cedars and birch to a sandy path that led to a crumbled concrete dock. I would walk there everyday. I don't recall needing anything besides my one piece striped suit, an ill-fitting snorkel and mask, a right handed garden glove and a mesh bag once for onions repurposed for collecting crawfish. I had a system, a plan for my summer days.
I wasn't a fair weathered swimmer, I'd swim regardless of the wind or cold. But I preferred calm days to collect crawfish. I liked to use my brother's windsurfing board to swim out to weed bedded rocks and dive deep with my garden gloved hand and unearth the blued crustaceans, hiding in the cold darkness. Diving, unearthing and collecting. And when I was finished, I would put the crawfish in a coffee can with cold water, a few holes in the side, a dash of Old Bay seasoning and steam the tiny lobsters until they turned bright pink over a fire on the beach. I only remember one crawfish whose claws were big enough to crack open and eat. Mostly, I just ate the tails.
Because of how I spent my summers, I didn't need camp. Summer camp was home. Every June through August without ever getting in a car, I explored my world, mostly underwater, with great curiosity. When I did finally go to camp, I didn't like the obligated games, whistles to bark you out of the water and nights spent under the anxiety of wonderment if the kid who stared at you during vespers might sit next to you while you ate a burnt hotdog. I preferred the hours alone along the shores entertaining myself without the need of a watch or even another person. To have the quiet of that lake all on my own and the sun was enough. More than enough.
But what drew me to the water wasn't the crawfish or even the adventure of collecting them, but the suspension of the water, the gap between the surface and the sand, the ability to feel wholly placed, but completely free. Experimenting with holding my breath and seeing how long I could keep my body at rest, made me feel alive, calm and my mind still. Completely still. It wasn't a draw to risk or scare myself to ride some edge in order to lose my ability to breath as much as it was knowing I could keep my body alive and my mind calm.
I've tried to seek this suspension, this calm in other activities in my life. I can sense this skiing when I think about the mass of frozen water under me and staying just on top of the surface. Pushing a body out of its head is to feel as much animal as human and the ability to do so is to love the gap between. No better sense of this was this summer at 3:30 in the morning up Grand Targhee with nothing but shooting stars, wind, my head lamp and the outline of mountains as I ran into the night. It felt like I was running deeper into some belly of water in that dark hour. Again, not driven by fear or risk but the absence of both, just lightness in being able to move my body and keep my mind still.
Over the past three years of my life, I have struggled with finding any remote sense of feeling placed or calm. My mind has been manic. And the gap between my body and mind has felt vast and at times unnavigable. The stress of divorce and the days of loneliness which taste metallic in the cold of morning have felt like being marooned to some island I didn't know existed, and certainly had no interest in even visiting. I laugh only to myself that I live on Defoe Street named after Daniel Defoe as if I am lost like Robinson Crusoe on the Island of Despair. Odysseus himself was marooned for five years before he set sail. Needless to say, I know how to sail, but I am no epic hero and it's hard to find a boat to set free upon and to leave Missoula. Yet.
But what has been even odder is that stress surfaces in the oddest of places. Sure, we often think stress is something we feel emotionally or mentally, but when it starts to surface physically do you take notice. The usual wrinkles, grey hair and dark circles are some of the hallmark traits of dis-ease, but strangely enough for me was the fact that my teeth started to move. Yup, my teeth. No it wasn't from grinding in the night, but rather the stress of holding my jaw in a way that my front teeth started to separate from each other. As if some dental plate tectonics began and my teeth set sail.
At first, I thought the gap made me look French. I thought I should accept it. I had gone to my dentist and asked about the noticeable space and he didn't think anything of it, said, "that's really odd." I went for a second opinion. My new dentist within minutes of our first visit asked if I had been under a lot of stress in the past year, "I'd say…a bit", in trying to not seem histrionic. And so I began exploring the idea of filing in the gap.
And this summer, we began the process. I was nervous about the idea of doing something out of vanity. Isn't going through grief learning how to accept what you cannot change? Why go through the expense and deny myself a trip home to the lake to feel weightless and free in order to have aligned teeth? Was I just turning into one of those typical 40 something women who start fighting age and disappointment? Despite these questions, I went for it. I decided to fill in the gap.
The process isn't simple and even includes the fact that your original teeth are ground down and appear as something you'd only see in a horror movie. At one point in this said process, I had to go to the bathroom. As I slowly took off the paper bib, the dental hygienist said, "Please DO NOT look at yourself in the mirror." Which as you might suspect is more of a dare than a request.
And I did. How could I not. As I fumbled with my numb face, I leaned into the bathroom that smelled of aloe and disinfectant to see myself as if I was cast in a horror film, tiny shards of teeth and me attempting to smile. More pike than person, I pulled back. But I'd like to think that reflection of my heckled self is part of this process. Parts of yourself as ugly are just as much part of yourself as polished.
Thankfully, the process was successful and I dare say I smile with great ease these days. Even confidence. Which is not something I have felt in a really long time. But it's surfacing, slowly. When I think back to my early summers in Michigan, I think of swimming and then I think of confidence in knowing what I wanted to do, everyday and just doing it. Sure, I was a child, but what I am reminded of is that I didn't ever think it was odd to collect crawfish nor did I even doubt my desire to seek that edge between the cold of the bottom or the surfaced sun. I just practiced. Everyday. I just practiced the suspension between. And it's what I am trying to apply today as I navigate this space of self, what I thought I would be doing and what I actually am. Sure, it might seem like a surfaced fix to begin with my smile, but it's a start. And I'd even like to say it's a beginning to an end. And isn't that worth smiling about?
Here's a poem honoring summer and bridging the gap of the past to honest present.
Oprah Cannot Teach
You
to numb your tongue on pink wine
and never tells you
about lying
to your body or how to forget
about the man still in love
with someone’s mother. No article
on how to stand and
brush dyed hair
after leaving a party, lying again
about a stomach ache so you can go
home alone to stop talking.
Oprah can list books
to read, change your life in 20
minutes, which is another word
for lunch break, adult time out.
You know the gold in your hair
you hold onto is summer, youth
as ten speed sexy, boys in jean shorts pedaling
without a watch in the dark
to your parents.
Walking home then
you hid the scent of whiskey
on your naked skin.
Oprah doesn’t interview
the women you’ve become. The closet
of time clock cardigans, one more bride’s maid dress
to sell on eBay
This coming holiday,
you’ll make the reservation for a table of seven.
And give a toast that everyone says they’ll remember.
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