Playing Death at the Lake

The gutsiest thing I ever did at the lake nearly killed me.  The color of our family’s lake in Minnesota, where four generations of Geist-O’Brien-Walshes have happily cavorted for as many decades, is a deep, rich brown.  Rumor has it iron turns the water that color, while other theories lean toward peat, but whatever the reason, the result is unlike any lake color I’ve ever known elsewhere.   The water feels extra heavy in your palm, too, and it’s deceptively easy to float on.  It’s like swimming in cool coffee, but with a pure, clean smell, where no moldy, putrid slime can grow.

Half a foot down, your hand looks golden brown.  A foot down, you can hardly see it at all.  Wade three feet in, and you can’t see your toes.  When I was a teenager, I was scared of the darkness of the water, even though I swam in it daily.  I could not tell how deep the water was, nor what might be swimming down there ready to gnaw off my ankles.  I was especially uneasy out by the floating raft where I routinely swam with my siblings and cousins, so I learned to swim near the very top surface of the lake, never letting my legs shift vertically to the cooler water below.

One day, I decided to overcome my fear once and for all.  I decided to go down to the bottom.  I was accustomed to the swimming pool at a club in the city where I could propel myself downward, feet-first, knowing that no matter how deep it was, I could bounce off the concrete at the bottom and shoot back effortlessly to the surface.  So I imagined I would do the same thing in the dark water, touching down against a hidden sandy surface.  I would finally know how deep it was and know that nothing could harm me.

So I took a big breath, pointed my toes, and started down cautiously.  It was colder there, and I looked back up through the water to the sky rippling above, while water gurgled in my ears and my bubbles rushed upward.  My feet touched no bottom, so I swam back up into the air to breathe.  The bottom, I’d learned, must be farther down and it would take some effort to get there.

I took another big breath, and this time I used my arms in serious reverse, pushing the water upward to plunge myself down as far as I could go.  When still there was no bottom,  I prepared my hands for another plunge and shoved myself downward as hard and fast as I could.  My feet drove into mud as thick and clinging as wet cement.  Instead of bouncing like a drumstick off a hard, sandy bottom, I was stuck up to my knees in black, viscous goo.

Up above me, the sky was a tiny speck of lukewarm light in a wash of black, and I was running out of breath.  I scrambled, trying to heave myself out with frantic pulls at the cold water until one of my feet came free.  I kicked and lunged upward, sucking my other foot free, and then I began to swim upward toward the light.  My lungs were exploding, so I began to exhale through my lips, hitching hard in my throat, knowing once my air was gone there’d be nothing but water to gulp in unless I reached the surface, which was still impossibly far above me.

My heart surged in pain.  Nobody knew where I was to help me.  I’d made no announcement before I went under.  The water was so dark that my cousins on the floating dock only twenty feet away had no idea where I was or that I needed them.  Anxious and terrified, I swam for all I was worth, straining for my life, kicking and fighting toward the top, and when all my air had bubbled away into the black water, I clenched my throat closed to seal my oxygen-starved lungs, struggling not to inhale the lake.

The surface was larger now, an uneven circle reflecting silvery, indifferent saucers of light, but I was still several feet below.  I kicked and pulled one more desperate time and broke into the air.  I gasped, finally, sucking in huge lungfuls of thin, clear air, and stared around me.

My cousins were still sitting cross-legged on the floating dock, laughing, swatting at black flies.  The aunts were back on shore in their lounge chairs.  The sky, overhead, was an uneventful blue.  My ears were rushing from inside, but outside my head, the surface of the water was peaceful and lightly rippled, calm and silent.  Still terrified, I was also stunned with gratitude.

I have not gone back down to the bottom of the lake.  We just had our annual reunion there in northern Minnesota.  I’ve told my children and all my nieces and nephews of my story so they know not to do what I did.  The water is as dark as ever.  My teenage son told me he swam down there, but slowly.  He said it’s not too deep.  He said I don’t need to be afraid.  But I still am.