Writing in the Water
March 7, 2024 § 5 Comments
By Samantha Ladwig
A blank page never scared me until I bought a bookstore months before the pandemic—an endeavor that pushed me into retail hell, the stress of which sucked all the air out of my creativity.
I didn’t want to admit my reality because I didn’t know who I would be without writing and that scared me. But after a year of trying to force ideas out onto paper, I put the pen down; my job needed me to be all in, and I had a responsibility to show up.
Those in between, writing-less years were difficult. Even though I committed myself to the bookstore, I couldn’t stop worrying about my lack of writing life.
Where did the ideas go?
Would they ever come back?
The further I drifted away from my practice, the more I doubted I’d ever be able to return.
While the absence of publishing deadlines helped me concentrate on my business, I missed the release that comes with writing, the mental and emotional unload of all the things that get in the way of the day ahead. That purging is partly why I write. It’s freeing.
In the summer of 2022, in the middle of tourist season in my small town, I reached my breaking point. Focusing solely on the bookstore was no longer serving me. Giving myself over had been good for its survival, but it put me in a vulnerable, hyper-exposed position where my mood was dependent on how the day went. I needed to diversify my time, to reclaim my creativity. To do that, I had to find a way to mimic that writing experience without the now pressure-filled act of writing itself, something easy that required nothing of me other than to show up.
Water has always been home to me. Lakes, rivers, the sea, and the ocean—everywhere I’ve lived has been nestled beside some form of it. Today, I’m situated on a small island out on the Olympic Peninsula where access to the Salish Sea is just a short walk down to the beach. With all this water readily available, it’s not uncommon to see people swimming or wind surfing or kayaking no matter the time of year.
In my desperation, I wondered whether the shock of scalding cold water—the average hovering around 50 degrees F.—might be a solution to my dilemma. It took just one swim for me to know that it was. That first plunge was the balm I’d been seeking since putting my pen down. The intensity of the temperature jolted me into the present, out of my head and into the moment. I could feel the heavy overwhelm that had built up seeping out of me and dissolving into the sea.
I’m now addicted to that cleansing. I swim nearly every other day. The more often I swim, the easier it is to walk into the cold, whatever mood the sea is in. And as it becomes more routine, I’ve noticed the similarities between it and writing.
When I step into the sea, I don’t do so with the intent of mastering it. That’s an impossible task. The tides, temperature, current, and sea life shift every day. All I can do is pay attention and adapt, my only aim to surrender to the water and let the connection buoy me.
Not every swim is serene. There are days when the wind whips up waves that smack me in the face repeatedly – an experience I equate to a full inbox or customer service – or the current pushes me to the shore, forcing me to water-walk my way back to my towel. On those days, I do what I can to get through it and try again later.
The thing is, you must work with it, not it with you. I don’t question this relationship because there’s no point. Like writing, all I can do is give myself to it.
The details are unique to me but swap out the bookstore with children or a traditional office job or caring for a loved one or any other kind of consuming work that makes pursuing creativity difficult, and it’s the same predicament.
I now know that I was writing during those difficult years, it had just taken a different form. Instead of pen to paper, I was planting the seeds that would eventually feed my creativity, one inspired by the sea. Swimming has taught me that walking into the water is like walking into a new work. Both require courage and dedication. It’s the same flutter-filled experience no matter how often I go, but my ability to withstand the discomfort gets stronger each time I show up.
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Samantha Ladwig is an essayist and writing instructor whose work has appeared in New York Magazine’s The Cut and Vulture, Literary Hub, Vice, Bustle, CrimeReads, and others. She’s also a book reviewer for BUST magazine and co-owns Imprint Bookstore in Port Townsend, Washington.
The Brevity Blog 
Two things, Samantha. First, what is it about swimming that calls to us? Why is entering the water always a return? Because we came from water. In my debut memoir, launching exactly five days from now, the book opens with my husband standing by the edge of a pool where I am swimming laps and he tells me he is dying. I go back under water and resume swimming seeking escape, refuge. It doesn’t prevent me from losing him.
Half way through the book, my mother dies, and I write this:
It will be ten months before I shed my first tear. I will
be back in Tulum, galloping into the womb of the ocean and
swimming due east into the just-risen sun, tasting the warm
salty water, that river of life, the amniotic soup that gave
birth to all creatures great and small. Me. I will think of her, and
suddenly, from deep inside, a wail of grief will emit in a voice
I do not recognize, followed by gasping, shuddering.
I will howl like a wolf baying at the moon. The way Mom
locked herself in the laundry room and howled for three days
after Dad moved out. She thought the banging and clanging
of the washer and dryer would drown her out, but I heard her
high-pitched keening. Now, I will be swimming and sobbing,
hot tears blending with the warm salty water. “Mo-o-o-o-o-
o-o-m,” I will wail, “I miss you. Thank you, thank you, thank
you for my life. For everything that you were, that you gave:
the love, the love.” In the end, I will swim the backstroke, stare
at the impossibly blue sky, and sing, “I don’t know why you
say, ‘Good-bye’, I say, ‘Hello, hello, hello.'”
So yes, we swim. We return to the water. Again and again.
Second, I just love that you are a bookstore owner. I support all indie bookstores through bookshop.org and in person. And although I cannot make it to the Olympic Peninsula any time soon, I am going to mail you a copy of my book for your reading pleasure and hoping that–perhaps– you might consider carrying it in your store.
Thank you, Samantha, for your swimmingly beautiful essay!
xoxo Margaret Mandell
From one water lover to another–great essay! You really captured what being in water is, on the page. Not easy to do and so well done here. Thx!!!
I know about the health benefits but just can’t bring myself to get that cold! (https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/cold-plunge-after-workouts#:~:text=Research%20indicates%20that%20icy%20water,improve%20cognitive%20function%20and%20mood.)
This is so marvellous. Thank you.
What most resonated with me in your essay is that it all serves a purpose… the writing as well as the in-between when we can’t write (for all the times life demands us elsewhere) because even the in-between gives us something to write about some day. My first blog was named “Swimming in the Mud” because that’s what life felt like up until that point. It was the struggle to stay above water that inspired me to write in the first place.