Sea Swimming Blog #70
Day 437 Sea Swimming.
#70 of the blog.
Air Temp 8 degrees - Sea Temp 9 degrees
When I woke up this morning and looked out of the window I couldn’t get myself ready fast enough.
A thick fog had descended upon the island of Jersey and I had my fingers crossed, hoping that as well as appearing on higher ground, it would also provide a wonderful atmospheric blanket over the coast for my morning swim.
It didn’t disappoint.
Having a morning sea swimming ritual has become an anchor for all my future daily activities.
It’s the ultimate wake up call and a moment I have for myself and with nature.
I treat it as a form of meditation, normally swimming for a while before bobbing around and taking it all in… the water, the cold, the coastline and my breathing.
The physiological benefits of sea swimming to our bodies and minds are now well documented but as with most things, it’s only when you experience it for yourself on a day by day, week by week and month by month basis that you truly appreciate how much a dose of vitamin sea can help ease the frantic thoughts that rush around our heads from the moment we wake until the moment we sleep at night.
But it’s not just the sea that has this effect on me.
It’s also photography.
When I’m engaged in creating something that I love, I enter a flow state in which time is suspended and all other thoughts cease.
Yet this process isn’t something that just comes along, you have to make an effort to partake in it and hopefully find that something that spikes your interest… a story to tell.
For a long time in my personal work I’ve bounced from idea to idea without feeling like I’ve settled on a style, voice or subject matter and so I’ve really struggled to find that ‘why’/identity for my work.
That’s ok when you’re photographing for fun, but it’s incredibly frustrating when you’ve been at this for a while.
When I look back at my work the true genuine areas of ‘me’ tend to be the self portraits I took a few years ago when I was in a bit of a dark place.
They’re not pretty but they speak to an authentic truth and vulnerability that I think we all feel at some point in our lives.
And so, in some way, whilst I’m far happier and feel like I’m at least on the right path, there’s an element of coming full circle with sea swimming and how (amongst other tools) I use it to keep myself in order rather than descending into a mental chaos.
As most creatives will tell you, we tend to go through cycles of feeling like 1. you’re not good enough, 2. you might just have something, 3. you’ve definitely found a voice 4. rinse and repeat.
I don’t know where I am with this right now but I’ve come to accept that it’s part of the process and so the self portraits (as self indulgent as they sometimes feel) are part of the visual language again… for now at least.
And if I fancy writing a poem, I’ll embrace my shadow and I’ll have a go at that too.
“Stumbling lost in a veil of fog,
A voice cries out from far at sea,
Beneath the swell, the icy waves,
It’s there that I find me”