09/02/2025
the first time I got taken in the undertow while swimming in the ocean. I was about 9, feeling confident and a strong swimmer. This was one of my first lessons where I learned that the strength we must use in life comes in a variety of forms.
I wasn’t more than 20 feet from the shore and the waves varied from flowing and gentle to rough. I heard people commenting, but I knew nothing different then the ocean I witnessed in that moment. It made sense to me, Everything was moving swiftly the cycles of the waves were no exception.
Its wink chose me as I saw it crest. It was like a joining of forces. Because of that, When I pushed into the wave, I thought I would ride a gentle one in to shore. instead, the wave instantly became rough and aggressive sucking me under the surface into a space I had no idea existed.
To onlookers it must have happened quickly but to me, it happened in slow motion. My body tossed in circles by the tremendous force much bigger than I. As I fought to figure out which direction to move, hitting my head on the bottom was the only way I had bearing of where I was.
My first reaction was to swim, and I fought for a moment to do just that. But to where? The more I forced movement, the worse my condition.
So as my head hit, the bones in my neck crack, all paused enough to feel myself rapidly bounce along the bottom of the dark ocean floor. I somehow heard the sound of something quite peaceful, I don’t to this day know what it was.
I couldn’t tell if it was from within or from my surroundings. I really didn’t need to know from where. But it was there. Peace. Peace. Peace in all the madness and danger~ peace.
Peace relaxed my fighting mind and body, it carried me to down the shore, peace rose me to the surface so I could take a breath in the space between the sky and the ocean floor.
Peace reflected from my eyes as I came to use my feet. I recognized this peace,not my first introduction knowing the power of it was beyond strong.
I don’t know why this memory came to me today, or (grinning) maybe I do. Most of all I wanted to share a bit of how peace found me in the most obscure places, so perhaps it can find more of its way to you.