Swimming to the Gods
A sweeping story of love and resilience across five generations of a family.
Today I can see that as deeply as I fell into the chasm of intimate betrayal, I descended even deeper—through generations of suffering in my bloodlines and into the sorrows of all beings. And from these dark depths, I willed myself to ascend.
Prologue
Like the sugar maple that stands in my memory, within me lie the stories of everyone I have ever held in my arms—my younger brother’s face in the shimmering light of day, my older brother who fell, my mother who kissed so many of our broken parts, my father who limped away.
Like all great trees, my story is the probing of my every root, the long forging of my core, the way I reach into the infinite and inexhaustible. I am the seasons that altered me, the birds that flew to me, the storms that injured me, the lakes that reflected me. I am the stars that shot across the sky above me, the dreams of those who planted me, the romance of those who gazed at me, the tears of those who mourned my sorrows.
In my story live all stories—those of my mother, my father, my brothers, my son, my loves and lovers, my granddaughters. I am the lineage from which I have sprung—my great-great-grandmother whose name I never learned, who once chose to love in a way that would find me. I am the lineage of all who shall harvest from me—my great-great-granddaughter, whose name I will never know, who will become who she is because I longed to know the truth of love.
My story is the singular way that I have lived and loved and scattered into all winds—one delicate gal, strong as the purest heart beating in the eternal chorus of all there is.
Opening Pages
As my mother told it, Danny was sitting on my father’s stomach—eating a hamburger—in some motel room in Elmsford. I stood in the kiln of the August sun, watching Mom back her bronze Caddy up the driveway and speed off to the rescue du jour. When her broken tailfin vanished over the western hill, I reached for the hand of my younger brother. I was twenty-two, strutting across my mother’s yard in my hip-hugger bell-bottom jeans, and my little brother was ten, wearing a suede fringed vest—and about to get his name changed from Sheldon to that of a Greek god.
We climbed into the branches of the sugar maple and joined the commotion of the birds. My older brother, Danny, and I had named the branches for our favorite TV shows before there had even been a Sheldon. Millions of leaves later, there he was, crouching on Car 54, Where Are You? and stuffing three wads of Dubble Bubble into his cheek. He pulled me up from I Love Lucy, and together we overlooked our family’s acre of land, the woods beyond, two radio towers, and the town swimming pool. A summer heat wave was stretching time.
All was peaceful—except for the birds, who lost their minds, escalating into a conniption of squawks over the strangers invading their neighborhood. I was thinking, Birds, you’re wasting your precious little energy, getting all worked up over harmless old us. Every living thing, I suppose, goes around guessing who’s good, who’s bad, what’s going to happen next—and is the boundless sky going to fall?
It falls.
And sure as love rises again and the day renews—we creatures shatter, and for a time, we know nothing but our suffering insides.
Final Pages
We walk on—in the power of our bond. Sea birds soar and bats swoop; we hear the yelps of fighting dogs. My grown son and I are rooted in safety with each other.
Something in the way he strides says ease. He wonders aloud what exactly makes this water holy—he has his doubts. He is excited about dinner after the ceremony; he will order the peanut tempeh burrito. He considers it a real upgrade that Bali has so many vegan restaurants now. I press the acupressure point on his hand that he craves. A breeze flaps at our sarongs.
As full moon ceremonies fill the temples and streets, as gongs and drums and gamelans whip up the pulse of the air, Nicky abides in calm. Unruffled. Watchful. A boy who almost lost his mother and will hold onto her for as long as he can.
“So, what’s important, Ma?” he asks.
“How we love, my sweet child,” I say.
Because everything will be gone, I think, as we walk on the water’s edge, our footprints, our echoes. We look in the distance—and there are our peeps—backlit by the setting sun. With the gift of wind, we walk into their scents: my Paul Tennyson, Nicky’s Clara, and our two little ones, running, skipping, dancing. Their eyes are dark and glorious and brimming, which I recognize as our tribe—the eyes of Glory. Theirs are the eyes of every love we have never unloved.
A kukur bird trills again; a gamelan chimes from a nearby temple. Above us—the weight of the sky. And two little girls with rain and frangipani in their hair open their arms when they see us, and everything is enough.
Swimming to the Gods is forthcoming.
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing