It's been 4 days
4 days since the NYPD boat blared its horn, signaling the end of my 20 Bridges swim. 4 days since, covered in zinc and river funk, I hugged my crew. 4 days since I head-butted a big dead fish in the Hudson, did an in-water backflip under the Willis Ave Bridge, and listened to my Wave One team tell me swimmer jokes all the way up the East and Harlem rivers.
I'm back to normal life. Back to getting the kids ready for school, doctor check-ups, dental visits. Paper-work. Laundry. Fall sports practices and new student orientation, a cupcake-making party and a hamster toenail emergency. A basement renovation. Laundry, laundry, laundry.
It's so much the same, and yet...
....and yet even after all these days, I can still feel the undulation of the my rivers. They come back to me at night, to waltz. I feel them rising, falling, when my body and my mind are still at last. Sleep often eludes me, so I lie in my bed and count my strokes, sync my breath. I close my eyes; I surrender to the waves.
1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4
Chop-chop, breathe.....rise-fall, breathe.
It Was Manhattan
The busiest of cities. The place where my parents met and fell in love, the place of dreams, and the place that is the very antithesis of their only daughter, who loves trees and wild places.
Car horns, Lights, Times Square. People. Fast-moving trains and places to go.
That was the Manhattan I came to on Friday, August 20, when my coach, opener of hearts and friend Bob Soulliere and I stepped out of the train station and onto the New York City sidewalk like giraffes onto an ice rink.
Day 1: Arrival
Step one, hail our first cab (utterly unsuccessful until we learned the magic of paying someone off). Step two, get to the hotel, unpack, meet Bob back in the lobby.
We set a rough game-plan for the afternoon, which was that there WAS no game-plan other than me: "I want to look at water" and The Opener of Hearts: "This is YOUR mission to Mars; I will be here for all of it."
So we meandered onto the streets (sirens, horns, moderate capitulation to walk signals) to see Pier A and the Hudson River. A solid no-plan.
Streets, taxis and buildings gave way to skateboard artists, sculptures and gardens...and then a winding trail. Our trail, the Hudson River Greenway, was flanked on one side by trees (!) and on the other by the Hudson herself.
Where we stood, she was very close to completing her journey that had begun in the Adirondacks.
“Far above the chilly waters of Lake Avalanche at an elevation of 4,293 feet lies summit water, a minute, unpretending, tear of the clouds — as it were — a lovely pool shivering in the breezes of the mountains and sending its limpid surplus through Feldspar Brook to the Opalescent River, the well-spring of the Hudson.” - written by Verplanck Colvin, 1872, while surveying the Adirondack Mountains.
She was vast, and very much alive. She had sailboats and ferries traveling atop her waters, and fish, plants and her ever-moving currents beneath them. I could feel this massive river's energy, power, and urgency as she surged toward her final destination, the Atlantic Ocean.
Enshrouded by her familiar briny smell, I closed my eyes, breathing in, until she carried me too. She carried me swiftly, gently away Pier A. She carried me far from the cabs, buildings, trains...until we flowed into the great open ocean. Still, she carried me on.
She carried me on and on until I understood why I had closed my eyes. She was not such a stranger after all. I already knew that sweet, brackish aroma. We were back home at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
I opened my eyes and looked out from Pier A. Into the Chesapeake Bay flow all of my home rivers: the Potomac, Rhode and South. Those are the rivers that greet me each week when I swim with my little pod of marathon swimmers. Those are the rivers that know our dreams.
With a last look at Pier A, we walked up through the Financial District, TriBeCa, Soho, and finally to Greenwich Village, where we explored the Pier 40 Boathouse. Pier 40 is where I would catch my boat at 5:45 on the morning of my swim. The boat would then take me to Pier A, where I would start.
The door to the boathouse itself was propped open, so Bob and I poked our heads in to explore.
The Village Community Boathouse exists quietly and without pomp, amid the massive city skyline and all its motion beneath. That door transported us to a place that felt ancient and mysterious: a sanctuary filled with painted boats and colorful flags. It was a holy place; a world untold, and yet it that whispered that it was ok. We belonged there.
The sole occupant was a man building a wooden boat, from scratch, in the back room. He had lost his voice, but he gestured to please look around and spend as much time as we wished. So we stayed.
We looked at the boats; I thought about the water.
Day 2, 3, 4...Rain, Hurricane...No Sleep
At this point I won't go into great detail about the plot complications; it detracts from the story. In a nutshell, there was...a hurricane. An actual hurricane (named Henri) crashing though New York on the actual day of my swim (Sunday).
I called my mentors/coaches Denis Crean and Jim Loreto a lot, cried a little, and slept not at all. We thought about trying to cram the swim in on Saturday before the hurricane arrived. I looked at wind direction, rain predictions, called Denis and Jim some more and generally fretted until I realized this fell neatly into the Stuff You Can't Control category of Open Water Swimming (OWS). Ultimately, my swim got moved to Tuesday.
"Mommy?" said 6-year old M3 on the phone as I ended Day 3 in Manhattan and braced for the hurricane..."Are you sleeping ok in New York?"
Me: "No, M3. Not at all. I'm totally not sleeping. What on earth compelled you to ask that?"
M3: "Well, you are in the city that never sleeps!"
Day 5: The Big Day
On August 24, 2021 I completed my swim, along with 2 fellow swimmers: Hector Mariano Mortara from Argentina, and Michael Miller from Rochester, MN. We arrived to Pier 40 in the morning, and the swimmers greased up/put on zinc/waited for our boats.
My kayaker Sharon Gunderson was already there when we arrived. Sharon and I had spoken via text quite a bit leading up to the swim, and she had paddled for several of my teammates during their own 20 Bridges swims. Sharon lived up to every accolade my friends bestowed upon her.
Because of the hurricane, there was a backlog of 3 days worth of swimmers by the time Tuesday arrived. Normally, each swimmer would have his or her own kayak and boat...but in this case Mariano and I were confirmed for a kayak and crew, but Mike was not. With sincerity and grace, Mariano offered to share his kayak with Mike so that he could also complete his swim that day.
I've expressed before that Open Water Swimming is a team sport (even though 20 Bridges is called a "solo swim") and I mean it. Truly.
I was a tightly wound coil that morning...especially having had 3 extra days of non-swimming and a hurricane built into prologue. But then I listened to Mariano invite Mike to get ready to swim, and the sun began to dry our pier. I watched the river come to life with tours boats, river taxis, and finally my own pilot boat. My nerves couldn't help but give way to something that felt like gratitude.
East River
My boat, piloted by Sean Makofsky of NYOW, arrived first. (My swim was projected to take the longest, so I had to start before Mariano and Mike). We waved goodbye and headed to Pier A. From there, splash time happened quickly. I jumped off the boat and into the Hudson, with my dad cheering from the pier. Bob and Katie counted down, and then we were off...rounding Battery Park and moving toward the East River.
I felt relieved to finally in the water, happy to be swimming...but if I'm being honest, I was still pretty jittery. I couldn't get a rhythm, and I felt jerky in the chop (my friend Sue McKay has compared the East River to a washing machine; she was right). The water was also very, very salty. Distractingly salty. I felt like I was lifting my head too much. I kept drifting too far from Sharon.
The first bridge was the Brooklyn Bridge, where I knew my friend Kristin would be waiting with her 2 girls. I focused on getting to the bridge...not unlike one of my running marathons. Sharon motioned for me to look up: there were my friends. Kristin and her daughters had driven in from Connecticut and they were holding "Go Andie" signs, and cheering.
I popped my head up, grinned and yelled "Thank You!!!"
There it was. The surge in my heart. My God, I meant it: Thank You.
Thank you.
Thank you River, for taking me home to my swim friends for a little while on Friday. Thank you, Sun, for drying up the rain from the hurricane. Thank you, Dr Goldstein, for calling antibiotics to a random pharmacy in NYC so my family could stop worrying about the stormwater in the rivers. Thank you Dad, for always showing up for me. And my crew Bob and Katie...oh my God, thank you crew...you are missing work and family to stay here with me...and here you are.
Thank you all for being here with me and for me.
Now it was on. The chop in the East River was random...coming from all sides....and actually, so were we. Sometimes Sharon would cut a sharp right and I would swim across the river, only to have her make a sharp left to swim back to the other side again.
(At the time I thought I was going so fast that Sharon was trying to slow me down, but I later found out my conclusion was too big for my britches. We were actually zigging and zagging to avoid boats.)
My hand grazed two tiny jellyfish right around the Manhattan Bridge. After training with jellies for many hours in the Rhode River, I've come to adopt them as my spirit animal. My friend Doug Karr calls them his "coaches”; their stings nudge him back to earth when gets too zoned out. These two East River jellies didn't sting me, though. I believe they were there to say, "hey, old friend. You've got this. We just came here to wish you good luck!"
There were little whirlpools and eddys, cold currents and chop. I bounced up above the water and came back down laughing. I had promised myself (in a nod to teammate Tom Hull, who had done the same) that I would flip over and backstroke under each of the bridges, if only for a moment. How many people get to admire the underside of all 20 of Manhattan's bridges? I kept my promise...I was here to have fun.
My main focus for the East River had been to make it to Mill Rock before the tide change (actually, this is the focus of EVERY 20 Bridges swimmer). If you don't make it to Mill Rock in time, you are basically screwed. Nobody can out-swim the East River; it's too powerful. Here's the rub: however much "buffer time" you have after passing Mill Rock equals time spent swimming counter-current in the Harlem River.
This is something that I wish I had told my friends and family: If I look like I've stopped when I get to the Harlem River, please don't freak out. It's normal, expected, and part of the plan.
Harlem River
Sharon had told me that it would be very obvious when we got to the Harlem River. We made it through some dramatic swirling eddys and weird currents (at one point I thought I was caught in the back-current of Sharon's kayak paddle) at Hell Gate / Wards Island Park, and then the water got very calm as we entered the Harlem.
Calm, except that...I was not moving.
Sharon corralled me out of the middle of the river and closer to the bank, where I swam alongside a stone wall. When I stopped to tread water for a feed, I realized I was going backward. OK, time to push a little. No problem. I was prepared for this; my masters coach (the legend) John Flanagan has given me months of interval sets, and I've gotten faster and stronger under his guidance.
I switched my mindset to "interval set, maybe 10x200..." mode, and commenced swimming.
Normally, I am a bilateral breather. (thank you, high school coach Deb Saunders, who MADE me breathe bilaterally All.The.Time). I take 3 strokes, then 4, 4, then 3. Repeat, repeat.
As I breathed toward the stone wall, I focused on one particular rock. Then I took two sets of 4 on the other side, and back to the wall. The rock hadn't moved. 2 more 4's, and the rock. And the rock, and the rock, and the rock. Damn it, Rock. I'm not moving!!!
At this point I had a few choices to make. I could panic that I was caught in a current and for sure not moving, and maybe even kind of drowning. I could cry. (Bad choice; fogs the goggles)...or I could just accept it and keep swimming. (Solid OWS theme: Things You Can't Control).
So I turned toward Sharon. I didn't breathe toward that stone wall for the remainder of the 2 hours that I swam against the Harlem. I just focused on Sharon, on gratitude, the sun on my back, and on the flat, fresh waters of the Harlem River. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.
Bless her heart, Sharon smiled, nodded and generally loved on me for all 8.5 hours of that swim.
I had begrudgingly promised my family that I would swish with listerine before each feed (more hurricane/water quality concerns) and I halfheartedly filled a bike bottle the night before. As it turned out, that listerine became the thing I looked forward to most at my feeds. It was minty, it was fresh and it gave me a surge of energy!
During our planning meeting, I had asked my crew to tell me jokes during my swim. "Give me the first line at a feed, so I can try to guess the punchline during the 30 minutes of swimming between feeds." Not only did they oblige, but they crowdsourced. Friends from all eras of my life came together on Facebook to provide endless swim, bridge and water jokes. Their love carried me through the Harlem River.
We were already halfway up the Harlem when the tide finally turned (the change was delayed due to all of Henri's rain). There are 15 bridges that span the Harlem, and I flipped onto my back to glimpse the architecture beneath each one, committing them to memory for future nostalgia.
Hudson River
"That's your last bridge!" Sharon and my crew called to me during a feed. I had made it to the George Washington Bridge. Built in 1931, it is the only bridge spanning the Hudson River.
I had fretted and feared Spuyten Duyvil (translation: Spite of the Devil) since I signed up for this swim. Known to be rough and turbulent, there is even an accompanying story about a Dutch settler who drowns or maybe gets eaten by a large fish. It is in the Northwest Bronx, where the Harlem meets the Hudson, and it felt like the last mental hurdle that I needed to cross.
I asked Sharon umpteen times on the upper Harlem, "how soon is Spuyten Duvil"?
"Pretty soon."
"Anything I need to know or watch out for?"
"Don't worry. Just follow me and I'll get you through it."
And she did.
Just like during my first Boston Marathon when I asked a fellow runner, "how soon until Heartbreak Hill?" and he replied, "You passed it about a mile back," the anticipation was far scarier than the Devil itself. I made it to the George Washington Bridge, which means at some point I had followed Mama Duck Sharon straight through Spuyten Duyvil and was none the wiser.
We were in the Hudson: the Lady River on a journey of her own, and the one that would bring me to the end of mine.
The Hudson River was calm at the start. The water was clear (not salty), and the peaceful landscape of Fort Lee and Washington Heights was flat and treelined. This is not the Manhattan I had in my mind. It was like a wider, more expansive version of the Potomac River back home...but with fewer buildings and more trees. I was told the current would gradually pick up and the landscape would change, and it did.
The smaller apartment buildings of Harlem gave way to larger buildings and eventually the Upper West Side. I began to notice salinity in the water, and the currents, now undulating, hastened just a bit. And as the buildings and river grew, the shadow of the Midtown then lower Manhattan began to rise. But in not chaos. They just were there, as a part of the story. A logical progression, a logical conclusion.
I knew I was almost at the end. Water and landscape had crescendoed back into the powerful river and city that I had seen at Pier A.
It is Manhattan
Manhattan is not always loud. It is also not rude, or impersonal, or frightening. It is alive with friendship. It has mysterious boathouses and trees and quiet places. It has people who hold doors open and really, really good tuna salad. It has dogs and babies and art. It it my parents’ city; it is my city.
And so, 8.5 hours after I began, I completed my circle. The boat horn blasted, signaling the end of my swim. I got back into the boat at Pier A, while Lady Hudson continued on her journey to the ocean. I didn't need to go with her this time. I wasn't scared and I was never alone.
The Finish
There is a picture of me, after I finished my 20 Bridges Swim. I'm standing on Sean's boat. My face is swollen and my smile is huge. I don't love the picture. Not because of how I look, but because it's just me. A picture of just me doesn't make sense; it wasn't a solo swim.
My friends had been with me the whole time. They were there in the jellyfish (Doug), and beneath the Washington Bridge (Jim...who believes in big dreams...20, 40, 80). They were zig zagging across the East River (Carol, you know why). Coach John helped push me through the Harlem when I wasn't going anywhere, and Sue's Infinit nutrition kept my energy up and my tummy settled. I wore Curly Sue’s perfectly fitting goggles on a pink strap, and Brian's folk music played in mind all through the Harlem. Denis bodysurfed the choppy East River alongside me, and Tom reminded me to enjoy the view under the bridges.
And Bob, Katie and Sharon. My dear, dear crew. They carried me to the start of this journey, they guided me and fed me throughout, and just like they promised, they brought me back home again.
Thank you, friends. Thank you, family. Thank you, NYOW.
And to all of my rivers, I'll see you in my dreams.
1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4....
1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4...
1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4
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