The Swimming Lesson
by: Mary Oliver
Feeling the icy kick, the endless waves
Reaching around my life, I moved my arms
And coughed, and in the end saw land.
Somebody, I suppose,
Remembering the medieval maxim,
Had tossed me in,
Had wanted me to learn to swim,
Not knowing that none of us, who ever came back
From that long lonely fall and frenzied rising,
Ever learned anything at all
About swimming, but only
How to put off, one by one,
Dreams and pity, love and grace,--
How to survive in any place.
Oliver is not really talking about learning how to swim in this poem. She's talking about learning how to survive--the fall and frenzied rising from depth to air. Some days, you drown. Other days, you float.
Today was kind of a drowning day for me. Lots of busy work to get done. Teaching. A radio interview. Dealing with Christmas trees. And a concert by a wonderful musician friend. In between all of that, emails and phone calls and grading and writing. It felt as though I was kicking as hard as I could, trying to get my head above water.
And then this happened: I picked up a copy of Marquette Monthly, a monthly publication with a pretty wide distribution across the region. A couple months ago, the editor published one of my poems. This month, he accepted one of my Christmas essays for December. I opened up the issue, and there it was on page 25--my essay titled "The Christmas Eve Wrinkle."
Now, unless you're a writer, you probably won't really comprehend the thrill of seeing something you've written in print. There's really nothing like it. It's akin to getting a puppy for Christmas or your son washing his dirty dishes. A moment of grace and joy.
I know that not a whole lot of people are going to read it. And, of those people, most won't give two shits about it.
However, Saint Marty is still riding the waves of that grace, seeing land close by.
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