Pier to Pier
By Laura Bass
@laurapbass
I’m standing ankle-deep in the Atlantic Ocean, waves splashing against my legs, as my eleven-year-old swims away from me—out into deeper water, toward an inflatable orange buoy bobbing in the distance. His neon orange swim cap disappears under the waves for a moment, and panic starts to consume me. He reappears, then joins a few other swimmers—all with identical neon swim caps. Despite my most valiant efforts, I almost immediately lose track of which one he is.
We have lost our minds, I think to myself. I cannot believe we are letting him do this.
By this, I mean an open water race in the ocean, starting at one pier and swimming 1.7 miles to the next.
In the flurry of attaching the tracking chip to his ankle, writing his number on his arms, hands, and shoulders with Sharpie, and figuring out what exactly he is supposed to be doing, I did not think about the fact that he wouldn’t have anyone with him swimming out to the buoy during his warm-up. None of his friends are doing this race—he’s the youngest boy registered—and because the race hasn’t officially started, all of the lifeguards and Coast Guard and kayakers and paddle boarders scheduled to be keeping an eye on the swimmers aren’t in place yet.
In his eleven years of life, my husband and I have never let him go further than waist-deep in the ocean. Our son is a strong swimmer, practicing six days a week year-round with his club team, and this isn’t his first open water race—he’s done a few in lakes. But living just a few hours from the beach our whole lives, we’ve both heard plenty of stories about strong swimmers drowning in the ocean—caught in riptides or trying to rescue a swimmer in distress. The ocean is powerful and unpredictable, and we’ve tried to drill that warning into our kids. Before signing him up, my husband and I went back and forth about whether we were going to let him do the race. We wavered not so much about his readiness—we knew he was physically capable—but about ours.
Standing on the beach, I think about all the times I’ve scolded my children about seatbelts and bike helmets and water safety, reminding them that it is my job to keep them safe. And here I am standing by while my child swims away from me in the ocean? What in the world am I thinking?
The neon dots bob closer, and I feel the tiniest bit of relief when I identify my son. But if I’ve panicked this much during his five-minute warm up, how am I going to make it through the entire race, where he’ll be out of my sight for much longer?
***
Appropriate risk.
Independence.
Challenge.
Adventure.
Time in nature.
All things I would have happily spouted off about in the years before I became a parent, confidently believing that my background in youth programs and collection of books like Last Child in the Woods and Free-Range Parenting made me something of an expert.
It’s easy to say you believe something. It’s easy to read the books, listen to the podcasts, sift through the research, and announce, “Yes, this is where I land.”
Head knowledge is one thing. But when your heart is walking around outside of your body in the form of a child? Putting those beliefs into practice isn’t always as easy as you think it’s going to be.
***
By the time my husband and two younger boys park the minivan and meet me on the beach, I can barely talk. Waves of fear are washing over me, and behind my sunglasses, tears are spilling over. Worst-case scenarios ravage my mind as I give my son one last hug before the race begins. I notice how tiny he looks next to the other, older swimmers. When the start signal sounds, he runs into the waves. I try to keep track of which one he is, but within the first few minutes, he is indistinguishable from the rest of the swimmers.
To be at the finish, we have to walk down the beach to the next pier. With every step, I pray keephimsafe, keephimsafe, keephimsafe. A pair of girls about my son’s age stop me to ask where the race finishes, and I can barely squeak out an answer. My six-year-old wants to know how sea glass is made, and I have to pause every third or fourth word because my voice is breaking.
In between answering questions, I think about the dangers of the ocean. Then—and let me preface this by saying this is not a strategy I recommend—I start thinking about all the ways safety is an illusion. Hurricanes devastate communities. Tornadoes strike with little warning. Pandemics take lives indiscriminately. Kids go to school and get shot.
When I was eight, my cousin was electrocuted, killed in a freak accident with an electric boat lift, the summer after he graduated from high school. The summer I was sixteen, one of the camp counselors I worked with died when an off-duty police officer ran a red light and crashed into the Jeep he was riding in.
In 2020, unseen dangers popped up everywhere as people died by the thousands from a global pandemic. I scrambled to do everything in my power to keep my family safe, and I read book after book to escape from reality. On page 258 of Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth, I froze, reading the same words over and over, finally grabbing an index card and scribbling them down.
“There’s no protecting anyone,” Fix said... “Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.”
Am I lying to myself, to them, when I tell my kids my job is to keep them safe?
***
My two younger boys play in the sand at my feet as I watch swimmers come out of the water and run towards the inflatable finish arch on the sand. I have no idea when to expect my son, but I don’t want to miss him. Though the walk to the finish has calmed me down slightly, I am still on edge and desperate to know he is safe.
I hear a coach cheer his name, and relief floods my body. There he is, exiting the water and sprinting towards the finish line. He made it.
Cheering him on, I record as much of his finish as possible, then dodge other onlookers as I try to make it to the finish line to give him a high-five. When he was three, the first summer he was on swim team, I’d wait with him at the starting blocks until the starting gun went off. The second he splashed into the water, I’d dash around the edge of the pool, dodging other parents—just like I’m doing now—so I could be waiting for him on the other side of the pool when he finished, a kid catcher hoisting him into my waiting arms.
How had we gone from that—a three-year-old being carried across the pool by an older swimmer—to swimming 1.7 miles in the ocean?
After refueling with some snacks, he obliges my request to pose for a few photos while we wait for all the swimmers to finish and the awards ceremony to start. I can tell he is exhausted but proud of his accomplishment.
When the awards start, his name is announced for first place in his age group. The race coordinator hands him his first-place hat, and his face lights up.
Getting this win was a big deal for him, but the real win was for my husband and me, being reminded that life is meant to be lived. That Mary Oliver quote about our wild and precious lives? It doesn’t just apply to grown-up dreams.
He was ready for this swim. I wasn’t.
But I also wasn’t ready the day they sent us home from the hospital. And I’m not going to be ready the first time I watch him drive off in a car or when I move him into his college dorm.
I'm still desperate to keep my son safe, but maybe that's only part of the job. The bigger part, the harder part, is letting him live his one wild and precious life.
Guest essay written by Laura Bass. Laura lives with her husband and boys in North Carolina. She loves lingering in the library, scouring the aisles of thrift stores for a good find, tackling a variety of creative projects, and spending time in the sunshine. Her work has been published by Coffee + Crumbs, Literary Mama, Fathom Mag, and more. You can find her on Substack, Instagram, or her website.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.