March 30, 2024

Polar Swimming 🧊

No bears, polar or otherwise, were hurt in the writing of this newsletter.

Hi Bestie!!

I’m a polar bear! I did my twelve Sunday Swims, and on the thirteenth week, the first Sunday in March, I was voted in by members of the club. (I think we have some kind of joke about not wanting to be in a club where you’re wanted, but, I’ve never really understood it fully, because I haven’t been in many clubs like this one!) 

(Some of) The Polar Bears would come to the brewery on Sunday afternoon when I was a bartender, and it’s been nice seeing familiar faces again. The routine with my friends has been nicer: I bring cookies to the snack/hot drink table, put on my swim poncho, and wait to get into the water. We swim for as long as we can, get out, get into dry clothes, and hang out. Sometimes we have Taco Bell and I get a can of Coke at the Freak Bar. It’s nice!

“As long as we can” isn’t long. A friend asked once if we swim all day. That would be dangerous. Someone told me the body temperature drops after ten minutes, so I try to stay in that long because it’s harder for me to get dressed when my body temperature is dropping than it is to keep swimming. 

I did my second-ever guest swim in November and couldn’t stop thinking about it. For weeks I thought about drifting in the waves with my friends, the way the water soothed my broken bones (I have permanent fractures in my arm and leg), the way the sun felt warm but the water was cold. I let that, and the comfort of seeing my friends regularly, be my guide. I’m glad I did! I wish more of the crew had joined us.

Unfortunately for more than one of you, it’s all I can talk about. There isn’t a lot of good news right now! Even the unseasonably warm weather fails to inspire. One of you came along on New Year’s Eve, which seems deeply symbolic, though the day also happened to be on a Sunday.

I know some of us love details, so here’s what I’ve baked and brought in: chocolate chunk cookies (the ones from Cochon Butcher), peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies (the ones from Baked), a truly terrible King Cake (I think the coffee table book deliberately gave a bad recipe), TV snacks, half a smore’s pie (Butter & Scotch) and Maida Heatter’s Pennsylvania squares. You’re supposed to bring a bribe when you get voted in, but I saw a table with Oreos and felt like it was my duty as a member of the community to contribute.

I subscribe to Heatter’s cookie diplomacy. You have to live the life you want. One week I made brown sugar shortbread and I was so disappointed I didn’t bring it in, and the table was empty. (A bear brought in cheesy bread, thank goodness.) I strategized that afternoon a plan to make cookie dough to be better prepared.

I was surprised by how many things winter swimming requires. I’m often surprised how activities and hobbies require stuff (and it happened again to me when I resumed Punk Rope, as I needed new shorts, sneakers, and leggings). Is there a hobby that doesn’t require stuff? Tai chi? Bird watching in the city? If you take up this activity, I recommend scuba shoes (not water shoes, which are better than nothing), gloves, and a changing robe.

The Coney Island Polar Bear Club is the oldest winter bathing club in the United States and was founded in 1903 by Bernarr Macfadden who had bad takes on health and wellness. (A lot of what he believed in doesn’t need to be repeated.) It reminds me a lot of Teddy Roosevelt, who pushed through asthma to become an athlete (who didn’t have asthma anymore), or that guy who did eye exercises to improve near-sightedness. (I’m not linking to that, it’s horseshit.) 

Maryland has a polar plunge on New Year’s Day and throughout the season. The Maryland Plunge is, per them, the largest in the U.S. The $100 entry fee goes to the Special Olympics. The Maryland State Police have several days you can plunge for charity at Sandy Point State Park. To Plunge for less, and without cops, Greenbrier State Park plunges in mid-January! 

(This took an aspiring City Paper calendar editor tone, sorry.)

I can’t find a group that swims regularly in the Baltimore or DC area. A recent guest said she didn’t have a club in DC. Maybe there isn’t one.

Los Angeles has a private club at Cabrillo Beach. Its January plunge in Santa Monica (they keep saying San Pedro but Annenberg Beach House is in Santa Monica!!) included cupcakes, cocoa, and cookies (provided by the Lady Bears…) and access to a heated beach club. It sounds hard to get into the Cabrillo Beach Polar Bear Club, as you get voted in over potluck, hang out for an undetermined period, and need to be vouched by two bears. I was sponsored this season by a regular, and the voting process seems chill. (Some new bears would say it takes a long time to get in, and I’ve been pretty lucky!)

On New Year’s Day, Huntington Beach hosts Surf City Splash. In Antarctica, Scott Base celebrates midsummer with a dip. The average temperature in December is -4 degrees.

Winter bathing has its origins in Europe. Of course, you can swim in Denmark, a country with its own festival. The Skandinavisk Winter Swimming Club gathers before work every Thursday. This is separate from the sport of ice swimming, which is traditionally practiced near the Poles. In Europe, winter bathing is usually done around plenty of ice. 

Cold water swimming is featured in Bad Sisters. The dark Irish comedy is on AppleTV+. The Forty Foot is where they plot the murder of their sister’s husband (and since he’s not real, I can say he has it coming). Here’s creator Sharon Horgan on swimming and filming at the Forty Foot:

“There’s this tradition of swimming on Christmas morning,” Horgan began. “You go out on Christmas Eve. You get really tanked up. Christmas Day morning, you go and jump in this freezing cold water to sort of shock the hangover out of you. I mean, for lots of other reasons, but that’s a part of it.

“I didn’t really understand why people would do that for pleasure. But then, once I got in, I noticed that when especially women got in the water, as freezing cold as it was, they just tread the water and chat. Like, they would just have these conversations, and I thought, ‘That’s where [the Garvey sisters] can plot the murders.'”

Yeah! When I’m not woo-ing I want to chat, too, but I’ve noticed most people don’t. I think it’s kind of like hiking–I suddenly have so much to say, none of it brilliant, like a tween at a sleepover, and everyone else wants peace. (There’s chatter in the waves, not conversation. If there was silence, I would probably be able to better read the room.) 

The Irish bay doesn’t appear to have waves like we have in Coney Island. I met a swimmer from Ireland, and she said it’s about the same–she swims elsewhere. I had assumed it was colder. 

Sort of fun: Kate Winslet likes to swim, too. 

The health benefits of cold plunging are unclear. It’s having a moment. I don’t know if I agree with any of what social media bros promote. Maybe it does provide good stress. There was a study (which I found and then lost) that cold water swimmers have stronger immune systems. (I’ve been sick twice this year. I have also been really, really stressed.) It might be good for your cardiovascular system but it also might harden your arteries. It might be good for blood pressure and it might not. It’s probably safer than running. I feel better when I do it. I never stay in longer than twenty-five minutes (thirty is the max before hypothermia) because I find myself wandering up the sand shelf after twelve minutes whether I’ve thought about it or not. It seems easier to move the rest of the week, and I like that. I like Taco Bell and hanging out, too.

I didn’t realize until I had written most of this how much I have adjusted my life to accommodate My Bones. 

Swelling near the incision? What I think is arthritis but the doctors won’t say, because I’m a woman and I’m “young?” Inflammation? Remember when I was all about just dark chocolate and ginger because of the Inflammation Diet? I’m going to buy dark chocolate–we call it purse chocolate–soon! I know this is not a surprise to one of you. (Look at that rant about purse chocolate.) (JOIN US.) When the narrator quiets I think about this revelation and I feel sad. I knew that a lot of my life revolves around it, even when there is no inflammation, even when everything is fine. Something to unpack with a professional, I guess. (She would say it’s self-care, probably.)

Dribs and Drabs

From the same article above, here’s Horgan on the premise of Bad Sisters: “When you come from a big family, you know what that dynamic is like,” she said. “Just that kind of mad joy you get when you’re together. You would do anything for each other, knowing that if it came to it you would kill for your family.” I am from a small family, actually, but I do know what she’s talking about! 

Probably none of you remember that pre-Lino (my nephew), my sister, her husband, and I had talked about maybe hiking the Alps one day, based on an article in the New Yorker. (It seems longer ago than 2016.) I have since decided I like hiking, so I’m still interested. Since 2016 I’ve tossed my hiking sneakers and upgraded to purple boots which have mostly seen the city’s beaches but also two California deserts. Anyway, a Strategist contributor did hut-to-hut hiking in the Alps. It looks, well, easier. More accommodating? Than I imagined.

I read The Marsh King’s Daughter in January and I hoped the movie (panned by critics and audiences) was better (Where the Crawdads Sing was poorly received, too). (Why are American women who love the country being cast by Europeans?) The movie was...fine. I learned about the Lake Superior agate, Minnesota’s state rock, prolific in Michigan’s upper peninsula, however. The Tahquemenon Falls has its own microbrewery, so you know I have a tab open about that, too.

I resent that I shouldn’t be allowed to think about food. I like thinking about food. I especially like remembering which dishes need to be added to the family cookbook (which has inadvertently ended up on hold, but I’ve been adding recipes to mine, like hazelnut milk and Trisha Yearwood’s corn dip). 

Speaking of food, this article from Taste about J. Ryan Stradal’s Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supperclub is wonderful. I found an operating supper club! Who wants to go to Wisconsin?

Always your friend,

Katherine

Sources (MLA 9)

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