Forty Foot

It all started when my friend Peter invited me to go and contemplate all those lovely hedonic kind of masculine abs coming out of the Irish Sea by the scenic rocks of the Forty Foot.  It all started with an invitation followed by a “yes”. Not because I’m a big fan of lovely hedonic kind of masculine abs, but because I was bored. As simple as that. Plain, with no sexual partner available at the moment and no big thing happening on my life for months kinda of bored.

So there we went.

Peter with his cool sunglasses, his sun cap and his own hedonic kind of masculine tights coming out of his really gay pink shorts and… me. Just a friendly bored lesbian. With my best sunglasses bought in that promotion at Specsavers because my astigmatism degree is so high that I cannot go out of my house without wearing proper devices. I remember it was a sunny, windy day. We went to Connoly Station to get the dart, there were children all over the place, the smell of sunscreen was almost so strong as the smell of excitement.

If you’re wondering what exactly excitement smells like, let me tell you: It depends. But on that specific day, excitement smelled like sweat. Not really agreeable, to be honest. But quite exciting for a person like me or Peter who came all the way from Brazil to live in a cold island and get to have some sunny days like that.

How huge was my surprise when we got to the place, I have to say. I wasn’t expecting for that at all: Not only Peter was right about the amount of good looking people in their swimsuits, but my guts were also right about telling me to go with vibe. I looked at the brownish rocks of the forty Foot and it had me all. I gazed in silence. I was deeply amazed by the bravery of the whole thing. Not exactly about the bodies, but about the curious sensation of throwing yourself inside at the Irish Baltic sea from a really steep and quite slippery spot.

Peter was amazed by abs, I was amazed by the experience. I was jealous of the adrenaline. Those shivering, red, wet bodies coming out of the water with a clear sense of happiness. The feeling of  gratitude, for being alive. At least that’s what I thought that they were feeling while I watched from outside. That’s the appealing of radical sports, right? The tender awareness of the risks, like banging your head on the rocks or drowning and somehow, still be able to do it. The ability of overcome fear.

If you ever been to the forty foot, or even better, if you ever had the guts to throw yourself inside the forty foot deep scary hole filled with those deep blue waters, this is for you. I envy you, you little sun of a beach! And I also adore you. I would give you a medal if I could. Cheers to that. Bravery should be celebrated with a specific holiday. We do not talk about the daily small acts of bravery as much as we should.

On that day, against all the odds, I went to watch some nice male abs at Dublin’s Bay. But I ended up bitten by the desire of overcoming myself.

Peter now had no sunglasses on. He was deliberately flirting in silence with a ginger young man when I said:

“I want to jump from there one day”.

“Of course dear, and I will jump with you”.

I didn’t believe him. We Brazilians, we like to be nice  so we learn to say nice things to people and avoid being beaten up at home by a very angry mom. In Ireland people learn how to be polite and talk about the weather. In Brazil we learn to lie. Being a Brazilian talking to another Brazilian, I knew Peter was lying. And I also knew that he wasn’t lying because he didn’t care, but because he wouldn’t seriously think about throwing himself inside the Baltic sea if he could do that at any point of his life in a warmer water anywhere else in the world.

But because I’m so deeply connected to Ireland and because I was really, really bored, I promised myself I would do that. It became a dream. A bucket list item on my already very packed list. From all the things that I have on that list, jumping from the Forty Foot sounded way more valuable and because of that, I immediately pushed it to the top. We went back home and I immediately started to look for swim lessons. Swimsuits. Swim shoes to avoid some slippery accidents. Swim cap. Swim movies. Swim, swim, swim.

I was obsessed.

Whenever Peter asked me to go and contemplate males wet abs coming out from the Baltic sea, I would go. As a matter of studying the territory, of course.

On my first swim lesson, when the instructor asked the motivation behind my willingness to lose fear of the 6 foot deep end of the swimming pool, I immediately responded:

“Because I want to jump from the forty foot”.

Which gave her a reason to smile and, to me, a reason to finally chose a way of exercising more. I went for practicing twice a week, sometimes more than that. It took me months to overcome the fear of drowning at the deep end of the pool. I was strongly convinced that, if I went to the deep end, I’d end up sinking like an old bag of heavy meat. Until the day that my instructor kindly asked me to swim only at the deep end. Kindly had the patience to explain to me how the human skull is the secret of why we cannot sink, even if we try. And then I tried.

“I want you to go until the deep end. Hold on the edge and push yourself down the water until your foot touches the ground. Then, let go of the edge and watch your body come back up by itself”.

“You want me to what?”

Very anxious, almost panicking, imagining how they would explain to my family that I drowned to death in a swimming pool trying to get prepared for forty foot deep natural swimming pool. It all seemed too much. But the instructor insisted.

“Trust me on this one”.

And I did. I did trust him and my marvellous body did came up by itself.

I’ve been swimming into deep waters since. Which built up my belief that I could deal with forty foot. If I can deal with six foot, I can deal with forty foot, easily.

Lemon Squeeze.

There is only one, tiny, almost unnoticeable detail that I should mention about myself, though.

I have a prosthetic leg.

It looked back at me.

The eye of the ocean.

And I could not jump.

Because, to be honest, the eye of the ocean was really scary.

You see, the ocean has no mouth.

So It could not tell me to calm down and trust.

It could only stare back at me in disgust.