Part of my self-care regimen for depression, and also for a
slightly unhappy back, is almost daily exercise. I usually manage to get to the
gym six days a week; on the day I don’t go to the gym, I’m on my feet for four
hours, volunteering at the hospital. Because I’ve always been slow and
uncoordinated, I wouldn’t describe myself as athletic, but I have gotten to the
point where I’m reasonably fit.
I alternate walking – since weight-bearing exercise helps
prevent the osteoporosis for which I’m at risk – and lap swimming. Both
activities are also prayer disciplines for me. For years now, I’ve had a set of
mantras that I say to myself in three-three waltz time, matching the tempo of
my steps or strokes. The mantras have changed somewhat over the years. I
currently use a set of eight.
“God is good/light, life, love/I am a/child of God.”
“Come,
Holy/Spirit come/Holy life/work through me.”
“Turn my fear/into faith./Turn my pain/into praise.”
“Turn
my grief/into grace./Thank you, God/for all good.”
“Help me help/all you love,/you who love/all that lives.”
“Help me dis/cern your will/help me walk/in your ways.”
“Loving God/make me an/instrument/of your peace.”
“Make me more/loving, God/let me walk/in your peace.”
These phrases have become so automatic that it takes effort
for me to swim or walk without saying them. They transform my workouts into a
kinetic rosary. I repeat each phrase for five minutes: long enough to bring
whatever present situation it evokes into full consciousness, but not long
enough for it to become boring. The mantras keep the workouts from becoming
dull, and the physical effort required by the exercise keeps my mind from
wandering away from the mantras. The three-beat pattern keeps the entire
process balanced, ensuring that the stress of each phrase falls on alternating
steps or strokes.
When I walk – outdoors, or on a treadmill or elliptical at
the gym – I often imagine that I’m a pilgrim toiling up a mountain, an effect
heightened by my hilly neighborhood and by the steep incline I set on the
treadmill. Walking is my second-choice activity, though, because there are so
many distractions: friendly dogs and their equally friendly owners outside,
people I know stopping by at the gym to say hi, and the wall of television screens, each set to a different channel, on the exercise
floor.
In the pool, I’m completely immersed, both physically and
mentally. I find swimming more automatically calming and centering than any
other activity, with the possible exception of knitting. (If it were possible
to knit while swimming, I’d surely achieve instant transcendence.) I’ve always
loved water, especially the ocean.
I have fond memories of long beach
walks in Montauk, New York; of snorkeling with
sea turtles in Maui; of watching the sun set over the Pacific from Ocean Beach
in San Francisco.
The ocean – with its depths and currents, beauties and terrors, shallows and
depths – has always awakened in me a visceral sense of the presence of God.
A swimming pool, especially when it’s crowded with fellow
lap swimmers and watercise classes, is a far cry from the ocean, of course. But
even in this confined space, the feel of the water flowing over my body
reconnects me to my love for wider, wilder water, and for its Creator. The
patterns of sunlight dancing across the bottom of the pool remind me of the
suntracks I’ve seen glittering across Long Island Sound and Pyramid Lake,
Molokini and the Mississippi
Gulf.
In 1988, I attended the World Fantasy Convention (an annual
gathering of writers and readers of fantasy and horror literature) in London. After the
convention, I took the train up to Edinburgh,
Scotland, where
I stayed for a week, the grateful guest of renowned author Jane Yolen and her
husband. Jane and David both had work to do, so every day, I set off happily by
myself to explore the city.
On one of these rambles, I walked the Royal Mile, which ends
at Edinburgh Castle. The walk took me along narrow streets
bordered by buildings: it was a fascinating journey, but an enclosed one. When
I emerged into the parking lot of the Castle, I found myself looking over a low
wall at a far expanse, and my eyes filled with tears without my knowing why.
When I blinked away the tears, I looked into the distance
and saw sunlight glittering on the Firth of Forth. My body had responded
automatically, instinctively, to that vision, even before I consciously
understood what I was seeing. Almost twenty years later, I still think of that
moment whenever I swim, whenever I repeat the phrase, “Thank you God/for all
good.”
