Diving In

And links to my upcoming workshops and talks

Me, at Lake Grace in Chaska, Minnesota, 1976ish.

Hello friends,

Growing up in Minnesota, summer meant swimming to me. I’m not talking about an occasional dip in the lake. I’m talking about living in my swimsuit night and day. It wasn’t until I was an adult and had moved away from my beloved Land of 10,000 Lakes that I realized not everyone grew up with a body of water around every bend. Even when my mom and siblings and I lived in a series of low-rent apartment complexes and we were so broke that being down to our last dollar was a weekly occurrence, we always had the luxury of a shimmering lake with a sandy beach just down the hill.

From late May to early September in those years, Lake Grace was the center of our universe. My siblings and I went there even when we were forbidden to by our mother, who didn’t want us swimming without supervision when she was away at work in a factory or a restaurant, depending on the job or the year. We were technically too young to be left unsupervised in the apartment too, but it was the 70s and my mom couldn’t afford a sitter, and she’d made a pact with all the other single moms in the apartment complex to look out for each other’s kids.

But no one looked too hard. After our mother departed, my brother and sister and I immediately and gleefully raced barefoot down the hill, vowing to keep our secret, knowing that no matter what, we’d take care of each other. The three of us, a tiny school of fish to whom no harm could come.

In Lake Grace, we learned to swim without the benefit of lessons, progressing, by trial and error, from the doggy paddle to the front crawl to the back stroke to our own flailing version of the butterfly, which we’d gleaned from watching the Olympics. Together, my sister and I worked up the nerve to swim all the way out to the wooden dock that was anchored in the deep part of the lake, leaving our brother in the shallow end, with the lifeguard keeping watch. The dock is where the big kids gathered, sunning themselves and periodically rising to push each other into the water or leap there themselves in great splashing cannonballs or tidy elegant dives. My sister and I, still in elementary school, watched them in awe as we shivered, fresh out of the water, having survived the long swim. We dangled our legs over the edge of the dock until we were warm and almost dry again and we could work up the courage to jump into the lake and swim back to our little brother.

We swam in other lakes too, in part because our mother encouraged us to do as she did and wear our swimsuits underneath our clothes whenever we were out and about, so any time the opportunity presented itself, we could strip down and dive in. Which was often. My hair was always wet or about to get wet. My shoulders were eternally marked by the tug of my spaghetti straps. There is no scent that reminds me more of summer—and perhaps of my entire childhood—than the vegetal, musty, turtle waft of a swimsuit damp with lake water.

My mother in one of her classic summer, swim-ready outfits, 1980ish.

When my own kids were young I was frantic to get them into lakes, though they were harder to come by in Portland, Oregon, requiring a drive outside the city, which often enough ended up being too daunting a task. It was a roadtrip rather than a race down the hill. My kids learned how to swim in the city’s community center pools, taking lessons over the course of few years, progressing from Goldfish to Penguins to Otters to Seals to Sea Lions to Dolphins, while their father and I cheered them on poolside and, afterwards, got in to swim with them to practice what they’d learned.

Then, over time, I kind of forgot about swimming. I liked it in theory, but in practice it seemed like it had become too much of a hassle. It was too far, too cold, too windy, too chlorinated, too rocky, too crowded, too hard to find a parking spot, and definitely too much of an ordeal to squiggle into and out of a swimsuit. It isn’t that I stopped swimming entirely—I managed to get some glorious swimming in a couple of times on Gabriola Island last summer—but, on the whole, swimming rather significantly fell off for me. It became a rare thing over the past dozen years, an annual-ish event. Like drinking egg nog or getting my eyes checked.

But something shifted this summer. I found what I thought I’d lost. I got my body into the water again. And it was FUN.

Wading into Ossawinnamakee Lake in northern Minnesota with my kids, 2008.

In Portugal, I swam with Mary and Sarah while the three of us were recovering from the COVID we gave each other. In Greece, I swam alone and with my husband Brian and with our friends Rachel and Zayd and with all four of our collective kids and off the side of a boat with a good number of the sixty people who were taking our writing workshop. In Norway, I swam with my family and our friends Roda and Tor and their kids in the middle of Oslo.

I floated. I paddled and kicked. I waded and wavered and eventually dove in. And I remembered how I used to love to do those things. I realized that I still do.

It made me think about what mustering up the energy to dive in gives us, in a larger sense—both in the water and out of it. It rattles the bones. It makes us shiver and squeal. It wakes us up and gives us the chance to feel the kind of liberation one feels when you plunge ahead and dive in, which is another way of saying let go.

There was another kind of diving in I got to bear witness to this summer. I was in Greece to co-lead a writing workshop with Brian, Rachel, and Zayd and I felt the way I always do when I teach a workshop of the sort we did (generative). I felt like I had the mad good fortune to have the opportunity to watch a lot of people approach the edge of what thrilled or scared or intrigued or haunted or gripped them and then I got to cheer them on as they boldly dove in.

It’s an invigorating, inspiring, enlivening thing to witness. And seeing others do it makes me more ready and willing to do it again and again too.

Walking with Rachel after swimming in Greece and swimming in the Oslo Fjord with Brian.

I’m back at home in Oregon now and I plan to get some more swimming in before summer’s over, but I’m also looking ahead to fall (when Brian and I will officially be “empty nesters,” with both of our kids off at college!). I’ll be teaching a few more writing workshops in the months ahead—one is coming up soon, in early October—and also giving a couple of talks. You’ll find them listed below my signature, with links to more information if you’re interested.

I hope you’re having a good summer (or winter, to those of you in the Southern Hemisphere). I hope you find joy each day in something you love. I hope you always find the courage to dive in. And swim.

xCheryl

Links to my upcoming talks and workshops:

Sept 19: I’ll be having an on-stage conversation at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s annual Illumination gala. Tickets and details here.

Oct 4-6 (and online): I’ll be teaching a weekend writing workshop at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. Click here for the in-person workshop and here for the livestream option.

Oct 25-27 (and online): I’ll be speaking at the Writers Rising Retreat in Los Angeles (my talk is on Sat, Oct 26). Click here for both in-person and livestream options.

March 20, 2025: I’ll be giving a talk in Buffalo, NY as part of the BABEL series at the Just Buffalo Literary Center. Click here for tickets and info.

March 21-23, 2025: I’ll be teaching a weekend writing workshop at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina. Click here to register.

Sept 21-26, 2025: I’ll be the visiting guest author at the Come to Your Senses retreat in Collioure, France (hosted by the fabulous Karen Karbo and located steps away from the most lovely swimming spot!). Click here to register.

I’ll also be returning to teach a writing workshop at the Kripalu Center in Stockbridge, MA in May of 2025, but registration isn’t yet open. Check their web site (or mine) in the coming months if you’re interested in attending. There will be both in-person and online options for this workshop.