Selfie with shadow on the beach
I wore my swirly purple Speedo for a two-hour swim in the Bay on Saturday.
It was the morning of a joint Pride celebration with my club, the South End, and the Dolphin Club next door. Fifty or sixty of us were going to swim from a bayside beach about a mile away, back to the beach between our two clubs, where rainbow flags had been strung over the water between the docks. It would be a quick swim, on a building flood current, and most people would finish in half an hour or less.
But for me, it was also a training day, when I was planning to do the first of a series of increasingly long weekly swims designed to increase my swimming endurance and cold tolerance in preparation for a 6.5-mile Bay swim July 9. So I hit on the idea of swimming from the club to the swim’s official start, joining the crowd that had walked there, and then swimming back.
Why the purple Speedo? That was my nod to Gay Pride: A small recognition of the freedoms won by gay rights and LGBTQ activists in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and beyond. They dared to express themselves in ways that were dangerous to their reputations, their careers, and even their lives. Because of their work, people in this country are now freer than ever to express their love no matter which way it inclines.
My life is richer because the queer people I know and love can be true to themselves. But I also have personally benefitted from this freedom, because as a mostly heterosexual male it takes the pressure off me to constantly defend and represent my own “straight” sexuality.
For the swim, a kayaker, Gary Maier, had agreed to accompany me, and we estimated it would take about an hour to do the reverse swim, given that we didn’t expect much resistance from the current. So I did a loop around Aquatic Park to start, and then Gary and I set out toward Coghlan’s Beach.
Immediately on coming out of the cove and into the Bay, it was clear that the flood had already started. It wasn’t strong, but I wasn’t being carried along by the last of the ebb as expected. What’s more, a headwind was whipping up one- to two-foot waves. Not a big deal except I couldn’t find a rhythm that let me breathe comfortably, so, as I’ve done in similar situations in the past, I frequently switched to breaststroke. That stroke allows me to glide through and under the waves and breathe comfortably, but it’s noticeably slower.
My speed slowed still further as the flood built up against me. With fifteen minutes to go before the start I was still a quarter mile away, and, as I stopped to drink a bit of orange juice that Gary was carrying for me, I said: I don’t think we’re going to make it in time. Indeed, I was still about 100 or 200 yards away when I heard the honk of the air horn signaling the start of the swim. A few minutes later a could see a river of swimmers splashing along in our direction.
I swam out to where they were and turned right, joining the river. I returned back to where I started in about half the time it took me to get out there. I didn’t reach the official start at Coghlan’s Beach, but it didn’t matter, since I got my two-hour swim in, it was a reasonably tough one covering about 2.5 miles, and I felt good about it.
The Pride celebration continued at the South End with brunch and dancing to disco music on the patio, under the colorful flags and a multitude of multicolored balloons. I thought about a man I talked to on the beach, just before starting out that morning. He had moved to San Francisco in 1972. It was a fantastic time, he said. The city was so accepting and so full of love. And, he added, laughing, everyone was having sex and doing drugs. I smiled. I was a kid in the 1970s, but even in Ohio we’d heard about how much fun they were having out in San Francisco.
There’s no doubt that a purple, glittery Speedo would have gotten me called names when I was that kid back in Ohio. In fact, I did get called names: for wearing an earring, for not wearing the right clothes, for having funny hair, for not walking in a masculine enough way, for being terrible at sports. Today, that purple Speedo might raise an eyebrow (because let’s face it, it’s a bit outré) but it’s not going to make anyone call me names or make assumptions about me. Or if they did make assumptions, who cares?
I have more freedom, and we all have more freedom, thanks to LGBTQ activists, and for that I’m grateful.
I’m writing one or two posts a week about my journey towards a 6.5-mile swim in SF Bay on July 9. Would you like to follow along? Just give me your email address here: ↓ ↓
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