Returning to Water
A resurfaced Facebook memory, a remarkable short film by a friend, and a reminder of what swimming has meant to me since childhood — especially after the losses of both of my parents.
Facebook “Memories” can be strange — we don’t decide which ones will appear, the algorithm does — but every now and then, they’ll remind me of something important. On Monday morning, the day after Mother’s Day, one of them resurfaced a post I wrote two years ago after seeing a short documentary called Daisy by my friend Catalina Kulczar-Marin. Rereading my words now, after spending the past week thinking and writing about parents, grief, and inheritance, memories of that whole day came flooding back.
Released in 2023, Daisy has continued touring the international film festival circuit, picking up awards and special mentions along the way. The poetic, 30-minute documentary draws from Caty’s own family history, exploring migration, loss, memory, and trauma across generations and borders. Swimming — something that’s hugely important to me — runs throughout the film. Caty has long been a swimmer herself, and water is deeply embedded into her documentary’s visual language.
But what came back most clearly in my post about the film was the way the day of the screening had unfolded, with one experience flowing directly into the next.
Here’s what I wrote at the time:
Some days the Universe just screams at us. Today, for me, it’s been extra loud.
This morning, I went to a screening of Daisy, a powerful short documentary by a dear friend, Catalina Kulczar-Marin. Caty is a true visual poet, as her photography and filmmaking have long shown. She’s also a longtime swimmer who, years ago, sometimes accompanied a friend and me to the Dowd YMCA in Charlotte for our morning laps. In Daisy, Caty uses swimming as both metaphor and literal lifeline in telling the story of the generational family trauma that ultimately resulted in her beloved mother’s death by suicide. If you get the chance, go see this film. It’s extraordinary.
Coincidentally, I just finished writing an essay for the forthcoming July issue of Our State on how, from very early in my own childhood, swimming was the bond connecting my father and me, and how swimming has helped in my healing process since his death in December. The circumstances are completely different — Caty’s story spans continents and cultures; mine is very North Carolina-centric — but the healing power of water is the same. To say that I was moved by Caty’s film would be a vast understatement.
The screening of Daisy was part of a larger festival of films on mental health. Another short doc, By My Side, was on the healing power of service dogs in treating PTSD among military service men and women.
Here’s how the Universe kept screaming: When I left the theater and got into my car to head over to the Keith Family YMCA to swim my laps, I turned on the radio to sounds of bubbling water. NPR was doing a story on a young swimmer who died in the pool — doing what kept her grounded in this world — after having suffered a seizure. Then, when I got to the YMCA’s locker room, a service dog was sitting outside the shower area waiting on the human it was tasked with helping. I swam my laps, thinking of all of this with every stroke, every breath.
Everything is connected. Nothing is random.
Thank you, Caty. It was so, so good to see you after so many years. You, your warmth, and your extraordinary art brought great depth to my day.
A lot has changed for me since I wrote those words in May 2024. For one, I’m not swimming nearly as much these days. Part of that is practical: My life is much fuller now than it was then. My partner, Tandra, and her daughters have moved in with me, and we’ve been traveling a lot together and trying to combine our homes and our lives. I’ve also begun spending more of my time at the YMCA working out with a trainer than disappearing into the solitary routine of lap swimming.
But seeing that Facebook memory reminded me how important swimming has always been to me, long before my father died. It was one of the things that connected us from my earliest childhood. After both his death and my mother’s, the pool became a place where I could think clearly, ease my mind, and keep moving forward, one stroke at a time. That’s one reason Daisy hit me so hard when I first saw it.
In any case, remembering that day has convinced me of one thing: I need to get back into the pool again.
(If you’d like to read more about what swimming has meant to me over the years, including its connection to my dad, you can find the essay I mentioned above at this Our State link.)
Always look for the signs...they will be there.