Now the rest of the story. Though Brad survived, the marriage did not. A year-and-a-half away from her 50th birthday, Washington writes that her life “felt constrained and constraining, dull and joyless, full of doing for others while neglecting myself.”
So she “hatched the idea for what I came to call the 50 Dunks Project. My plan was to get in fifty different natural bodies of water before turning fifty in October 2022…. However I got in the water, I hoped it might dissolve my midlife stagnation.” The liberation process is told in “Midstream: A Life Remade In 50 Swims” ($27.95 in hardcover from Beacon Press; also for Amazon Kindle).
Both Kate and Brad were PhD’s with English degrees and they had two daughters. Kate was devastated when her mother died by suicide, and Brad’s new job meant Kate had to take on childcare responsibilities. And Brad’s cancer did not so much as change everything, but revealed a dark truth: “Our tendrils were diverging well before Brad was sick, with separate interests and the pull of careers, but afterward it was like we were strangers.”
During the Dunk Project (and counseling) it became clear the marriage wouldn’t survive. All 50 swims are listed, though only some key encounters with the freeing waters are given in the chapters. Dunks include Salmon Hole in Upper Bidwell Park; Bear Hole; One Mile; Butte Creek. “I had become embodied again,” she writes, “after years of alienation.”
With great insight, Washington confronts “my fears and dissatisfaction with myself and my choices.”
Kate Washington is Nancy Wiegman’s guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf on Northstate Public Radio, mynspr.org, Wednesday, July 15 at 10:00 a.m., repeated Sunday, July 19 at 8:00 p.m. The Bookstore in downtown Chico will be holding a creekside book launch party and author signing July 23; contact the store for details.
