Splish Splash. Swimming/Floating through Sag Harbor
What do Benji and I have in common? I’ll be honest: not much. But something that I found perhaps pathetically relatable was Benji’s description of his swimming capability (or lack thereof). Aside from it making me feel seen, it also summed up a lot of Benji’s mindset throughout the book: stay calm, observe, and perhaps gain some peace in solitude. Benji begins his confession just as I would (although he goes on to describe it in a much better way than I ever could): “No, I cannot swim in the conventional sense. To this day. Over the years I have learned how to generate forward movements in a liquid medium through a combination of herky-jerky flip-flapping arm-and-leg movements, but nothing that approaches the standard definition of a stroke” (Whitehead, 64). I don’t know about Benji, but I certainly had plenty of swimming lessons. I even have an above ground pool that I flail about in during the summer (it’s only five feet deep, so that I don’t…drown?). But I’ve never quite graspe...