Catherine Joy White
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
I was bouncing in my car seat with this untameable excitement, and it felt like freedom. So we pulled up in the car park, and I made my way to this leisure center, taking in its bright lights and these loud voices and this sharp tang of chlorine. And it's a leisure center, right, in rural East Midlands. But to me, it felt like Disneyland.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And I kind of got in there, and I got changed in the cubicle, and I made my way to the edge of the pool, taking extra care to walk, not run, even though every single part of me, I didn't just want to run, I wanted to fly. And when I got in that water for the first time, that's exactly what it felt like. And I swam whenever and wherever I could.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
Lakes, the swimming lessons, I learned to snorkel, and then later to scuba dive, because that wasn't enough. I just loved it. But then fast forward 10 years and that childhood jubilation has become locked in a prison of my teenage body. So puberty is happening and the thought of stripping down, much like the Jamaican booty shorts, in a swimsuit every week was a form of fresh hell.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And it wasn't just these changes to my body, but I also relaxed my hair at that time to make it really straight because that was the cool thing to do. And of course, relaxer is destroyed the moment water goes anywhere near it. But if I didn't relax my hair, then not only would I be ridiculed at school, but my swimming cap wouldn't fit over my afro.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
So I was sort of in a lose-lose situation and I became really disillusioned and miserable with it all. I looked around and I thought, there's no one here who looks like me. I don't fit here. So I stopped. Swimming's not for me. In January 2020, just as the earliest strains of coronavirus were being reported at the bottom of our weekly news cycle, I unexpectedly lost my uncle Delroy.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And it was so unexpected that when I got that news, all I could say was, What? Because we'd just been together at Christmas, which was 10 days earlier, and we'd had the annual Christmas quiz, and he'd been quiz master, and we'd had this big argument about Stormzy, of all things. And he kind of helmed our family since we'd lost our grandfather.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
So it just made no sense to me that he was no longer there. And I fell apart. I think my family fell apart. And then weeks later, we're in a global pandemic. The world fell apart. And I developed this sort of thing that was just pushing down on my chest. And at every moment, I felt like I was looking behind, looking over my shoulder, just waiting for this next bad thing to happen.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
Because something bad was happening, I was sure of it. But then I would try and reassure myself I'm a positive person. No, no, no, you're fine. You're absolutely fine because the worst possible thing has already happened. So, okay, deep breaths. And then in January 2021, one year later, I got a message in a group chat with my friends.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And I still remember this really surreal detail of an apology for the way the message was being conveyed, not for the actual message itself. And the message said that my friend Simon had ended his life by suicide. And, well, I couldn't utter the word what this time because it was beyond all comprehension. So... I just paused.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
I wanted to scream, but I couldn't, because this thing was weighing deeper and deeper on my chest. And in lockdown, there was no other option available to me, so I walked. And I walked every day, and I passed this lake. And it became quite intriguing to me. It was kind of vast and mysterious and imposing, and I went back to it again and again and again. And one day, I stopped at this lake,
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
I looked at it, and I just thought, I've got to get in. And it was an icy English January, so there wasn't really anyone else around. But I still had my teenage fears in the back of my head, so I sort of glanced in the bushes, made sure there was no creepy stalker lurking. And stripped off my clothes, bra and pants, and I got in. Oh my God, it was freezing.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
Like a thousand needles stabbing every single inch of my body, freezing. But as I sort of gasped for breath and tried to remember those motions that I'd been taught all those years earlier, I felt something. So I went back the next morning. in proper swimsuit this time. And I felt it again. And I went back again the next day and the next. And days turned into weeks.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And one day I'm in this routine and I'm swimming and something happens with that same thing. And it came up and up and up. And I just started to sob. And I don't know if anyone's actually experienced the feeling of crying in a body of water before, but it's actually quite hard to stay afloat. So I was sort of panicking and swam to the shore because I didn't want to drown.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And I got to the shore, and I sat with my arms around my knees, and I cried like a baby. But I knew in that moment I'd found something with this swimming. And I carried on and I carried on, and the weather was getting a bit warmer, and one day, there I am, headphones in, walking to the lake, and there's this woman in my spot. LAUGHTER And I'm looking at her thinking, this is my place.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
This is my space. I spend my life making polite chit-chat conversations with older people. I just want to swim. So I got in the water and swam as quickly as possible and got out so I wouldn't have to speak to her whilst we got dressed. And she's there sort of smiling at me, all kind and nice. And I just thought, leave me alone. Came back the next morning, there she is again, smiling.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And instead of kind of feeling this childhood jubilation of the five-year-old. I just felt like a five-year-old. This is my space. Why are you invading it? And every morning that week, same time, same place, there she is. And I started to just feel trapped. Anyway, one morning, we swim, we're out, same time, getting dressed as usual. And she offers me a slice of lemon cake, homemade.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
So obviously I thought to myself, I'm going to have to eat this, aren't I? And I sort of gritted my teeth preparing for this polite conversation about the weather or something that I really didn't want to have. But weirdly, she didn't seem to want to talk to me. She didn't seem to want to disturb me. And we just sat and ate the cake in peace and went home.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And I kind of began to grow quite accustomed to her presence. It felt really nice. We didn't bother each other. We were both just there doing our thing separately, but together. And then one morning I came up to the lake and she wasn't there. And the next morning she wasn't there again. And I looked for her. And I looked for her every morning that week, but she didn't come back.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And I felt that thing in my chest again coming up as I wondered what was happening to her. I didn't even know her name. And she didn't come back, so I did the only thing I knew how to do. I kept swimming. One day, I walk up to the lake, and she's back. So I'm smiling at her first this time, probably like a weirdo because I was so happy to see her.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And the next morning, probably like everyone here, I'd got into baking during lockdown and I brought her a slice of banana bread. And we shared that by the edge of the lake together. And she told me that she had buried her husband and described the socially distanced funeral broadcast over Zoom and the goodbye that she hadn't said.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And it was the strangest feeling because I was listening to her, and she's 40 years older than me, and she's German, and I've tried with all my might not to like her, but we so intrinsically understood each other. And I spoke to her about my uncle and about Simon, and she didn't ask how he did it or was he depressed or any of those questions that I'd become really resistant to hearing.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
She just listened. without need for any explanation and I realized we've both come filled with sadness to this lake and spring turns into summer and we keep swimming and now we're not just in the fair weather sort of territory we've got other swimmers coming in so we we welcome them into our weird gang of misfits. And we slowly all swim together.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
We have a WhatsApp group, and you message in it and see when you want to go for a swim, and there's always someone to swim with. And I began to realize, actually, we're all in this sort of strange place of coming to the water because we're looking for some form of connection. Now, I left that house, which was in Oxford, and that lake. I moved to London last summer.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London
And I don't swim every day anymore. I think I don't need it in that same visceral way. But every time I'm back in the water, I still feel that childhood excitement. And I feel that first icy dip. And I feel that sacred ritual of the time when I swam every morning because it kept me here. And I especially feel the healing that I found in the kindness of a stranger.