The Plunge

Around mid-December, when holiday cheer is in full swing and optimism hangs in the air like strands of brightly colored lights, I plan my resolutions for the New Year - what great feats will I accomplish, what detrimental hankerings will I give up, what impulsive acts do I want others to forgive (and me to forget)? It’s a tradition many of us enthusiastically partake in as one year ends and the next approaches - a clean slate, a new start, a wiping away of the tarnish so the silver beneath can shine. And that’s what we all hope for in the coming year, isn’t it? To shine, to be our best selves and to erase the not-so best. It’s a baptism of sorts.

Most often associated with Christianity, baptism is just one of many purification rituals. Before John the Apostle made baptism a key part of his sales pitch during the first century, the Old Testament notes the Jewish rite of tevilah, which is the immersion of the body in water to remove impurities. Homer wrote of Greeks washing their hands to purify themselves before prayer – while not a full submersion, this is an example of the key role water has played in making one morally and spiritually ‘clean’. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Shintoism – and some Native American tribes, like the Cherokee - have all embraced some form of a water purification ritual, be it involving a mikveh or a lavabo, a crystal-clear lake or gently-swirling stream. Even the ubiquitous Great Flood that permeates multiple cultures’ mythologies did its job to purify on a global scale.

Raised Catholic, I was baptized as a baby because of the rigorous (and downright dismal) belief that I - along with every other human being - was born unwittingly with the dark sheen of Original Sin, compliments of Adam and Eve who took bites of the proverbial apple, ingesting a knowledge of good and evil that would infect generations of Christians in perpetuity. It was a communal affair - in the true Catholic fashion of grim silence, the entire congregation was invited to witness the priest pour water onto my squirming infant forehead, a symbolic washing away of my inherent sins. Afterwards, the celebration began as innocence was returned to my young soul so that I might go forward in life with the blind and tidy obedience Adam and Eve spectacularly failed to maintain.

But blind obedience is difficult, if not impossible, for most of us to uphold.

While we gain no moral knowledge from eating fruit these days, we do learn social mores through family, friends and broader societal interactions. From the time we can remember, swatted warnings of “don’t ever do that again” are contrasted by soothing encouragements of “keep it up, kid”, this teeter-tottering bringing us to a fulcrum of discernment so that we need not rely on others to distinguish right from wrong - we become our own judge and jury. Yet sometimes there’s a juror asleep in the back row that’s snored through the last few critical pieces of evidence.

We all make mistakes. Even when the potential repercussions are staring us back in the face, the devil’s tantalizing baritone on our left shoulder drowns out the angel’s lilting soprano on the right. When we’re children, we keep the five-dollar bill that fell from the old man’s wallet without him noticing, or we swear on our ancestors’ graves it wasn’t us who smashed the Wilson’s mailbox with an aluminum baseball bat. As teenagers, we tell our parents we’re sleeping at so-and-so’s house when we actually intend to road-trip into Manhattan, all the while chain-smoking cigarettes we stole from our mother’s purse. And as adults, we call in sick to work on a sunny day, or have one or two (or three) beers more than we should. Or we kiss someone we shouldn’t.

Why do we do the bad things we do? The reasons are infinite - but for those of us who are not sociopaths or otherwise morally incapacitated, these manifold explanations culminate in the same singular sense of guilt. And guilt is a heavy stone.

I remember my first confession - yet another purification ritual to rinse my soul clean prior to the Catholic rite of First Holy Communion. It didn’t take place in the anonymous safety of the confessional booths but in the back room where the priest and altar boys donned their robes before mass. I sat terrified in a metal folding chair across from Father Killeen -- a portly, red-nosed Irish priest who seemed larger than life to my eight-year old eyes – as he asked if there were any sins to which I’d like to confess. But it wasn’t Father Killeen I was afraid of. It was the mortal cost I would pay for my sins. While Catechism taught me about heaven, it did a spectacular job painting a searing 3-D image of Hell. And what were these moral atrocities I committed? Lying about homework, doing a crappy job washing the dishes, sassing back to my parents. In short: Nothing that should have doomed my soul to an eternity of fire and brimstone.

But when you’re eight years old, Hell is literal and fear creates a painful knot in your stomach that lasts for weeks. At the end of my confession - which was full of quivering words and bouncing knees - Father Killeen smiled, instructing me to say five Our Father’s and ten Hail Mary’s. After that, all my sins would be forgiven.

Forty-two years later, I wish it was that easy to make sins go away.

I was thirteen when I decided Catholicism - and religion in general - was not my thing (I’ll save this topic for another writing piece). What my pre-teen mind couldn’t foresee was how my insatiable curiosity, impulsiveness and inclination for doing things I really shouldn’t do would manifest in bouts of guilt that could have benefitted greatly from a simple ritual, such as prayer. Guilt needs to be squarely acknowledged and then released, even if just symbolically. Otherwise, it wreaks havoc in unhealthy, unbecoming ways. Falling on the agnostic end of the spectrum, I realized I needed a secular type of ritual or ceremony to provide the same relief prayer provides to the religiously devoted.

The first New Year’s Polar Bear Plunge at Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park was in 2008. But the tradition has far earlier roots in our country, the first recorded US event occurring in Boston in 1904. For those unfamiliar with a plunge, people donning everything from full-body costumes to bikinis run full speed into frigid winter waters, emerging just as quickly into the embracing folds of a soft, dry towel after which they stand around a blazing campfire with hot toddies in hand, congratulating one another on their shared frosty fortitude. Individually, each person has their own reason for participating - be it a dare, a bonding experience with friends, or simply there’s nothing else better to do that day. And then there are others who see the plunge as an opportunity to leave behind in the cold, lapping waters certain unwieldy things accumulated during the past year that they no longer wish to carry.

In 2013, research was done by Martin V. Day and D. Romana Bobocel which looked at the weight of a guilty conscience. They conducted several studies examining whether unethical acts increased the subjective experience of weight. As far as they knew, no prior research has been done on this. The outcome from the four separate studies they conducted, plucking subjects from the ever-eager college student population, was that actions which cause a sense of guilt led subjects to feel physically heavier than those in the control groups. And they further discovered that such feelings led subjects to deem physical activity as taking much greater effort as a result (as if they did indeed weigh more), and so motivation for certain activities waned.

I went to my first plunge in 2014 with camera in tow. Expecting scattered handfuls, I was surprised by a crowd of hundreds. The anticipation was palpable, the countdown interminable, the mad-dash a frenetic blend of grimaces, squeals and cheers. Yes - cheers. The explosion of joy shared by intimates and strangers alike was astoundingly beautiful, as if each individual’s own internal strength ignited a force within his neighbor, continuing on and on until the whole throng hummed at the same elated frequency. We are social creatures indeed.

Last December I told my friends I was going to do the Golden Gardens plunge. There were certain aspects of the past year I wanted to rid myself of and this seemed the perfect symbolic vehicle for accomplishing this. I thought that publicly announcing my intentions would hold me to these obligations. But as the New Year approached, I checked the forecast: Cold, grey, wet. An imperfect, yet classic, Seattle day. Not necessarily unexpected, nor formidable, yet I used it as an excuse — the excuse — for backing out of the Polar Bear Plunge altogether.

And so 2018 knocked at my front door. I answered wearing muddy shoes and ripped jeans, my hair a ruffled mess. In my arms, I cradled the ponderous stone of my guilt tenderly like a baby, not yet ready to let it go, as I firmly believed there were things I still had to learn from this tarnished stone, important things that would not only strengthen my biceps and back, but the vigor of my soul and heart.

I’ve lived in Seattle since 1991, long enough to be fearless of the rain. To accept the fickle weather that turns on a dime from sun to showers, from dead-still air to thrashing wind. Every holiday season, I look back on my own fickle nature - the choices I’ve made, the actions I’ve taken, the words I’ve said. And I formulate a strategy for the coming year on how to be a better person, how not to repeat the same mistakes again. It’s a tradition, this annual self-assessment, this scorecard of good vs bad. And each year I have the same hope - that the stone I carry on December 31st is not too heavy for me to cast away when the clock strikes twelve. And if ever it is too heavy, I’m optimistic I will find the strength to drag my feet into the chilly waters of Puget Sound, encouraged by a myriad of other beautifully imperfect humans, all of us letting the currents perform their rite of purification that will let us shine.