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Finding the language for our lived experience.
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The human eye loves movement.
It's late June. I'm standing watching a row of big old oak trees. Each time the wind picks up, the trees break into a frothy dance. The leaves are full and strong, yet still feathery. There is not yet any of the crinkliness that will begin to creep in next month.
As I watch the leaves, I notice how they turn from dark green to blue-green to silver as the wind flips the leaves back to front, front to back.
Over my head, birds are surfing in the wind, catching a current in the breeze, swooping down and around. It feels like the countryside is dancing, breathing in and out, swaying and swinging. The whole scene feels like a scene from a Rococo painting, or maybe a tapestry.
Now this is soft fascination, I think to myself.
It's a new-to-me phrase that explains something I have long recognised but never known how to describe. Soft fascination describes how gentle movement in nature can hold our attention without demanding it.
I want to stand here and drink it all in. Soft fascination. I find it so satisfying when I learn a word or phrase to describe something that I already know but haven't had the words for before.
"Mam, my throat hurts." A small voice tugs me back to reality.
"It's all dry and scratchy."
"Oh, OK. I'm so sorry," I say. "We can go home now."
***
Living in a family of hay fever sufferers means I rarely get to linger for long in midsummer meadows or by hedgerows with old trees heavy with swirling leaves. Grass pollen allergies have been a real challenge this year. Spending too long in the countryside around midsummer almost guarantees streaming eyes, scratchy throats and sneezing fits.
On the heaviest pollen days, we look for places where the grass cannot find us. And the very best refuge we have found is underwater.
***
Sitting in the shallow water, the eldest and I dip our snorkels and masks into the salt water, washing away a winter's worth of dust and cobwebs. We take the mouthpieces apart and rinse each piece separately.
It is a warm, sunny Sunday and I am about to bring her snorkelling for the first time. I cannot quite work out why we have never done this together before.
Relentless hay fever has worn her down over the past few weeks. Her eyes have been swollen, red and itchy. She sneezes constantly. Her throat is aching. She is exhausted every night. My hope is that the sea might help reset her allergies and her frustration.
As we reassemble our snorkels, I explain that the first thing to learn about snorkelling is rhythm and breathing.
I tell her that when I snorkel I like to repeat two words in my head. "Sometimes it's 'swish, swash, swish, swash' and it helps me find my rhythm for breathing. In, out. Slowly, slowly. Swish, swash."
"Why?"
"I'm not really sure," I admit. "I think it gives my mind something to do and helps me keep my breathing rhythm. Then I can stop thinking about breathing and just enjoy floating and looking."
"OK," she says.
I pull on my flippers and walk backwards into the water.
She watches me for a moment before walking in normally with her shorter swimming-pool flippers.
"Mam, you look a bit crazy." She laughs.
"That's ok", I say
***
When we get into knee-deep water, we both lie on our backs and float for a moment, happy to be reunited with the sea.
After a few seconds of floating, we come onto our knees, and I explain some simple snorkelling hand signals. A thumbs up means, "I'm happy. I want to keep going." Then, pointing upwards with my hand, this means, "Let's take a break." We are going to stay well within our depth in shallow water today, but I know she will enjoy the feeling of having our own underwater secret language.
I feel the specialness of this moment, sharing something I love so much with her.
Masks on. Snorkels on. Swish, swash. Slowly. Away we go.
She swims so close to me that our shoulders touch as we move in tandem over the pale sandy seabed. Below us, the water is clear until a wave breaks, lifting the sand into a soft cloud before it settles again.
I am just beginning to relax into it when I see she is using one of our hand signals. She is pointing upwards.
We surface together.
"Is everything OK?"
"Yes," she says, almost breathless with excitement. "I don't just like it. I really love it."
I laugh with relief.
"And what did you want to tell me?"
"Just that."
***
For some time, we practice swimming back and forth, parallel to the shore. Mainly, we keep our hands by our sides. Now and then one of us picks up a shell or a piece of seaweed floating in the water and shows it to the other. She catches a delicate fragment of coral seaweed drifting towards her like a piece of lace caught in the current. Even through our masks, I can feel her pure delight.
I've noticed recently that I do a lot of my design problem-solving while swimming. Somehow, when I'm moving and less focused on trying to think, I feel like my mind becomes a much bigger room. And with more space, the same pieces of furniture can be arranged in entirely different ways. Like as if the ideas are all still there, but suddenly there's enough space to arrange them into new permutations and combinations.
When we stop for a rest, her face is beaming. We talk about what we have seen: the seaweeds swaying with the swell, the lines of sunlight passing through the water, the sand lifting and settling as each wave rolls overhead. A bit like the swaying seaweed, she is a child who is most herself in water.
"And I'm using my own words," she says. "It's more huuuh... tshhh... huuuh... tshhh."
"Oh, perfect. And do you think it helps?"
"...Yes."
I am so proud she has taken to snorkelling even faster than I expected that my mind jumps to the next stage.
"Should we try to swim over the seaweed beds?!"
"Yes!" She nods enthusiastically.
***
A few metres over to our right, the seabed changes. The water darkens as rocks and seaweed replace the soft sand. Over here the sea feels noticeably different: colder, darker … a bit mysterious. I get excited because I know this is where we might find crabs, dogfish, anemones, starfish and all sorts of colour and movement. The seaweed wracks swirl intensely with each passing wave. There is such a different energy here.
And then I sense her hesitation.
I point upwards, and we surface.
"What do you think?"
"I like it," she says. "It's just... it's a bit... it's a lot."
"A bit overwhelming?"
She nods.
"I don't really want to swim over the dark seaweed," she admits.
"We don't have to," I say.
Hands by our sides, we float back across the clear water, watching the sandy seabed beneath us fluff up and settle with each soft wave.
***
Later as we take off our snorkels, masks and flippers, we sit again in the shallow water chatting.
"It's like being inside a nature documentary," she says. "It's like your mask is the camera and you're looking through it."
"I know," I say. "Sometimes I think about how all that's happening all the time, just beneath the surface. Imagine. It never stops. The seaweed is always there swishing and swaying away, whether we're watching it or not. Even in the middle of winter, when we are all in bed asleep, or when you're in school doing maths, it's still out here swirling away."
"But I think my favourite bit is just being underwater for so long," she says. "It feels like what it would be like if I could really breathe underwater."
And then I realise it has worked. The frustration of the past two weeks of her hay fever has washed away.
"Just wait until go snorkelling at the seaweed beds at out Keem!" I tell her. "You'll love it." And then I correct myself. Slowly, slowly I remind myself. "But we'll practise here in the shallower water a few more times first." I promise.
Walking back across the beach, it takes a millisecond before my legs remember how to move without flippers.
***
We all stay at the beach until late evening, watching the tide, the light and the waves and hiding from the pollen.
Driving home, I notice the long meadow fields are being cut and baled into winter food for the cattle.
Our three-year-old notices too.
"John Deere! John Deere!" He points at the green and yellow tractors racing across the fields, reducing the long fluffy grasses to neat rows and bales.
Part of me mourns the end of those tall, swaying, flower-filled fields. But honestly another part feels relief that the worst of grass pollen season might be nearly behind us.
***
A few days later, I find the eldest sitting writing in her notebook.
She pauses and looks up. "Mam - what's the difference between glittering and sparkling?"
I smile, realising I'm not the only one in this family who loves to find the exact right word to describe something.
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Words: Jo Anne Butler
Photography: Gearoid Muldowney
Notes: Learn more about Soft Fascination and Attention Restoration Theory here
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