Live Your Dash

It was a mostly quiet Christmas Day for me filled with introspection.

Earlier today I attended several AA meetings in my neighborhood.  They run every hour here in Park Slope on Christmas Day.  It was something I needed, spiritual medicine.  AA is my spiritual program. 

My friend Jake was kind enough to pick me up and take me with him to the Coney Island Polar Bear swim. I did it for the first time last New Year's Day, this was my second swim, today was bit more official and much more quaint than the crowds on New Year's Day.  The water was about 43 degrees, the air slightly warmer, not by much.

We met fellow swimmers at the Coney Island Aquarium, stripped down to our bathing suits and marched out to the beach.  On the beach there were jumping jacks and a military sounding off chant.  Then we all proceeded into the icy Atlantic. 

Once in the ocean we formed a circle and held hands, growling like Polar Bears.  It was great fun, invigorating and having Jake as my guide I was able to stay in the water much longer than last time even dunking down twice to my shoulders. 

If any photos appear I'll post them, there was a news crew and a photographer that shot quite a bit of me.  Maybe I don't looks so bad for a 39 1/2 year old Polar Bear Cub in training....

I wanted to share something that my friend Jake told me today.  I promised to pass this on.

Warner Herzog was interviewing a man who worked as an executioner in a prison.  The man had been responsible for the death of over a hundred people as part of his job.  An execution he performed changed something in him, he could no longer do his job, it became his last execution.  The man quit and walked away from the pension he had spent his life earning.  He said he only wanted to "live his dash".  Herzog asked what that meant, the man explained, "When we are dead, on the grave stone they write the date you were born, a dash and the date you died.  The dash was everything that came in between," he only wanted to live his "dash".

Something in that story has spoken to me in the most simple way. 

Today I went on my 2nd polar bear swim at Coney Island.  

I'm living my dash, are you? 

Shanon