make waves while the sun shines
One Month A Swim: May
One Month A Swim is a monthly update, where I look back on the month that was through my sea swimming, but also through the things that caught my eye and ears, and most importantly, my heart. If you’re new to Another World is Possible, you are so welcome! And if you’re not so new, thank you for being here!
PS. May has been a very full month, and this bumper newsletter will be clipped by your email provider. Please read it in your browser or in the Substack app.
I want to tell you about last Sunday’s swim.
On the way back from a family do in the west of Ireland, we had a swim stop at Lough Owel (Loch Uail), Co Westmeath, which stretches right by the N4, close to Mullingar. Brian was driving. When he asked whether to go for a dip now or back in Greystones the next morning, I said, almost without flinching (why on earth is it still so hard to say what I want?): I want to swim in the lake because we’ll never get another day like this.
It was another glorious summer day, perhaps the most glorious of all, each feeling more and more like a precious gift, slipping through our fingers; surely, it must be the last, please make it not be the last.
When we reached the car park, high above the lake, Lough Owel and the outstreched wings of the Lake Angel sculpture were aglow with peach sunset light beneath soft blue sky.
A flight of concrete stairs leads down to the shore. Lough Owel is a popular, old style swimming spot with tiered seating by the water’s edge and a long concrete and metal jetty leading out to the famous diving boards. It was busy with families and teenagers soaking in the balmy evening light. A welcome hush settled down when the boys with the loud music speaker upped camp and left.
Golden orange sunset light shimmered over the clear, still water, rippled only by the breaststroke of a lone swimmer.
E was the first down the old metal ladder. (Diving boards were closed due to low water level.) When I swam out, he followed. Then Brian. We swam in liquid gold as a benevolent sun slowly glided down the western sky. Brian and E played and messed; I swam and floated, eventually putting my face in – a thank you to the water for the welcome. After many years of driving by without stopping, we swam in Lough Owel, and it felt like summer in France.
It was another swim spot ticked off the swim map of Ireland, and the eigth swim in as many days.
Early in the month, my sister stayed with us for a week, and the summer weather made it very easy to show her around the patch of Irish soil we call home, from the mountains to the sea.
Driving home after picking her up from the airport, I told her about the SELKIE CIRCLE. The very next day, the first of many glorious days, we walked the Glen Beach cliff walk, all the way to the sparkling crescent beach where it all started (read all about it here). We spotted two seals bobbing and gliding in the turquoise sea. At the very end, back at the pebble beach where our walk began, I slid into the clearest, bluest water, as a pair of guillemots flew over my head.
Is there a name for swimming under a rainbow? one of the Seagirls asked in our group chat.
It was lashing rain when my sister and I left the house at 8.30pm to attempt a full moon swim (me,not her!). My friend Joanne was the only Seagirl not put off by the weather. Sitting on the wet coarse sand of the South Beach, we waited until 9pm to go in. The sea was deep blue beneath a golden western sky, slowly clearing after the rain. There were squeals and smiles and laughter when another Seagirl belatedly joined us in the water for a quick and bouncy dip.
Some time later, I spotted a red shimmer over the sea to the south. I only mentioned it when it became clear it wasn’t just my eyes, but the rising Flower Moon. Or rather, Rainbow Moon. She looked like the rising sun – so red through the dark blue grey clouds of dusk. We watched her rise over the sea, a red orange glow sometimes sliced by a band of cloud. Red she still glowed when I took a video of her trail of light over the darkened sea.
I didn’t know the moon rises, my sister said. Back home, she’s only ever high above the hills; we don’t know where she comes from.
The next day, we went for a walk in the upper valley of Glendalough, and ended up hiking the 9km Spinc & Glenealo trail – one of my favourite hikes in Wicklow, if not the whole of Ireland.
This time, for the first time, I bathed in a river pool on the Glenealo River that cascades down the valley and into the Upper Lake – the very same lake I swam 1,500 metres in last September. I had come prepared, you see: bikini under my outdoor clothes, thin towel and poncho in my backpack. I inched my way into the clear bright water on slippery, river-worn rocks, and I paddle-swam on the side of the mountain under the bemused eye of the resident wild duck.
Three days later, I got up at 3.15am (!) to take my sister to the airport. Back in Greystones at the same time her 6am flight was about to take off, I went for a solo swim. The cove was deserted but for two swimmers in the water and one woman busy journalling on the beach.
The risen sun was hidden behind a wispy cloud and there was a golden glow to the slightly heaving, dancing sea – no cold to it, and it felt soft. Suspended between sea and sky, I swam, bobbed like a seal, breathed out.
Unhurriedly, I made my way home after taking photos of sea thrift and scurvy grass quivering in the morning breeze, backlit by a slanted, cloud-softened light. By then, my sister flew through that same cloud somewhere in the eastern sky, also on her way home.
In other news…
As I said at the start of this newsletter, May has been a very full, very busy month. So here goes–
+ I came back from my first ever writing retreat, hosted by Alice Kinsella at the gorgeous Lough Lannagh Holiday Village, Co Mayo, itching to crack on with a piece I started shaping, and simultaneously crying out for rest. I have been desk-bound ever since, working away on said piece, but I will soon write more about that amazing experience – watch this space!
+ Two days before I went on the aforementioned writing retreat, I received an unprompted, unexpected birthday gift from the one and only
. I was moved more than I can say by this celebration of “swimming in abundance” and her poem, titled Retreat, all about women's circles and wild swimming – so much to be grateful for, still, in this broken, breaking world.+ The inaugural SELKIE CIRCLE has reached the midway point, and I am so damn proud of the safe and sacred space it has turned out to be. Week in, week out, I get to witness an amazing sense of belonging. Over the course of just four sessions together, a beautiful, intimate community has been born. It’s in the way we hold space for each other, listen quietly and intently, and witness each other in our open-hearted vulnerability – and it’s beautiful.
+ I jumped at the chance of sharing my story of the sea and what the Selkie’s tale means to me, when author-publisher Lucy H Pearce of Womancraft Publishing called out for contributions to an upcoming episode of her Creative Magic podcast, dedicated to She of the Sea, one of my touchstone books of the past few years. Way out of my comfort zone, but I did it!
+ On the topic of submissions… I was about to withdraw an essay I submitted to Motherlore Magazine when
emailed me to say it will appear in the next issue. Lesson learned: don’t listen to the nay-sayers in your head!+ Last but not least, Nurture: A Story of Body & Belonging, by my friend and soul sister
, is about to make its way into the world! (You can pre-order it now here.) I’ve had the immense honour to read along as this beautiful and tender memoir took shape, step by step, word by word, over the last couple of years, and trust me when I say that it will speak directly to your heart.
Friends,
As ever, thank you for spending time with my words – it truly means the world!
Until next time… Please mind yourself and each other in these heartbreaking times.
Much love,
Annette
In May I loved…
The Episode: A true story of loss, madness and healing, by Mary Ann Kenny (2025)
It’s not every day that you get invited to a book launch in Dublin’s legendary bookshop Hodges Figgis, by an author who happens to be a long-time friend and whose story you played a small part in. Yet that’s exactly what happened: a few weeks back, I received a message from Mary Ann inviting us to the launch of her memoir, The Episode, about what happened to her in 2015 at the hands of the Irish mental heath service, in the aftermath of her beloved husband John’s death.
It had been a few years since we last saw each other, but Mary Ann hugged me when she saw us, delighted that we’d come with L, our eldest, a good friend of her own son since they were 5 years old. A few minutes later, she gave a deeply moving tribute to John, talking about his strong sense of justice and how he would have been incensed at how she was treated. I welled up. It was strange, and strangely fitting, that many people in the room also were at his funeral ten years ago.
I have now read Mary Ann’s book. It is an unflinching indictment of the medical approach to mental health still prevalent in Ireland and beyond, but mostly, it is the story of heartbreaking loss and remarkable recovery, of suffering made meaningful. I am in awe of her strength and determination. John would have been so proud of her.
haar, a post by
of : a beautiful braided essay on the sea fog that rolls in from the North Sea and alternatives to the rational, scientific, material worldview – because “consciousness might be a fundamental and ubiquitous property of the universe, where all things are conscious.”The Boundaries between Protest and Art, Ep. 403 of the Blindboy Podcast: Blindboy on the so-called ‘Kneecap controversy’, the ongoing genocide in Palestine, whether protesting is safe, and plenty more besides. A must listen.
spell for a day of action, by adrienne maree brown
tides turn because we turn them minds change because we change them hearts open through grief that becomes action that becomes portal until entire generations are liberated may our actions today free us all from apartheid
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so glad you didn't withdraw it!
What a lovely surprise to see the fabulous Helen’s retreat print that also sits proudly on my wall as a reminder of a very special time I had with her & our group 💕