Summer swimming has been presenting a few challenges recently. Rather than dealing with extreme cold and freezing winds during my winter swims, I am now coping with jellyfish! These fascinating, unusual creatures show up unpredictably during our warmer months. I had a theory that they only appear when we are in a middle of an English heatwave, which proved correct during sunny June when I was lightly stung by a jellyfish that was caught up in seaweed. The sting only felt like a stinging nettle, which felt both reassuring and a reminder that jellyfish do exist here.
Since then, the weather has cooled and jellyfish have been gloriously absent. Until last week, when I spent three mornings in the sea with my friend's nine year old daughter, Saskia. It was her first time swimming in the sea and I pledged to teach her to canoe while they were visiting. On the second day, I calmly spotted a jellyfish washing up towards the shallows of the beach, at which point Saskia leapt from the kayak back onto the beach. It is a totally natural human reaction to move away quickly from jellyfish and I watched a number of others abandon the idea of swimming once they had heard that there was a jellyfish in situ. I wondered if an aversion to jellyfish is almost wired into our DNA as, after all, nearly all jellyfish around the world give a nasty sting and a few are potentially dangerous.
By the third day, we had found out that the type of jellyfish present are known as "moon jellyfish". The good news is that they have an extremely mild sting, which you are unlikely to even feel. But this didn't stop Saskia being unsure about being in the water on sighting three more! So instead we stood on the beach and watched the moon jellyfish. Being transparent, they are hard to see until they surface in the water and then their four purple central rings become visible. It was mesmerising watching how this ancient creature ebbed and flowed, opening up and gliding effortlessly in the sea's current. My own apprehension started to fade and I felt some fondness and acceptance of this creature's presence. While I will still be cautious about swimming with moon jellyfish, I also feel more relaxed about the odd encounter. And even though some of the holiday-makers left the sea quickly, I also noticed a group of locals swimming far out from the shore as usual.
This process of calmly observing and accepting all of our different reactions to the jellyfish got me wondering if I can apply the same wisdom to the latest phase of the pandemic here in England. While many people might be enjoying the relative "freedom" of restrictions ending, I have been finding the lack of social distancing with high case numbers concerning. The supermarket has once again become more challenging with some people wearing face-masks and others not. I find myself easily irritated with comments that dismiss the number of cases each day as something we have to "get used to". The division between people's views has now become a difficult part of this pandemic experience.
My sensitive nervous system would be much more suited to New Zealand's approach to managing the pandemic rather than the latest "experiment" on attaining herd immunity that none of us know if it will be effective. Just as with the jellyfish, I am accepting my own reactions as a normal part of this unusual situation. There will be some people who are more relaxed about restrictions easing and many who are not. While I can't change government policy, I can choose to bring a more friendly, accepting approach towards how we are all dealing with this next phase of the pandemic.
"Our collective future depends on opening channels of compassion, acceptance and understanding of others." (Deepak Chopra)
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