Water is the oldest promise we have. Baptism, ablution, the plunge that separates who you were from who you're about to be. Every summer we go back to it — lakes, rivers, the cold shock of an ocean in June — as if some part of us still believes the water knows something.

Kate Washington, on a recent California Sun Podcast, talks to me about the fifty immersions she did before her fiftieth birthday, after caregiving and motherhood and a dissolving marriage had emptied her out. The author of "Midstream: A Life Remade in 50 Swims" on depletion, endurance, and what it means to surface changed.

Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe