Grit

The last time Diana Nyad tried to swim from Cuba to Florida I thought `Enough!' Everything about it was far too punishing, too risky and seemingly impossible.

And then yesterday, the news came that she finished the swim at 64. On her fifth try, she did it.

One hundred and ten miles from Havana to the Keys through cross currents and waters that dropped at night to dangerously low temperatures. She had to out-fox tides and sharks, exhaustion and a particularly nasty box jellyfish.

It took years and ingenuity, relentless drive, an abidingly loyal team and a grit I admire more than anything else. Each time she shook her head NO at those of us who thought, `Impossible' and put on her suit and got back in.

Perhaps that's one thing I love best about living, how other people's quests carry us and remind us, we have to get back in too. We have to head toward whatever it is we are after.

Why? I wondered back when she first tried it and, particularly, the time before this one. But I get it now.

Why put a rover on Mars? Why run a marathon or stare down a blank page or put that first brush to canvas? Why plant rows and rows of seeds or buy that old car for the chance of having a run at rehabbing that old engine?

Because the long  night in the cold tossed seas is now in the distance and the outline of the shore is just ahead, right there.

                                                 ~                                          ~

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/sports/nyad-completes-cuba-to-florida-swim.html?hp&_r=0

http://www.diananyad.com/