Swimming in the Wild Will Change You

Photographs by Gregg Segal

Some months ago, as the weather was first turning warm, I was out walking along the Mill River in New Haven when I saw a young man emerge from the water. He appeared to have gone for a swim wearing nothing more than boxer briefs. The sight was shocking; the river had barely thawed, and I’d always thought the unspoken rule about urban rivers was that you didn’t get into them (especially not half naked). This particular stretch at the base of East Rock Park looked idyllic enough, with willows and elms growing along its banks, but around the bend, the water passed through an industrial area with rotting factories and massive dunes of road salt.

I asked him why he had decided to swim there. Given that a year ago, a sewage spill had dumped more than 2 million tons of waste into the river and the Long Island Sound, and signs had been posted telling people not to get close, I imagined he would address my surprise head-on. But his response was remarkably unneurotic. “This was here, and I felt like swimming,” he said dreamily. I wanted to ask him whether he was worried about getting a rash, or cholera, but didn’t. After he left, I put my hand in the water and considered the river anew. Could I imagine myself going for a swim in this spot?

I might have once filed away under , but a year of quarantining has revealed that all kinds of previously unthinkable hobbies are viable, even welcome, forms of leisure. One unforeseen boon of the pandemic has been a newfound attunement to the local, as restricted travel has