Morn Hyland, Thomas Covenant and the English Channel

[Compassion]

It's a long time since I signed up here and while I visit, I do so, it's only to read the discussions.

I signed up to ask about contacting SRRD, as I wanted to email him my thanks.

I read the first Chronicles in 1980, just before TWL was published. Remember those times? All you knew about anything in the fantasy realm was whatever appeared on the local bookshop shelves, always unexpected, always unknown. And if you lived in the middle of nowhere those arrivals were rare.

TTCC were special. But I was a teenager, and a particularly naive one at that. (I'm now a naive adult). So I was entranced by the superficial.

Years passed. Every new SRRD book brought new sorrow, joy and wonder and I got older. I read. I read and I reread. I read less fantasy as the years passed, all seeming more and more superficial, the very thing that had entranced me originally. I hated dragons. But as I got older I realised that TTCC & SRRD were anything but superficial. And not only that but in the 90s The Gap Cycle came along, to do the impossible and equal Dune.

Jump forward from that teenager. 10 years. 20 years. 30 years.

It was 7pm in August. I was two miles from France and I had been swimming for about 17 hours and it was early twlight. After 11 hours of swimming there had been an...incident, a combination of increasingly bad weather and proximity to the pilot boat, within a 30 minute period I twice got briefly trapped underneath the boat and in the struggle to extricate myself was briefly exhausted. In a critical 10 minutes of not swimming, I lost half a mile to the tide and I was trapped in the current. Though I didn't realise it myself. All I knew was France was right there, just a couple of miles away. An easy swim if it was almost anywhere else except La Manche, the Dover Strait, still the ultimate swimming test.

I was trapped in the north east current. I spent the next five and half hours trying to break through the current that is impossible for any swimmer to break through if they are in the wrong place and time, without every really realising the situation. I was in the wrong place and time.

I got closer at Calais. The oil tanks were only a few hundred metres away but the current... My crew asked for 500 yards of sprint, I think in metres. I was tired, but well-trained. I could no longer do this simple calculation as I normally would. I eventually came up with a conservative, conservative plan and decided I could sprint for 30 minutes. After 17 hours of swimming a sprint is about a 5 to 10% increase in rate. I sprinted. I failed. There was no way through.

The crew told me so. I would have to swim through another tide if I was to have a chance. Another 6 hours. The pilot would have to believe in me and risk his boat and the crew. I was right outside one of the busiest ports, in the busiest shipping shipping lane in the world, in the port exclusion zone, right where no Channel swimmer should be.

I was wearing a watch, against my experience and other's advice, but I haven't looked at it once. Time was irrelevant. Only one thing counted, to stand. In France. I never even considered I would not make it, that I would be stopped. So much of me was in this.

I failed on the sprint and I looked at my watch and I say it was 7pm and I had started swimming at 2.30am. Dark to dark. I was so far beyond my expected completion time. So I experienced despair. For a couple of minutes I was lost.

And then in that moment, against expectation, Morn Hyland and Thomas Covenant came out of the twilight.

Memory and thought isn't linear. All realisations and thought happened almost simultaneously. I did what Channel swimmers do, I kept swimming.

Four minutes later, only four, I was through. I was lost in my own mind, as distance swimmers can be; the water, the wind, the swimming, are everything. There was a 30 minute interval feed, I don't recall it but the crew told me I was through.

It took another hour to get there, there was another adventure, another part of the story to add, and the longest return to the boat in Channel history. But none of that mattered because I stood in France, having taken the slowest and most expensive way to get there. I found what I was looking for, at least for a while, before I lost it again.

In those minutes of despair, Thomas Covenant and Morn Hyland got me through and I did not reach out and touch the boat disqualifying myself. I kept swimming.

My favourite books and almost a lifetime of reading them, came to me and gave me what I needed when I needed it.

I later emailed SRRD, the only time I've contacted an author in all these years of reading and thanked him for his part in what was one of the most important and defining events of my life, something that for a time at least, gave me a sense of redemption and of myself. He did reply and was very gracious, if not, I suspect, somewhat bemused.

Living where I do on the other side of the Atlantic, still in the middle of nowhere, but a different nowhere, and given other constraints of my life, there seems little chance I'll ever meet him or get him to autograph any of my books.

Maybe one of you will meet him, and tell him that the English Channel swimmer, (the only title I'm proud of), still believes he was instrumental in my standing in France.

But it's story that I thought I'd share, I've never known any other SRRD fans and the deeply personal nature of his books seem impossible to explain to others.

It's been a long journey, 1980 to here. TC & SRRD have been with me all along the way.

[Menolly]

Nice story, Compassion.

While a definite date has not been set, Elohimfest 4 is planned for sometime in June 2014 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We are encouraging all Watchers to come. Hopefully a year out will be enough time for you to make arrangements for yourself.

Bring whichever books, questions, and thanks you wish to share.

[StevieG]

That's a fantastic story Compassion!

Your first experience with the Covenant books is very similar to mine - I was a teenager, and I just didn't get it the way I do now. I remember finishing the 2nd Chronicles and never wanting to pick up another SRD book again - they were just too intense for me, and I didn't understand the deeper meanings.

The first time I reread them, it was like reading a completely new series! So many areas that I completely missed seemed much more obvious. That's when I really became an SRD fan.

And don't get me started on the Gap series - they're the best!!

Your Channel story is very impressive. My interpretation of that story is that TC and Morn taught you that even in the most dire situations when you've endured more than you think possible, there is a way to reject despair and "just keep swimming"!

[lucimay]

He did reply and was very gracious, if not, I suspect, somewhat bemused.

heh. don't worry, everything bemuses him.






(I think his normal expression just looks like bemusement.)



but yeah, great story. I stood in france once, but I didn't get there by swimming. good job!

[wayfriend]

Thanks for sharing your story with us, Compassion.

The Chronicles I know have had a profound impact on many lives. It's not often that people share exactly how much. And it's rarer still to hear of such a dramatic moment. A "Mhoram moment", if you would. Thank you.

"Man is an effective passion." You're story says that to me.

[aliantha]

Great story, Compassion. Thanks for sharing it with us!