Subculture

What is this feeling; this hollow, tired-eyed longing? Why do I feel nostalgic for this morning? And why do I seek this feeling again and again?

What happened this morning? I went for a swim. I was up at 7, southbound on the M5 by 8 and in the sea by 9 for a swim to the Hindu Caves at Livermead, Torbay with my swimming group. Charles Kingsley described the caves as being like ‘Hindu temples’ and the name stuck. The caves are well known to the jolly bands of outdoor swimmers in the area as the short swim can be done in summer with little more than an ill-fitting day-glo swim suit and a neon cap, yet it provides enough high adventure to make it worthwhile.

From the traffic noise and concrete walls of Institute Beach and the oppressive UKIP meeting signs on the Livermead Cliff Hotel it’s a quick swim around a rocky outcrop to the series of sandstone sea caves and tunnels that make up the Hindu Caves. This morning the water is perfectly calm as the four of us glide into the water in our wetsuits. The sun is just rising on a warm hazy day and I lower my tinted goggles against the surface sparkles and leisurely skull around the semi-submerged barnacled rocks. One of our group calls me over. I breathe in, put my head down and, with a flutter of my legs, float over, arms by my side so I don’t scare any sea life. She points down as a shoal of tiny sand eels shimmer in and out of existence beneath us like a ripple of euphoria through a crowd. The sunlight flares through the milky sea like lasers in a dark fog-machined room. Everywhere, seaweed sways in union with the gentle swell. I surface, smiling at such an amazing sight and at having shared it with friends.

So why am I feeling so glum now, a few hours later? It’s a feeling I’ve had before. It’s been with me a long time, dwelling just beneath the surface like those sand eels: unseen, hard to grasp, at the will of the current and easily stirred.

My mind reaches back across the chasm of adulthood to my late teens and I realise... it’s a come-down. It’s the same washed-out, existential, listlessness that I would feel after taking ecstacy at raves in the early-Nineties. It’s the same drop after the high. That brief vision of the elusive sand eels is catalyst to a synaptic connection with my raving days.

While swimming outside will never cause me to gurn or roll my eyes or chew my jaw or make stretching my arms out an orgasmic experience like a good pill would do back in 1992, it still makes me happy like nothing else. There's something about being surrounded by something as vast as an ocean, or as deep as a lake, or as cold as a river, that gives a natural high. It's overwhelming to the senses. Endorphins glide through my veins and dopamine floods my nervous system. It heightens my being, thrusts me into life in it's most elemental. It wakes me up and lets me live.

Now that I have the dull responsibilities of adult life to fight back and the fading health of my forty-year old frame to maintain and, not least, a son to inspire, there's no way I would touch drugs again. It's been a long time since I even dabbled as I thankfully grew out of my drug-taking phase when I left for university. Nobody wants to be the last person at a party. But the feeling, the release from social norms and the euphoria, remain embedded in my memory like a scar and the search for that high, for that union, continues like an itch.

I've searched for it in the rush of adrenaline on stage in a carnival band, reaching nerve-fuelled highs with friends that we would drink away afterwards; in working at a summer camp in America while at university, ingratiating myself into strong cliques. I've found it in sex, festivals, group holidays… always the goal of togetherness, elation and transcendence. And now the simple act of swimming outdoors is providing me with so much of these elusive states of being.

The start of the sea caves come into view and we enter a cathedral of rock. Scrambling on all fours, we explore the arches and columns, the ledges and crannies, clambering when we have to, swimming when we can. The waves shunt into the hollows and produce powerful subwoofer booms that rattle my chest and unnerve me. The spray lands back on the surface in an electric fizz. Heaving ourselves on to a rock platform we stand together wowing at the bizarre sight of a pair of swans on the sea. Even the manky old pigeons hiding in the crevices that flap away at our approach seem exotic in the surreal turquoise glow of the sea. My friends have made this trip countless times but they still exclaim at the wonder of it, at the unrealness. It's like we've entered another world. We've broken through the surface and found a parallel universe right next to our own workaday reality.

I always find this when I go swimming outdoors. The second I put my head underwater, the second my eyes acclimatise to the darkened new world, it's like I've gone somewhere else, to another planet almost – somewhere that's so close to our existence but so alien and intangible; a place that doesn't belong to us, where normal rules don't apply, but that we can visit and glimpse in fleeting gulps. Even gravity surrenders in this domain.

And it's so much like going through the doors of a rave in the Nineties. Raves had an otherworldly quality: entrancing and alluring. My friends and I would go to the same rave every week: Quest in Wolverhampton. After queuing up for two hours every Saturday night we would practically run through the doors and up the stairs into our own little playground. It was a magical, pulsating, urban bubble in the middle of the Midlands where we felt anything could happen. Time would lose meaning as moments became measured in beats and bass. Day-glo images were painted on black canvases hung from the walls providing a surreal background to our silly antics. We would dance, sway, hug and sweat our way through the laser-lit night; proclaim our love, gush to strangers and let the bass wash over us, through us, giving in, smiling. We would make our own weekly utopia where class, race and background made no difference and gravity hardly seemed to matter.

Although I don't see much racial diversity in the swimming community, people do comment on how it is a great leveller. In our swimming group alone there is a doctor, a yoga teacher and a graphic designer and all sorts of different political persuasions; disparate lives bonded by our in-the-moment experiences, equal in the water. And we look out for each other too, making sure we're safe. I’ve been on swims where strangers have bent my feet back to help me get rid of cramp. Such camaraderie makes strong bonds between us. It's important for our safety but it's also a happy side-effect of swimming in groups. The standoffishness, reservedness and narrow-minded prejudices of normal life wash off in the water.

It was the release from normality that appealed to me back in my heyday, both in taking ecstacy and in the environment of the rave. People were genuinely nice to each other. Barriers came down. All that macho posturing and role playing dissipated in the heady atmosphere. After years of having the piss taken out of me for being lanky I had people coming up to me saying how amazing it was that I was tall. My confidence grew. I shed my awkwardness. I could express myself and I was accepted. I know it was drug-fuelled, I knew it back then. I know the ten quid I had to pay every week to gain access to my utopian society didn't exactly make it a free commune, but I don't care: it was life-affirming and essential. At last, the outsider belonged. I had done that thing so important to all young people: I had found my tribe. As the lights went up at the end of the night, someone always half-jokingly wondered if we could live in the nightclub, leaving our inherited social constraints and lacklustre reality at the door.

It was always a disappointment to find a drizzly Wolverhampton outside, oblivious to the dream we had been living for a few short hours.

And after our trip to the Hindu Caves, back on shore in Torquay, life goes on, and it jars. My wetsuit looks ridiculous. Yet there's still the camaraderie of my swimming group as we shlock out of wetsuits and guzzle flasks of hot tea, happily chatting about our shared experience and already planning our next expedition before saying goodbye and see you again soon.

Some of the happiest times of my raving days were spent after the party, meeting up with new friends on motorway services, swapping stories and squinting in the brash morning sunlight, wandering around in baggy sweat-stained clothes as weird-looking normal people stared at us. Or flopping across couches when parents were away, watching Top Banana on telly as the ghosts of rhythms pounded through us, smoking weed and waiting for sunrise. Or simply down the pub afterwards, nodding on sticky wooden tables and supping on the cheapest drink behind the bar: soda and black. Always trying to decompress and readjust to normal life.

And then the come down. The longing. The thought of another humdrum week of work. The grasping at fading memories that don't make sense. The loss of context. The fear of what could have happened. The question of if the sadness is worth the high. The loneliness. The tiredness. Until... sleep.

Just like in my late teens, outdoor swimming is an experience that’s hard to translate. Other people say that it’s not for them or that they don’t like the feel of seaweed on their legs or that they couldn't stand the cold. Such comments leave me exasperated and alienated but draw me closer to the understanding of the swimming community, just as rave drew me into its subculture and clique. Others just don't understand and maybe it's better that way.

Swimming has become as encompassing as rave culture was. If I'm not swimming I'm wondering where I could swim next. My Facebook feed is full of swim-related posts. Work becomes a chore to get through to reach the weekend. I remember that feeling at college, the days dragging.

Except, this time, things are different. I'm in control of it for a start. My family keep me grounded. Natural highs are, by definition, healthier than stuffing god-knows-what chemicals down my throat. They're a lot cheaper too. They're socially acceptable and, dare I say it, a lot more legal! Although I sentimentalise my raving days, I couldn't go back. Even the thought exhausts me.

The acceptance I gained at raves and from taking ecstacy in the Nineties changed my life. I went from a painfully shy, self-conscious teenager to the somewhat reserved but unabashed man I hope I am today. And now, with all the trappings of family life, swimming gives me an identity and an escape. I sometimes wonder if the highs of taking ecstacy twenty-odd years ago have caused me to have such crashing lows today. Who's to know? But the search for that high, the drive for new and breathtaking experiences, for empathy with others, leads me to a more fulfilling life and I hope it never stops.