The woman in the river: How I met my new role models for life after 50

How to stay forever young? Swim in the wild!

One of my favorite places to visit is the beach at Big River in Mendocino County. Not just because its beautiful and full of wildlife, but because I always seem to find something a bit magical every time I walk its sandy shore.

Like one foggy morning when horses were trotting on the sand. Or another morning when I met the person I want to be in old age: A woman well into her 80s who swims in that water every chance she gets.

“You do this every day?” I asked her as she treaded water in that beautiful spot, made even more beautiful by the ripples of light in the waves she was creating.

She paused, likely deciding whether or not to even respond to this stranger interrupting her meditative exercise, then finally answered me with a simple: “Try to.”

That was cool.

Because I’ve thought about her ever since, this woman fully embracing life, not content to waste her last years letting her body decay in a recliner while watching television like another woman I knew on the edge of 80.

So the next time I was at Big River, I was drawn back down to the shore, hoping she might be there again. And though she wasn’t swimming in the river that day because it was wintertime and the water too cold, while searching for her again I found something even cooler: A whole group of women who swim there every day!

A member of the Big River Swim Team poses near the team's decal.

Members of the Big River Swim Team, they are a group of friends in their 50, 60s and 70s, who don wetsuits to brave the cold beauty of Big River for their daily swim.

“Why do you do this?” I asked them, though of course I knew why: exercise, companionship, accomplishment, and nature. All things that make you feel better, all things included in one  daily swim at Big River.

And of course those cool women knew the first swimmer I met, but told me she didn’t swim in the river past November.

“I want to be her,” I told Eileen, 64, who was drying off after swimming nearly two miles in the river.

“You can!” she said immediately.

That was super cool.

See more of Big River and its swimmers here: