Save Nothing For the Swim Back

When you swim the greatest swim of life, this is our own wild and precious life, keep nothing for the swim back.

Andy: But I, you know, I'm just saying that I would just like a little credit... for the fact that I'm killing myself trying. 

Nigel: Andy, be serious. You are not trying. You are whining.

- The Devil Wears Prada

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My motto, when I am being my best self, is to save nothing for the swim back.  

When I start swimming with the Los Angeles Masters at 6 a.m., I think about what I will accomplish that day. Twice a week, I drive from my hour swim to Pilates, which involves focus rather than thinking. There is something about swimming that is a meditation. 

At the beginning of this year, I became the CEO and Publisher of Red Hen Press. It seemed like an insurmountable task to get Red Hen shipshape. Red Hen was just dragging itself out of the pandemic. We had moved the press into a new space and switched book distributors before the pandemic, and had taken on more expenses than we could handle. I wasn’t in charge of cash flow at the time, but I knew the accounting department was in a scramble. Then the pandemic hit. I remember telling Mark that we weren’t going to drink at all because Red Hen might not survive the pandemic. At one point, our treasurer, Linda, walked off her golf game to help us get one of the PPP loans because we were at sea on the paperwork, so determined was she that we would not miss out.  

The thing about saving nothing for the swim back is that at some point, you can’t be doing too many things at the same time. When Mark and I met, I said to him, we can work full time, run a successful publishing house that changes Los Angeles, be great writers, and have a wild and wonderful family. I was wrong. We had a wild and wonderful family. The press is celebrating thirty years at our annual Benefit at Noor on October 6. We didn’t have time to write.

Our kids are grown now, and this year, it was time to give up teaching. Time to say, if I really want to get Red Hen sorted, I can’t do that and write and teach. Don’t keep anything for the swim back. Throw it all in.  

I’m doing my warrior training. I exercise 10-12 hours each week and write every day on my big project, which I am finishing by the end of this year.  I am fiercely engaged in Red Hen, finding fantastic authors, thought partners for the board, and supporters for our mission. Without warrior training, I can’t prepare to do great things like finishing a book and transforming a press.

The 2023 version of me spent time having fits of anxiety about things I couldn’t change. In 2024, I’m working to step into my best self, the self that spends my time working, writing, swimming, walking, sleeping, reading and working with thought partners to make Red Hen successful. I am living a life that I won’t regret. 

Here is what I am saying to myself right now:

I lean into the miracle that is my life.

Red Hen Press thrives at thirty years and that is part of my life’s miracle.

I am grateful to everyone in the literary community who believed in us, bought a book or attended an event, and entered the story that was two people— and now a whole group of us—publishing pivotal, change-making work that reflects the world we live in.  

At our Benefit next weekend, when I drink champagne with everyone celebrating our legacy, it will be not because we have crossed the finish line, because Red Hen is still a process, but because of this: it isn’t the story, or the journey, it’s the company you keep. I know that day, I will be in good company. I hope to see you there.

When you swim the greatest swim of life, this is our own wild and precious life, keep nothing for the swim back.

You can find tickets to attend Red Hen Press’ Benefit here!