Swimming Nine Rivers: One Woman's Adventure
Over four summers, Akiko Busch, 53, of Unionville, N.Y., swam across nine rivers, including the Hudson and Delaware in New York; the Connecticut in Massachusetts; the Susquehanna, Cheat, and Monongahela in Pennsylvania; the Mississippi and Current in Missouri; and the Ohio in Kentucky. Her crossings began in August 2001, a few weeks before the 9/11 attacks, when she impulsively tackled the Hudson at a half-mile crossing near New Hamburg, N.Y. As she saw the world grow ever more divided, pondered middle age, and encountered fears about the health of America's rivers, the swims took on enough significance for her to pen a book, released July 10, about the experience. U.S. News spoke to Busch about "Nine Ways to Cross a River: Midstream Reflections on Swimming and Getting There From Here."
When people think about exercise, it's often the gym and timing and calories burned that come to mind. Your river swims sound quite different.
It's the complete opposite. If you're just sort of floating along with the current or swimming down or across a river, it can't help but be a meditative exercise. There's something also about swimming that's very rhythmic. It's all about breathing and moving. It's really a pleasure to lose yourself in the rhythm. If you're sitting there worrying about the calories, or how many strokes you're doing, or how quickly you're going to get there, you're missing the whole point. Or at least I would have been missing out on what I wanted out of it.
Did you train at all for this?
No. Swimming is just what I do for exercise. I usually swim in an indoor pool three or four times a week for half an hour to an hour. I never belonged to a team, but I did have swimming lessons when I was a toddler. The great thing about swimming is that anybody can do it. You can do it slowly. You can be a lazy swimmer and do it in a leisurely way.
How did you get started on this project?
When I first had the idea to swim it I really didn't think it was possible. I live by the Hudson and I had always heard: It's too dirty; it's too deep; it's too strong. I actually called an environmental official from Albany. I thought for sure he would say: "It's illegal. You can't do that." But he didn't. He just gave me really good advice. He said do it at slack tide, do it when there's not a lot of traffic, and get an escort boat. Then he actually said: "Have a great time. It sounds like fun." We had such a great time during the first Hudson swim that we decided to swim back as well. It went so well I started to get the idea that trying other rivers might be fun too, so I could get a sense of the different tastes, colors, and textures.
Was there something appealing about the dangers posed by river swimming?
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