“Anybody, Anywhere”

by Jianna Heuer

Once a week, my husband Jason and I try to take a 5-mile cardio walk together on the boardwalk near our house. We are both constantly fighting the impulse to join hands and act as if it’s a stroll. Sometime in 2020, trying to get my heart rate up to optimal cardio level, I yelled at him, “Exercise is not romance!” and ripped my hand away when he went to hold it.

It was bitterly cold this past Sunday, but we put on every layer—vests, heat shirts, jackets, weird exercise scarf things, thermal socks, hats, gloves, and sneakers—and got to walking. As we approached the sign for Beach 67th Street on the boardwalk, about 10 blocks from home, we saw the gathering of the hooded, hatted, dry robe-wearing group we refer to as “the dippers.” Sometime during the beginning of COVID-19, winter swimming became a thing in our neighborhood in Rockaway Beach, Queens. One group, primarily artists and hipsters, met at Beach 86th Street, known by local surfers as “the box.” Then another group popped up at 67th Street, led by a British visitor, and gathered a less cool-looking crowd. There were no bespoke beanies or Terry cloth vintage robes in this group. These people wore fluorescent pink and lime green snowsuits, old pilly sweatshirts, and pajama pants adorned with Snoopy and Mickey Mouse. 

Unlike the cool kid dippers at 86th Street, who were reading poetry and doing mushrooms, the 67th Street crew said hi and invited everyone walking by to join them in their mad dash to the sea. I was asked to participate at least 11 times in the first year they did it because my morning beach walk coincided with their first brisk steps into the 46-degree water. I declined with a smile every time I was asked and wished them a nice dip. They smiled back, waved, and wished me a beautiful day as they all entered the ocean. Some people ran in and threw themselves beneath the waves. Some gingerly dipped a foot and slowly dunked themselves. All of them whooped with pleasure once submerged. As soon as I passed them, I would roll my eyes and mutter under my breath, “fucking weirdos.”

I know what I just said is judgmental and kind of bitchy.  I can be mean and critical; it’s not my favorite thing about myself, but it’s there. Or I should say, in this case, it was there until I watched Somebody, Somewhere.

This show is quiet. It is a romantic walk on the beach. It takes you by the hand and asks you to dance slowly, swaying to and fro gently holding you just like Jason’s favorite cottonwood tree in the park near our house.  

Choir practice, where the characters in the show meet to play music and sing and just be their whole selves in community with one another, becomes a place you wish was real, and Fred and Joel are the friends you didn’t know you needed. Sam is lovable in a frustrating way, as is Tricia. 

While on vacation in Portugal, Jason had his normal European insomnia and binge-watched this show over three days; at the end of his binge, which coincided with the night before our 8-hour flight home, he suggested I download it and watch it on the plane. Three hours in, I watched episode 1, and I cried and laughed and nudged Jason, interrupting his viewing of Dune to tell him how much I loved it. 

“Oh my god, I know, Fred, right?” he said.

“And Joel? I mean, he is the perfect hype man!” I replied.

We both put our earphones back in and continued watching. I couldn’t stop and blew through the first season with two hours left on the flight. 

After we got home and showered the plane smell off, trying to beat the jet lag, I decided to watch another episode while Jason napped. He came out while I was two episodes into the second season. He sat down with me, and even though he had just finished the series less than 36 hours ago, he watched the rest of the second and third seasons over the next two nights with me.

Sunday night, as we finished, both of us crying and laughing through Sam’s final performance, Jason turned to me and said, “I have never done that, watched a show twice in a row in the same week. It’s just so good.” A self-proclaimed repeat series watcher, I, too, had never done that.

Conditioned by decades of watching plastic surgery-enhanced faces, these regular people were clearly not model-pretty.

Without noticing, a change occurred in my perception; by the second season, they were beautiful, and by the third, they were radiant. Much like how I saw the winter swimmers this Sunday walk, after watching this series, instead of seeing the woman whose nose is a bit too big for her face wearing the dopey swim robe, I saw the glow of her happiness coming out of the frigid water holding hands with her friend who has a limp and thrift store jacket on. They have found their people just like Sam finds Joel and Fred, and that is the most gorgeous thing one can hope for.

In the same way I initially judged our local group of misfit dippers; I also judged Sam, the main character of Somebody, Somewhere.

Joel comes into her life when she is particularly low after her sister’s death. She doesn’t remember him from high school, and he genuinely doesn’t mind and seeks connection by inviting her to choir practice, telling her how much he admires her singing, and just sort of showering her with adoration. She can not respond in kind, and this is where I started to dislike what I saw because I see that inclination it in me. 

Last night, we had dinner with a friend, and the guy in the couple whom I’ve known for going on 20 years made a crack. “Oh, Jianna, I’d better be careful, right? Say the wrong thing to you, and you get cut out for life.” I laughed with everyone else, but inside, I screamed, “No, come on! I’m better now. I’ve grown. I can say I love you and forgive mistakes. Why don’t you see it?” Well,  he doesn’t see it because I still wear my “I don’t give a fuck” mask pretty tight, just like Sam, who resists the vulnerability she needs to access and stay close to her fantastic new group of friends. 

Ultimately, Sam takes the risks. She tells Joel she loves him, sings “Ave Maria” at Fred’s wedding, and asks the Icelandic guy renting her family’s farm on a date. She grows and learns to love herself, making it easier for her to love others.  She is rewarded with affection and the best-found family I could imagine as she grows.

It left me wondering if I often feel lonely and disconnected, and without this kind of community, is it because I do not love myself, am not vulnerable enough, and do not take risks?

I know the answer is yes, and I also know I am trying my best to get there, taking tiny steps every day towards building a community like theirs in Manhattan, Kansas, while I live in Queens, right outside of Manhattan, New York.

In the last scene, we see Sam singing her fucking heart out, performing with such abandon that you just know in the way she throws her arms up, runs around the room, and ecstatically dances, her life is about to change for the better. A little over a year ago, I started playing the acoustic guitar and taking lessons, and there are certain songs where I feel like how she looked in that scene, lacking all consciousness of myself, just feeling the music and the composure it instills in me. There is much freedom in giving yourself over to music.

The relatability of the themes of this show, love, loss, finding yourself, and learning to love, should be enticing to anyone anywhere. Most popular shows are violent and sharp-edged to attract audiences and keep them addicted to drama and violence. I want more shows like this that make me think, holy shit, I just totally resonated with a farmer’s daughter in Kansas, and that made me understand me better, and as Sam would say, “It’s so cutie.” 

Since it was canceled, I have contented myself with looking around my neighborhood and seeing what I couldn’t before watching this show; the dippers are our somebodies right here.

Every neighborhood, town, and city has this group, but they are often invisible or quickly disregarded because they appear to be outsiders.

Now, I look for them wherever I go, seeing their exquisite beauty and hoping that someday I will feel this way in a community too.