coney island cold plunge
a new year's resolution
Before the plunge
Early January 1st morning, my friend and I boarded the F train so he could plunge into the icy-cold waters of the Atlantic off Coney Island. He is my most real-world ambitious friend, someone who rode his bike across the United States and has disappeared up into mountains for days at a time. This is not the sort of person I—wearing old Timberlands and a giant hooded coat—believed myself to be, at least not at the time.
An hour into the F to Coney, the track takes this dramatic turn and parallels the horizontal coast. Suddenly, the subway windows show a large green and red ferris wheel, and then appears the Cyclone, a wooden rollercoaster from 1927. Behind it is the sea and a thin pale strip of beach. That day, the sea was chrome and choppy. By the time we descended onto the slatted boardwalk, behind the rush of ocean and the snatches of Avicii and Tyla, we heard several times: god that was so cold, I’m starting to feel it now, I can’t believe I did that.
“Doesn’t scare me,” shrugged my friend, as we pushed past a solid sheet of wind. Hundreds of other people packed thick at the coast. Children stared nervously at the gray ocean. A group of coworkers in blue company shirts did jumping jacks in unison. Three next to me tipped beers back, crushed aluminum cans in fists, then raced, arms pumping with ambition, into the ocean. Another woman watched them, alone in an onyx wetsuit with peaks of gray in her hair. She counted something in her head, then sprinted towards the ocean.
A lifeguard shouted careful, careful. My friend took his fleece off. He reconsidered for a second. Then, he let out an enormous cry and headed for the sea, leaving deep footprints in the sand behind him until he disappeared into the water.
During the plunge
There was his head! Small and auburn in the glittering ocean. In front of a wide ship with red and white stacks. Behind him was a blimp advertising mattresses. He waved, then dove back in. My cheers were lost to the sounds of a guy’s boombox, which was covered with a globe accessory. A woman in a waterlogged dinosaur costume dragged herself out of the ocean. “I can’t see!!!” A duo with long-nosed, high-tech cameras appeared in front of me, filming a woman who wore a purple satin jacket embezzled with BROOKLYN LIFELONG RESIDENT. Then, one of the cameras got distracted by another two who had JERSEY OR BUST written in green sparkles across their faces, wind whipping their hair.
There is still something unreal about Coney Island, several decades after its heyday as the haven of strange pleasures and escape from city life grittiness. It’s there in the bing bong memes, the mermaid parades. And in the cold plunge. The simulation of being able to do something difficult that doesn’t necessarily have much to do with real life. It’s like creating a metaphor that makes it easier to deal with real life, upwards in the city.
I watched my friend move to the edge of the ocean, then turn on his foot, running back in. Two, then three times, he returned to the sea, each time going a little further towards the horizon.
After the plunge
When he staggered out, I was ready with a towel and fleece, but he refused them. “I feel alive,” he said, bare in the cold air for a few minutes.
Eventually, he put on warm clothes. We left, pushing through the crowd to the well-paved boardwalk, walking the long, urban mile of apartment complexes to Tashkent Market, loading up on vareniki stuffed with sweet, soft crumbles of white cheese, and potatoes in various forms: served fork-tender with crisp bits of garlic, smashed flat and made tart with lemon.
For the first time in several hours, I remembered—as I was tearing a bit of khachapuri for myself—reality. 2024 was very difficult for me, but I’m tired of talking about it. I handled my sadness in ways I didn’t expect, and had several moments where I felt like a stranger to myself, unreal and attempting to find the answer by cold plunging into some water.
My resolution for 2025 is to let myself cold plunge when needed. But also to remember to emerge afterwards, take a bite of a tender potato, and remember that the answer exists in the real world of things.
^ a relatable coney island spectator
Sounds like the ideal NYD.
Have you done the sauna / steam room thing where you go from the hottest room into an icy pool?