This summer, I want to be under water

I was born and raised in Texas, where summers were hot and the lawns perpetually brown. Heat fell out in pulsating waves from car doors as if we had just opened a hatch to a furnace. To tell you it was hot sounds like an understatement. To counteract the heat, we would often turn on the sprinkler and laughingly race through its arcing ribbons or, even better, go to the pool.

Ahhh … the pool, it was a sanctuary of chlorinated coolness. I loved the feeling of being under water; it was like another world. Do you remember Dustin Hoffman´s character, Benjamin, in the movie The Graduate? How he would be hunkered down, under the water, in the corner of his pool? Benjamin was alone, unbothered, and in his own bubble – at least until Mrs. Robinson came on the scene.

This summer, as much as humanly possible, I want to be underwater, not in the conventional sense of scuba diving, snorkeling, or swimming, but in the detached, free-floating, not-in-this world sense.

I want to be free and unfettered, without constrictions and containers, and allow myself to sense life without the daily pounding of extraneous sensory input and information.

I want to be suspended in space, floating freely and weightlessly in cool, blue-green water that shields me from the breathless heat of summer, the hot tempers that follow, and the call to do anything irritating and enervating. It´s that last piece, the call to sidestep the irksome, the energy zapping, and the superfluous that makes my dive into the water so delicious.

Life does do life, and, obviously, there are moments when I happily participate in the great circus that parades through my life. But this summer, my vacation is to go glub, glub, glub and, metaphorically, dive into the quiet, watery depths.

By taking the plunge, I opt out of the rush, the push-pull, and the never-ending chase of everyday life. I float; I hang out and I hang loose. I can swim and morph into a graceful being, at one with my body, at one with my mind, and at one with the water that holds me tenderly like a long-lost mother.

I am able to look up through the shimmering scrim of undulation and see a blue-blue sky with puffy, white clouds lazily circumnavigating the globe. I can watch open-winged birds use the sky as their tablet to write love poems in some invisible ornithological alphabet. I can witness multi-colored schools of fish drift by in a languid, liquid ballet.

And impossible, but true, is that it is possible for me to perceive the variations of sunlight and moonlight and starlight as the lumination penetrates the layers of blue and green and aqua tinted waters. I can witness the light dancing in waves as it wiggles through the watery prisms. Simply by being present, I, temporarily, bathe in streams of light as if I were a piece of a stained glass treasure found in the sea.

By diving in, I pull the plug. I can float and dream and simply be. I can reconnect with my soul that craves quiet, freedom, and a place to be.

There will be no sound of the constant clickety-click of my brain. There will be no rushing to and fro. There will be liquid time and space. There will be communion with the elements. There will be an opportunity to see, sense, know, and feel differently. It sounds like the perfect vacation for me this year.

So, do not be surprised if the phone goes unanswered, the mail piles up, and my computer weeps from lack of contact. I will be deeply under water, taking a very long breath.

Copyright 2009 by Adele Ryan McDowell