Karma

I already know I will not die helplessly.
I do not fear death, nor presume to concern myself with its persistent imminence.
So if death is not the object, but it is the only final and insurmountable one…
What have I to fear?

It’s really something to be ‘bottoming out.’

There has been a loss of control. But it’s been more like a blip in the power steering than, say, spiraling into addiction or becoming trapped in a bad relationship. I guess this means something different to everyone. Either way, it’s quite the experience.

The thing of it is not to panic. 

It reminds me of my first forays into The Evergreen State College’s twelve-foot deep diving pool, when I was just old enough to pass what at the time seemed like a rigorous swimming test (two laps in the regular pool). To plunge in headfirst from that height, slicing through eight feet of water when you are barely four feet high, is exciting and at once starkly foreign to what you know as swimming. But there are familiarities. I could find ‘up’ with a momentary pause to drift, and steer myself in the same way I swam along the bottom of the five-foot pool. The pressure in my ears, though intense, was recognizable and not frightening. Recognizing these elements as universal to being a person under water allowed me the time for curiosity, to wonder at just how far away the surface was and how close this new stretch of pool floor had gotten.

Once I felt the bottom, oriented it to myself and mapped it into my world, to resurface took  little more than a push. But, I did find it easiest to push once both feet had touched down.