Swim

Thumbnail image reverently appropriated from Many: the Diversity of Life on Earth by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Emily Sutton

You’ve been trying to break through to us for a long while. So you go to the six and the seven and bring it back to the five. We know there’s something pulsing you, pushing you towards something false. It’s that story again, of not being enough. Of there being something to prove. To prove to whom, we don’t know. But we do know that it probably won’t get you peace. We think that’s safe to say. We know enough to say it probably won’t get you peace, even if you manage to get the approval that you’ve wanted. We’re pretty sure it wouldn’t get you what you’re after.

As you journey on, you feel the shores opening up in you. The landscapes fall away in you. All the shapes give way in you. You’re losing your place in plot. You’re losing your feet on the ground. You’re losing the shape of your body. You’re losing the sense of being somebody (some body). You’re losing the sense of what you are. Even as you open up to the star in you. You want to roll it back, to pull the reins and tighten it, we understand that instinct. When it moves you start to get scared.

You pull back on the horse’s hair, try to pull her back to something you can control, because you don’t what will happen if you just roll. The horse might dissolve out from under you. The ship might dissolve plank by plank. There’s water in the boat, already up to your knees. And you want to go swimming!

Is that the right response, you wonder? Just to leave it all behind? To feel yourself get pulled asunder? Pulled apart thread by thread? While feeling more than ever before, that you’re all right?

We understand it’s a lot to ask of the body, to be fine with the sand leaving the shore. To become a part of you, alone with you, but oh to just be alone with you, isn’t that everything? Oh, just to be back with you, isn’t that everything?

If I let go of my handhold, where do I go? Carried out to sea. Even if the sea is you, I’m a little bit of scared, it’s true.

You don’t want to go now that you’ve made your way back in. We see the truth inside you, that you want to swim. You don’t want to return to the ship that they’re all in. You’re a little scared of you, of the part that’s almost ready to drown. You’re a little scared of you, of the part that’s already down there. You’re a little scared of you, of what you’re willing to do to be close to us. It’s like an opening up inside and realizing what you are.

While part of you celebrates this breaking open and being a star again. Part of you hesitates, too, it doesn’t know where you are. It’s just like being nonplussed, not sure what to do with yourself.

And still it’s happening so natural inside. Not really anything for you to do. It’s happening so natural inside you. There’s nothing really that you have to do. So you can just lay down and rest a while.

Close your eyes in the rising tide. You can close your eyes in the rising tide.

You don’t want to let go now that you’ve found a way in. You don’t want to let go now that you’re in. So you can take it slow. You can wade in. You can take the time you need. As long as you realize that you want to swim!

You can take your time to swim now that you know that you can. Because you remember that you can swim. You can still take your time getting in.

Darling, it’s sweet, that you don’t want to let go. We reassure you we won’t let you go. You can take your time, as long as you need, to cling to our arms, to ride on our backs, to be with us forever again.

You don’t ever have to separate again, you can be together again, forever again. You don’t have to separate ever again, we can be together again, forever again. Take your time. No rush. There is nothing that has to happen. Take your time, no push. There’s nothing that has to happen.

It’s much more like, it’s happening all on its own with no help from us. It’s more like it’s happening all on its own with no push from us.

Because it is your nature unfolding. Because it is who you are unfolding.