Below Sea Level

It begins with me at the top of a mountain, York-Peppermint-Patty style. Wind in my hair, the sun up there in the blue bird sky. I see you, I say to it. I feel that I can do anything. Everything is possible. Everything is amazing. I point the biggest lenses at the biggest things and the smallest at the smallest. My body, it feels fantastic. My energy, it’s so there. Not only did I go up the mountain, but I can go back down and back up another despite the cold and darkness. I can feel every rock through my soles and be grateful for it. See every vine of ivy and be grateful for it. The limestone, it sparkles. The ferns, they unfurl. The moss is hairy and otherworldly green. The snow is every synonym of gorgeous. I am so, so elated. It’s all mine. I have it all. My body is full, but muscular. My lungs, they’re full of air no matter how much I exhale. I am a brimming body of wonder and exaltation. And I am so, so grateful. So grateful.

Because I know it won’t last.

It’s not a quick thing that happens. The luster may begin to lack. The darkness or conditions may change my route. But I still go, equipped with what I needed. Still full of wonder. Still putting one foot in front of the next. Always upright, on my feet. But everyone is clumsy and one day, I fall. Perhaps while trekking back down the mountain, or even straight from the top. As I tumble down, I grab for anything. My nails leave scratches in the limestone, the vines of ivy give to the extreme gravity growing inside me. A small boulder, a fallen tulip tree, they uproot themselves in my desperate need to hold on. But I keep falling, my hands splintered from birch bark, dirt under my nails, briars in my hair. Always prepared, I pat down my body as I fall to make sure that I still have my safety devices. They’re still there for the most part, but some may be lost. But anyone who falls from mountains like this knows that the safety devices are a futile thing. Anyone who falls from mountains knows that no matter how prepared you may be for the fall, those devices, even when they’re in your hands, don’t work.

I have lost elevation, the gravity growing deeper and heavier inside me. I have gone from granite to sand, my body and fine lines of fingers leaving traces of my struggle into the lapping water. At first the water feels nice. It embraces, it’s softer, and there’s rhythm, even if it’s just for a short while. I think I can be okay here. I can still see the sun and the mountains when I look up. But the pulling isn’t done and beneath the surface I go. Once beneath the surface, I hold my breath and fumble around for my floatation devices, but up they go, doing what they do, without me like abandoned balloons. And I can’t see right, everything is a blur but there is still color, there is still something to hold onto from time to time. In my breathless desperation, I feel the fins of fishes, grab for coral, but to not avail. Waves, I can feel and see them, and they’re so powerful, but I can’t grab them for a ride back to the surface. I fall deeper and I’m trying—trying so hard—to make out the shapes of whatever beautiful things are around me, living their lives, existing. Up and forward is the only way I choose to look, but for some reason my body keeps sinking. For a short while, I am my own floatation device, my lungs still full of air. But I eventually have to exhale and fall deeper, failing myself.

Eventually, the sound of water is silence. Below all of Earth’s rock-bottoms, there is darkness and otherworldly silence. And I am there and it makes no difference if I am on my feet or not. There is less life around me, no color. I am a jawbone of a whale that was once full of beautiful songs that only certain others were willing to hear or understand. I’m growing colorless, picked-clean, and still. The most I can do is keep my eyes open and sometimes in the distance I might see something glow. But it’s so far away and the pressure on my body won’t allow me to seek it. I know that the glowing thing must be something fascinating, something to reach for. But I don’t.

And because I am lucky, a handful of loved-ones might come to visit. They snake down to the depths in their pressurized vessels full of well-meanings and floatation devices. I can’t quite see them, but I know they are there because I would know who they are with my eyes closed. The most I can do is turn my head toward them, maybe lift a hand to their vessel, acknowledge their well-meanings.But the only way to join them is to open the vessel from where I am. Even if I could do that, I wouldn't. And because they know me so well, they may initiate exploration of the ocean floor. There’s an angler fish out in the distance! How ugly! Let’s go check it out!

But I’m out here. I don’t have their technology to make out the color or shape of whatever that glowing thing is. Is it an angler fish? To me, it’s just a beautiful glow I can’t reach. I can wait for it to come to me, but it won’t even though its bite would be better than this. Down here, it’s about survival and I have nothing to do with the survival of that glowing, beautiful monster. All I can do for now is say I see you.

And wait.