And so....

...picture this, feel this: Push toes against the bottom of the pool, feel light blue chipped painted concrete beneath them, rough and worn and warm and familiar. Feel the edges of the toes, the final translucent layer of skin leave that comfort. Now--engulfed in streams of bubbles softly popping with a whisper along thighs between toes, and off of their tips. And then. And then droplets running over the face foreheadcheekboneschin, Awakening. Cool air pushes head neck shoulders and falls sheeted against the water's surface the sun--jagged planes--blinds. An assault along with the slap-cool of the air and sting of a multitude of needles of sound: marco. polo. marco hey. don't push. no dunking. screams. shouts. briefly opaqued by the softness of splashing. An assault. & the wish to close eyes against the sun shards, lean back against the surface tension break it and let go the air in a thin stream of bubbles and float down open eyes now sun breaking and unbreaking into mercurial forms the world smaller and smaller, muffled, back against the concrete now, the last of the lifeline of air lazily dancing upward as if it doesn't matter if it is broken. it is safe here for now, but the surface of the water and the air beyond defy gravity and pull at arms and legs and lungs and once again the return to the havoc.

And so it is sometimes with life, the distance between safety and comfort infinitely thin; a plane, 2-dimensional, and yet so distinct.One is clearly not the other, although they share this--one can survive in neither, and so the trick is to quiet the air, smooth the sun-shards, round out the edges of the sound, and then there is little need for escape, and no need to consider, even fleetingly, letting go the lifeline.