heard you? Hmm, remember the day you forgot you were going to have a math quiz? Remember the time you stayed out too late and got lost in the woods? Remember last month?
Okay, okay, I’d done a lot of really dumb things, but this definitely had to be
one
of the dumbest.
Making a few arm strokes, I took a breath and looked down. It was dumb to look into an abyss. I have no idea why I kept doing it. I guess I just wanted to see more. I wanted to understand what I didn’t already. I was just curious. I couldn’t help myself.
The water was navy blue and full of wavering and shifting shadows. I moved a little deeper into the shadow of the oil rig. Taking another breath, I looked down again. I couldn’t see Grayson.
The sea seemed empty without him.
Suddenly I felt more alone than ever before. I was scared for me and for him.
Could he dive to five hundred feet like an adult whale? How long would that take? How long could he hold his breath? Where could he have gone? Would he return?
I wondered: How long do you wait? How long do you wait for anyone?
I hung on the upper inches of the water and wondered.
Should I go?
No, he has come to me for help. I have to find him.
I pulled myself underwater with wide breaststroke pulls. I dove deeper and deeper into the dark nothingness.
My head throbbed with the pressure. The dark blue world whirled around me. The emptiness tightened around me like a boa constrictor. I waited. I held my breath until I was nearly out of air then raced for the surface.
From the tension of the dark empty depths an idea began to emerge.
It was that space between not knowing and knowing,that tension between losing and finding, that blank page between silence and song, that emptiness that creates the need to create, to try, to imagine, to solve.
I stared down again and it was like looking straight down from the top of the Empire State Building, but I couldn’t see the ground or Grayson, so I swam farther out, floated on my stomach, and looked down again.
The sun shifted slightly and the water became more transparent. Now it was like standing on the very edge of the Grand Canyon and looking down deeper and deeper as if a trapdoor had opened below and the bottom was dropping. (Now the water was so clear I was afraid it wouldn’t support my weight.) I felt like I might fall into forever. I had to lift my head up quickly and take a couple of fast breaths.
I don’t know why, but I had to look down again. I had to see one more time if I could find Grayson. I had to figure out how to look down without feeling as if I was falling.
I imagined I was hovering a foot above the moon’s surface looking down onto the earth and ocean. When I visualized myself way above the earth, the waterdepth no longer seemed so frightening. By changing my thoughts, I was able to alter my perspective, to calm down, and to refocus.
I floated on the surface, rolled onto my back, and told myself to relax, and as my body relaxed, my mind did as well, and then new ideas began to flow.
Maybe I couldn’t help Grayson, but I knew that he had someone out there with him, and sometimes just having someone with you is enough.
There are all sorts of ways to think about the world, and so many people who think differently. Still, I believe there are two basic ways of thinking: one of possibility and hope, the other of doubt and impossibility. When I think about impossible things, I think of a friend of mine who did the impossible, and that makes me believe impossible things can become possible. If I try, if I believe, if I work toward something, and if I can convince other people to help, the impossible isn’t impossible at all.
At age fifteen, I swam across the English Channel. Most people didn’t think that was possible. And now, looking back through time, I remember that my friend Greg Miller once asked me to drive with him at threein the morning to a deserted runway in Bakersfield to watch him attempt to be the first person to
Okay, okay, I’d done a lot of really dumb things, but this definitely had to be
one
of the dumbest.
Making a few arm strokes, I took a breath and looked down. It was dumb to look into an abyss. I have no idea why I kept doing it. I guess I just wanted to see more. I wanted to understand what I didn’t already. I was just curious. I couldn’t help myself.
The water was navy blue and full of wavering and shifting shadows. I moved a little deeper into the shadow of the oil rig. Taking another breath, I looked down again. I couldn’t see Grayson.
The sea seemed empty without him.
Suddenly I felt more alone than ever before. I was scared for me and for him.
Could he dive to five hundred feet like an adult whale? How long would that take? How long could he hold his breath? Where could he have gone? Would he return?
I wondered: How long do you wait? How long do you wait for anyone?
I hung on the upper inches of the water and wondered.
Should I go?
No, he has come to me for help. I have to find him.
I pulled myself underwater with wide breaststroke pulls. I dove deeper and deeper into the dark nothingness.
My head throbbed with the pressure. The dark blue world whirled around me. The emptiness tightened around me like a boa constrictor. I waited. I held my breath until I was nearly out of air then raced for the surface.
From the tension of the dark empty depths an idea began to emerge.
It was that space between not knowing and knowing,that tension between losing and finding, that blank page between silence and song, that emptiness that creates the need to create, to try, to imagine, to solve.
I stared down again and it was like looking straight down from the top of the Empire State Building, but I couldn’t see the ground or Grayson, so I swam farther out, floated on my stomach, and looked down again.
The sun shifted slightly and the water became more transparent. Now it was like standing on the very edge of the Grand Canyon and looking down deeper and deeper as if a trapdoor had opened below and the bottom was dropping. (Now the water was so clear I was afraid it wouldn’t support my weight.) I felt like I might fall into forever. I had to lift my head up quickly and take a couple of fast breaths.
I don’t know why, but I had to look down again. I had to see one more time if I could find Grayson. I had to figure out how to look down without feeling as if I was falling.
I imagined I was hovering a foot above the moon’s surface looking down onto the earth and ocean. When I visualized myself way above the earth, the waterdepth no longer seemed so frightening. By changing my thoughts, I was able to alter my perspective, to calm down, and to refocus.
I floated on the surface, rolled onto my back, and told myself to relax, and as my body relaxed, my mind did as well, and then new ideas began to flow.
Maybe I couldn’t help Grayson, but I knew that he had someone out there with him, and sometimes just having someone with you is enough.
There are all sorts of ways to think about the world, and so many people who think differently. Still, I believe there are two basic ways of thinking: one of possibility and hope, the other of doubt and impossibility. When I think about impossible things, I think of a friend of mine who did the impossible, and that makes me believe impossible things can become possible. If I try, if I believe, if I work toward something, and if I can convince other people to help, the impossible isn’t impossible at all.
At age fifteen, I swam across the English Channel. Most people didn’t think that was possible. And now, looking back through time, I remember that my friend Greg Miller once asked me to drive with him at threein the morning to a deserted runway in Bakersfield to watch him attempt to be the first person to
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