...

As the water enfolds me like a cool sheet, I feel the day's heat and exhaustion recede and melt. I abruptly forget strokes, kicks and other details as I sink in and just let myself float. Behind closed eyes, I can almost imagine staying here forever, with the body incredibly light and just floating, adrift, with water-deafened ears creating a sense of peaceful solitude. I can imagine being the only soul in the universe, or even a small part of a great, living, breathing universe. Was this how I was a short 18 years ago, floating in the serentiy and security of the womb, unaware of the world outside, suspended in a liquid reality where everything seems far, yet so near? Where you can never be sure of proportions, yet this hardly matters?

My eyes open and I am transformed again... Everything is blue or green, floating, insubstantial, in a world that is never still. This somehow seems real or even closer to reality than a world above ruled by gravity, weighed down by rules and unbreakable laws. Here, anything is possible. I can almost imagine an ancient, primitive ancestor floating and moving through this waterscape with ease, gills or some primitive organ drinking in and effortless limbs propelling it through the water. How did I reach this far? The gills are gone, the limbs are changed and all those memories are gone. But perhaps here, suspended, the mind remembers, some primal part of us remembers and yearns... the mind wanders, meanders into other places.

Suddenly I feel a bump against my arm and I rise to the surface, breathing deeply, blinking away water... and more... from my eyes.