I got clear under water and immediately struck out to reach the surface, only to go farther down. This exertion was a serious waste of breath, and after ten or fifteen seconds the effort of inspiration could no longer be restrained. It seemed as if I was in a vice which was gradually being screwed up tight until it felt as if the sternum and spinal column must break.
—1892 Edinburgh Medical Journal, Dr. James Lowson
12 years ago, San Diego, California . . .
The drowning.
The darkness.
The monsters.
Well, it all started with just the most perfect day you could ever imagine. The kind of day where I wouldn't have questioned it if a bunny had hopped by, or if there had been somebody playing the harp on the beach. It was that kind of perfect. I remember things more as pictures and emotions, and less as any kind of exact time line. I was 4, give me a break.
My mother woke me up, as she always did, really early. The sun was only breaking it's little yellow fingers through the clouds every now and again. The honey colored lasers, "god's fingers" my mother would say, were descending from the clouds behind our house, and out into the darkness of the pacific.
Our house was at the foot of the beach, and in the morning as the night gave up it's struggle for dominance, the most incredible color of blue would awaken me. I remember it like being submerged in the water, but being able to breathe. I liked all things mermaid. I had mermaid sheets, from the movie. I had little stuffed fish dolls and mermaid figurines. Any chance I could get, I'd be playing on the beach.
Picking up strands of seaweed and collecting tiny crab shells was a regular morning ritual of ours. We'd get the occasional piece of wood or plastic that would wash up to the shore near our house, but mostly it was bits and pieces of the ocean.
My father was never in the picture because, as I learned later, he had a hard time dealing with a woman more intelligent than he was. Now, to be fair, this was my mother's explanation and I'm sure he would have a point of view that is somewhat different. But I never saw him, other than an occasional letter or post card. He does missionary work, I guess. Just when you'd think he didn't exist anymore, another post card would arrive. That was the extent of our relationship, pieces of flayed paper with a few sentences scrawled on them.
So, my mother had her teaching and her research and her artwork. I had mermaids and fluffy Nemo, Sarah Joe, and postcards. We both had our walks on the beach. On that particular morning, what I remember most was the smell. It was electric.
You know that smell, right after the lightning. It's a clean, orderly, charged scent, and it wakes up all your senses. As we walked, Sarah Joe tucked under my arm, me sniffing my slimy green rope I was weaving with a few strands of seaweed, my mother stopped, squinting back towards the house like she was trying to see something in particular.
Every now and again a seagull would dive down, looking for a quick breakfast, singing on it's way back up to the safety of the sky.
"Muriel," she said, "look at that." She was pointing her thin fingers back to the house. Her body was slender and graceful without being gaunt. She had the frame of a model, and she walked with a kind of cadence that seemed like she floated. Her steps were slight and perfect, and she was like a cat sometimes in the way her head would turn and study things.
I turned, Sarah Joe reaching the angle of speech, tossing out a muffled "Mommy," and saw one of the suns bright fingers pointing directly at our house. It was in just the right angle to come in through her window at the front of the house, and push all the way through and out of my window, landing just a few feet into the water beside us.
The one, single bright spot, cutting a tiny pinhole in the clouds—now darker than before.
"Do you know what that means?" she asked, turning to me and kneeling.
I looked at the beam of light, my eyes slowly following it to the water's edge. I shrugged.
"It means that God thinks you're very special," she said, her light brown hair falling across her face. With her light white blouse and the sunlight making the side of her face too white, she seemed like an angel. Or, at least, what I thought an angel would look like.
Had I been more than 4, I'd probably have said something deeply thought provoking and profound. What I ended up saying was, "Pretty."
"Very pretty," she echoed.
It was a few seconds later that we heard her cell phone calling out from the back deck.
"Hold on, baby, let me go grab that."
As she glided back to the house to grab her phone, I turned for some reason back towards the water and with the force of a linebacker I was tackled by an enormous wave.
No more seagulls calling out.
No more color.
The songs of the ocean and the birds were gone. The beautiful blue of the morning had been replaced by darkness. The wonderful smell had been traded for a cold, wet blanket that wrapped my entire body in a chilling, choking embrace.
Fifteen seconds ago I was looking at the face of an angel. Now, all I had was the black abyss. I didn't know enough to be frightened of dying. But I'd certainly lived enough to be afraid of choking.
But you can only hold on so long. At some point, you have to take that breath. You fight it as long as you can. Past tears. Past pain and panic and fear. But you succumb eventually.
And when my entire body was shaking and freezing and the salt was burning my eyes, I let go.