Vision Magazine - Greek to Me

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Greek to Me - June 2007

The Same River Twice

Contemplating this month's theme of water has provided me with more than a little irony. I was inundated with images and memories, making it impossible to corral my thoughts into the typical format. The topic literally overwhelmed me, washed over me, and took me wherever it wanted. If there is one thing that I have learned about water is to submit to it, letting it have its way. So here are some musings on that great purveyor of fluid truths. Last one in is a rotten egg! MR

Bottoming In

I have always been the kind of person who wants to know the worst thing that can happen in any given scenario. Where is the bottom? Can I survive it? How will it affect me? I trace this approach to an early experience I had after I had just learned to swim. I was 8 or 9 years old, and my family visited a park that had a small, man-made lake. In the middle of the lake was a free-floating deck. I swam out to it by myself, something that felt Olympian to me. Standing on the deck, peering desperately over its edge, I couldn't see the lake's bottom. How far down was it?

I jumped in, feet first, and forced myself down. As I went deeper, the water grew colder and darker. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me. Just when my fear peaked and I felt like crying, my foot scraped the lake's floor. I pushed against it with all my frantic might, feeling its muddiness. When I finally broke the surface, I gasped as if my lungs would burst. Then as I laid down on the deck. The sun dried my skin so that I felt shrink-wrapped; I gazed back into the water, still unable to see its bottom. At least now, though, I knew where it was. And I had survived. More importantly, I was changed in a way that influenced me almost immediately. It would be a long time, however, before I knew why.

Bottoming Out

Years later, we were vacationing on the shores of Lake Michigan, an extremely volatile body of water. It can go from being a placid pool to a raging sea in what can feel like no time at all. My friends and I were body surfing when the wind kicked up, ratcheting the waves into a spectacular froth. They were breaking with the greatest fury out past the sandbar. We ventured out to meet them. As I pushed off the sandbar, the water grew deeper. I saw a wave breaking in front of me and I tried to catch it. I didn't so much catch it as I got caught in it. It picked me up and sucked me under, spinning me so hard I couldn't tell which way was up. As it dragged me across the lake's bottom, I reoriented and made my way to the surface. Before I had a chance to catch a decent breath, a second wave crashed down on me. Now I was back in the spin cycle with little oxygen to hold me over. I made it back to the surface again, only to be hit with yet a third wave. This time, there was no kidding myselfI was spent. I struggled for an instant but I knew it was over. I was going to drown. Strangely enough, I relaxed and thought of how upset my mom was going to be when she found out. Just then, a firm hand looped itself under my shoulder and yanked me to the surface. A friend who was a much better swimmer than I had seen me floundering. He pulled me to shore, where I collapsed in a heap. All the calm I had felt when I realized I was going to drown was gone now. In its place was a terror that felt like what the very waves that had threatened me looked likerelentless and black. As I regained control, I looked out at the water. The wind had died down; the whitecaps that had almost claimed me were gone. The lake looked exactly as it did when I had started swimming that day. My idea of what constituted the bottom had shifted, and though I had survived, I knew instantly that I was forever changed.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once observed that you can't step into the same river twice. In light of my experiences, I am not sure I would ever want to. What I would want is to maintain the desire to dive in, to explore the depths under the best circumstances I can muster, and to have the strength and vision to accept and understand whatever I found as the result of my swim. To do otherwise would leave me dead in the water. And that would definitely be Greek to me.