Deep Waters

In my nightmares, I dream of them. Tsunamis, rouge waves, planes plunging into dark stormy seas. Deep watery arms reaching for me, as if to say, “remember our time is near…” like a jealous ex boyfriend who calls me at night to tell me that our fate is inevitable. I cannot escape; my dreams prepare me for what I am most afraid of. The power it has over me, the total inability to control, the lack of recognizable land, the depth of a foreign world. A place filled with torment for those not made for it, a hell.

When I go there in my fears, I am alone. First, I imagine the cold, its wetness embracing me only to thrash me like a rag doll in the mouth of a Rottweiler. Around me there is no foreseeable escape, no land, just black water under starlight, swelling, beating like blood through veins. I contemplate the ocean’s power, its predators. Curious creatures with no hands, only mouths to test out what could possibly satisfy their cravings. Then, if I did somehow drift in seas long enough to have land on my retina, how would I fight the currant? I would reach one skinny, salted arm forward then the other. I would kick bony feet back and forth. Yet land is often surrounded by rock and coral, shallower heights that break the energy of the swell, throwing water and spitting whitewash in furious power. The height of the coral shelf cannot be determined from further out in the ocean, not by untrained eyes. The power, the thrust, the height of the wave, unknown until it’s wall begins to form behind you. You could surrender. Let the wave take you, swim even, twirlingly, scrapingly to shore. You could stay in the deep, paralyzed by your fear. There is only so much one can do.

Deep waters are foreign territory, a world we are not born into, a world we are alone in. We come into this world and we leave it alone, I have heard many say, but I am unsure of the complexity with which it is understood. In this world we are born to a mother, a family, a caretaker. We are not really alone. We have, to some degree, people, whether it be family, or a friendly face we see at the store. Someone, somewhere, knows us. If we are not known, we can look into another person’s eyes and tell them our story, sometimes without ever speaking a word. We have a body, and some form of control over the use of ourselves and other materials. We leave this world alone, but often think when we die we will be greeted by a light and proceed to a happy reunion with lost relatives. Heaven. The starlight among the nothingness, a glorious place where one is fully known and knows fully. But what is of hell? Hell, the opposite of being fully known and knowing, a foreigner, alone, with no place, no person, no control; a human bobbing as prey in a relentless sea.

I dream of it in my nightmares. Its dark power consumes me. By day my heart strives for the narrow path, but the clear blue water looks calm, inviting. By night what will become of my consciousness? A metamorphic blend into the divine?

Or will I simply awaken, alone, in dark waters.

He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters. (Psalms 18:16 NLT)