On writing

Sixty percent of the process is swimming through yourself. I'm sinking my hands into muddy sand at the bottom, digging for sand dollars, fearing something sharp. My goggles gradually defog the more I seek what is behind one thought and another and another. I feel sometimes like when I start thinking, my thoughts are the rustle of water against my eardrums, and it takes so much effort to come back to the easy clarity of air –- it offends people that I need a few seconds to resurface, to rejoin them, to come back to listen when they call my name, but I'm not disinterested, just fighting against a strong current to come back.

​Under water there is clarity, too. Detaching means holding your nose and breath and letting the depth pressure insulate you. It means going where the current takes you, and when you fixate long enough on something blurry, it will suddenly glimmer clearly, a fish catching sunlight, and each time I can get a little closer to it. Pull me out too quickly, I’ll lose that trail; I’ll only remember the outline of that glimmer, but I won’t be able to paint its scales. I'm always conscious of this when I interrupt others in the middle of their thoughts. I know the world is important to see, to live in, to respond to, but sometimes there is something inside ourselves we need to understand in order to float on, undisrupted.