I am the Water

There's a nice view from the dock. The planks are aged, but not unstable; they creak in greeting

Image via Wikipedia

and in parting, happy to have my company. I've been sitting on the dock now for nearly two years. Seasons pass, animals come to quench their thirst at the water's edge, birds come to bear and raise their young before returning back to their home in the sky. Everything changes, everything renews, everything grows, except for me and this dock--all we do is age, a motionless, emotionless aging.

Right below us rests the unknown. In the depths of the water there are things never before seen, at least by me. I wonder what's down there. I wonder what it feels like to swim again, hold my breath and count, expunge all of the air in my body and sink to the bottom for a tea party, "MARCO!"

For the two years that I've been sitting on the dock, nothing has disturbed the water aside from the slurp of a deer here, an arrival or departure of a bird there, the flap of a curious fish, or the dance of a water bug. No great force has fallen from the sky to splash down into the lake. No water nymph or Kraken has emerged from beneath the surface. It's quiet. Very quiet.

I am the water: quiet, undisturbed, watchful, waiting, hiding a massive wealth of treasure beneath my own surface.

This past week, I stood up from my cross-legged posture on the dock. I stood up, closed my eyes and took a huge breath of air, several of them actually, for I don't know how long I'll have to hold my breath once I make the leap. Yesteryear I was one thing, tomorrow I will be something else. I'll be something frolicking in the water, floating on my back to feel the sun upon my face, playing like a breaching whale while I explore a new world.

Yesterday I was a marketer, tomorrow I will be a writer.

My toes are gripping the edge of the wooden dock, twiddling up and down with anticipation, and the animals have gathered on the shore to watch the show, even the sun has stopped its course across the sky so as not to miss this leap. Breath. Deep breath.

I whisper, "Marco."

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