When I was a little girl, before learning to swim, I revered the deep end of the pool. I'd nervously inch my way along the side to the life rope in the middle, slide my foot down the steep declination of the pool floor and shiver with an excited fear that hurried its way through my nervous system.
I waited, as a little thing, for the courage to dive down into that depth and gloriously expand myself into that strange, dark place of momentary wild freedom.
Like a swimming pool, I, myself, have a shallow end and I have a deep end.
You can play with me in the shallow end if you want - we’ll have a good time.
But I'll be heading over to the deep end soon – with or without you. And even if I'm going alone, I won't feel alone. That's not the way anything that's deep makes you feel.
The deep itself is a friend, calling out longingly, encouraging you to enter it's domain.
I long for it too. Flying, gliding, propelling through that great expanse of supportive, body caressing water, I penetrate the pressure of the deep to touch its foundation with my soft underbelly, laying myself flat on it's floor, just me and the deep; submitting to it as my senses take in the soft, new, quiet dimension around me.
If you aren’t a deep water swimmer though, stay in the shallows and I’ll be back = we’ll see each other again– but I’ll be a little different each time I return.
You won’t be. Not if you don't go yourself, into the deep. You'll be the same every time I come back. Because you haven't gone anywhere.
I’ll see you in the shallow end again.
I have to go back there too.
I get along on either side but am not one or the other
- won’t be one or the other.
I am both.
The deep and the shallow.