#reverb10 - Alive

Prompt: Body integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn't mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

One word: drowning. I was probably overreacting, but I really thought I was going to drown. I had watched way too many of those "lost at sea" Discovery Channel specials.

This is what I saw. This is all I saw. I was snorkeling in Caribbean waters off Grand Cayman. Without a life vest. Stupid. I was getting tired. My legs felt like jelly; my arms were so heavy. My chest was heavy. I couldn't see our guide, my best friend or her husband, or Jed. I had lost them. I looked above water, and while I could see our boat, it seemed so far away, and no one on it saw me.

I started to panic, thinking I wasn't going to be able to make it back. I felt my eyes tearing up in my goggles thinking of how no one knew where I was to help me. I tried to take a deep breath to calm down and enjoy the snorkeling while making my way slowly back to the boat. Have you ever taken a deep breath through a snorkel? Yeah, it doesn't work so well. I became very aware of my human-ness, of my position in this circle of live.

Every sense was on high alert: the smell of the plastic mask, the bright blue of the water and the fish swimming in front of me, the sound of the waves lapping around me (oh, I forgot to mention the waves), the taste of salt water and the feel of slightly cool ocean water surrounding me. My mind was in my lungs, it seemed.

For the record, I made it back through a combination of floating and kicking my feet. Everyone made it back. This prompt wasn't meant to be scary, but this experience immediately came to mind when I read it.