When Jack was four months old, I developed a very intense and frightening fantasy. I imagined myself in the middle of the ocean, swallowed by endless fathoms of water. My feet firmly rooted on land, I longed to drown.
At the time, I assumed I was suicidal. After all, I was sleep deprived, overwhelmed, and sucked dry; if I was so desperate to drown, it could only mean that I was already drowning. The idea that I might want to die—especially now that I was a mother to an infant whose entire life would be shaped by my desires for life or for death—panicked me to the bone. I felt like Odysseus lured by the mellifluous Sirens; I needed to be tied up for my own good. Eagerly, I accepted the diagnosis of postpartum depression, plunged even deeper into my therapy, and began to climb out of all that water with my writing.
Two years later, rested and reasonably sane, I find myself drawn once again to water. The fantasy is more detailed this time and in these details, more compelling. I am on the beach, at the very edge of land and water. I stand with my arms outstretched so that I form a cross. I know I will dive in, and when I do, the currents will overtake me. I will be sucked under and tossed around like an ordinary shell. It will hurt—maybe maddeningly so—and I won’t know if I’ll ever come up for air. I will be alone, I will be helpless, and I will be blind. It will be exactly like being born.
If I’m able to surrender to this fantasy, it will be the first time I’ve ever experienced birth. I’ve raged against life since the womb, when I obstinately refused to enter the birth canal and had to be surgically removed through my mother’s belly. A part of me has always remained behind, waiting for the game to be over. And then Jack came along and urgently dove into life so hard and fast I thought I was going to die. Now, I’m standing at the most important crossroads of my life. I can choose birth or one of several forms of death. My parents chose death. Their parents chose death. Jack, so far, seems to be choosing life. What will I choose?
I think I already know. After all, there is all that water and it’s very close now. But diving in means leaving the beach and there are certain things I’m not yet ready to give up. There are my parents who will never know the feel of water on their skin even when they’re right up next to it. There is the rage of all that is not just and right. There is the guilt of surviving the unsurvivable. Eventually, I’ll have to let all of these things drift away, because that water keeps coming back, even when I will it away. Eventually, I’ll have to untie the ropes and surrender to all those screaming Sirens.
I love REM’s Night Swimming, but I’ve never ever bared all. It’s not that I’m morally opposed to getting naked, or so vain that I need to hide behind my clothes. No, it’s not the exposure that scares me onto the sidelines. Passion is the problem. What if I like the experience a little too much?