Swimming

 

I remember quite vividly—I would have probably been about five or six—the day I had to jump off a diving board for the first time. I was enrolled in a swimming class at the local public swimming pool, which is why I was at this particular impasse. The height must be exaggerated in my memory, but I can picture my toes over the edge, floating over the water, and to this day the dread I felt then lingers in that image. I can also remember walking out to the edge, the board giving further into my weight as I got farther from the ladder, and the subtle rhythm of the board’s bounce; I could liken the feeling to swaying on the ocean from atop a masthead, as hyperbolic as that might seem. 

 

I jumped, disappeared under a watery threshold, and returned to its surface: resistance and acquiescence in the same moment. Every revelation here seems to be a revelation of paradox.