It's a rainy day in Bellevue, perfect for a writing lab, our first ever. I usually get something out of every group I facilitate. Based on the writing prompt: How did you get here today, I produced the following piece that might be no more than a journal entry style of writing, but brought a memory of long ago back to me.
My throat was raw this morning after trying to drown myself while drinking my third glass of water. I coughed in the middle of a gulp and the water erupted through my nose, leaving a burning sensation all the way down to my wind pipe.
After I recovered, the feeling inside my nose made me think of Tacoma Park, our community pool in my home town, the one that most of us kids lived at all summer. I loved to get close enough to the "Deep end" to linger. No one was allowed to stay in the ten foot area because of all the divers. A set of ropes marked the boundary.
I would fly off the low diving board in one of two dives that I could do: head first or jack-knife, with a goal to touch bottom. Sometimes I panicked, attempting to swim upward, faster. At the surface, my nose filled with the clear, cold, water, I would doggie paddle to the ropes, relishing in the weightless feeling, even though my nose and mouth burned.
I loved that section just before the deep end that we called the ropes. It was safe enough. The lifeguard's chair, the high diving board just beyond the drop off. I could hang on the ropes if I wanted a spectator to those who dove from the ten-foot diving board, the sound of the Beatles Day Tripper coming over the P.A.
At the ropes, the water level was 5 feet and I wasn't quite that tall yet. Touching down my toes, stretching my body so that my mouth, my nose, my eyes remained above water; sometimes I forgot to hold on and my head would slip below the surface, me unprepared. I'd get that chlorine burn in my nose then too.
Thinking back to this morning was I actually in danger of drowning? Probably not. I tend to drown in my own thoughts, allowing them to consume me. Perhaps the need to clear my mind should be the most important thing I do today.
The rain falls and the space fills with creative energy. Time to get down to business, the business of writing.
I'll hold this space on the Second Saturday of every month for whomever would like to come write with me. I have drinks, snacks, prompts and ideas to help us get our creative juices flowing. Hope you will join us sometime.