Away We Stay: Bathymetry
This odd word with all the y’s is defined as the measurement of the depth of oceans, seas, or lakes.
It determines the contours of the deep, it finds the line where the water ends and the earth begins. The junction where geologic processes of compression begin, where a weighty column of water presses down so heavily that if you throw in a handful time it will transform to stone.
But for now, it is a lightly mapped lake bottom. Do we know the depth? Yes, if it’s the kind that is measured in meters. And if we’re only talking about the very recent past. How different was it four hundred years ago? Did the First Nations experience a surge of fish that could only have happened if a rift had opened a mile or so offshore?
“After all, the sand shifts at the bottom of the ocean, so why wouldn’t that be true of my own substrate?”
What does knowing the depths actually tell us? Would a map of the curves of my own soul, the shallows and the dark bits, help me navigate the surface with any more grace? Would the cartographic process bring me to an understanding that I couldn't have found otherwise?
Do I really want to find the darkest, purplest parts? I feel as though I’ve poked around, be it the emotional sea, or reserves of physical strength, or realizations of the true, gravelly voice of my ego. I don’t know if I have what it takes to go all the way down there. Would I find power? Or is what’s down there a depth of vulnerability? Of rage? Of something I want but shouldn’t so I’ve wrapped diving weights around it’s ankles? Is what’s in the purple zone the me I would be if I existed on the edge? Or are there thoughts I can’t access because of all the sunlit noise surrounding me every day?
What would going to my own depths teach me? Or would the discovery of the shallows bring real enlightenment? Am I distracted by staying where it’s warm and the water laps against the shore and sandcastles are present and cold beverages abound?
Are these excavations always painful? Or is there a moment when I would catch my breath at the beauty? Would it be easier to go there alone, to hear only the duality of my own breathing and the shout-whisper of deadly water all around?
Will I ever stop looking into the depths, or is this one of those never ending human processes? After all, the sand shifts at the bottom of the ocean, so why wouldn’t that be true of my own substrate? The deeps don't stay that way. But neither do the shallows. I would do well to remember that even when I’m in the midst of excavation, when I’m looking down and along comes a jarring spike of vertigo from being held aloft by something specifically designed to float but so completely unsure of what’s under me.
If I were to draw a map of the feelings, where would the purple parts be? On the map, those are the deepest. It’s no longer the cool greens and blues of medium depth, instead it’s a color with enough red to say danger. Be on alert. If I were to make a graph of the events of my existence, which ones would be greenest?
And of the two, the things that happened on the shoreline and those that extended into middle of the abyss, which ones would have been the most important?
Inspired by events at Bear Lake, Utah & Idaho
Share to