I used to have the kind of night terrors where my mother would find me wandering through the house in complete darkness looking for a safe place to escape. My eyes were open, but my mind was drowning in visions that felt bigger than anything my small body could handle. It was like treading water in a black ocean thousands of miles from shore, where you are helpless against the mountain-sized swells constantly threatening to develop just below your churning feet. Inside of you is screaming for help, but nothing more than a whisper passes your lips fearing the sound of your own voice might ripple through the waves like a catalyst of terrible consequence. There is nobody to save you, and the only way to save yourself is to succumb to exhaustion and hope you wake up someplace safe. I’ve since learned to sleep through the night, and when my eyes open I don’t see those ink black waves threatening to crash down around me anymore. But I do still feel them just below my feet. Now they swell in those candid moments when I accidentally say how I feel, before I realize the ripple of every word is being measured and judged. So I learn to say nothing more than a whisper, but it swells again when I am told how I should see the world around me, even though it isn’t the way I really see it at all. I have no influence over this water other than imagining the consequences of a screaming tidal wave that sometimes feels inevitable. I look for a safe place to escape. Maybe an island where I’m still surrounded by the water, but no longer part of it. That’s a place where the consequences of thoughts and words bounce off the rocks and only matter if you build something out of them. It’s a smaller place, but it’s more free. The water isn’t dark in the shallows around the shore, and you search them wide-eyed with hope and wonder. I honestly don’t know if this island is just a dream, but it doesn’t matter because so is the black ocean. (at Toledo, Washington) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnP567aSBMn/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
