#float tank

I made the thirty minute drive listening to the opening chapters of Girl, Wash Your Face (I know—it’s so popular that it risks becoming a cliché, but one of my most treasured friends loved it and shared her Audible copy with me, so I’m diving in).   I walked in fifteen minutes early as recommended by the website (“to give yourself time to check in and transition into the space”), and I was greeted by a wide open waiting area and bright-eyed Montel, who walked his bare feet right up to me and shook my hand.  He welcomed me, asked me to remove my shoes (and leave them by the front door, under his supervision, I hoped), and then invited me to sit anywhere that was comfortable.   There were too many options (couches, wooden chairs, loveseats, benches), so I went with the nearest sofa and sat, open to the experience but still resisting actually letting myself be comfortable.  I sat on the edge of the cushion, legs crossed, leaning into the armrest, fully aware of my body language despite the nice conversation I then had about writing and music with the Montel (he has a BA in vocal music).  I did what was familiar: walked the edge of a conversation that could have felt good, but kept my follow-up questions and anecdotes to myself because, after all, we weren’t going to spend much more time together, and it’s not like we were going to see each other again in any kind of social context, so… At least this time I learned from how awkward this made me feel.  Surrounded by incense and all the signs of holistic healing at work, where is there a BETTER place to leap into a conversation about our passions?  Why hold back?  Why not spark those fires at every chance we have?  What the hell was I doing? 

After waiting for someone else to arrive (who, as far as I know, never did), we went back to the rooms and I got the tour, the tutorial of how to do this, where to look for reminder instructions, where to hang my towel should I get salt water on my face, the button to push if I want the light back on, the button to push that does absolutely nothing, despite the music note decal above it.  

Before he left me to it, he shook his head with a big smile (not that it ever really left his face) and shrugged and said, “I’m so excited that you’re a writer,” because THAT was what he clung to: I’m a teacher, sure—that’s how I make money, and I love it.  But what he saw was a writer.  Artists recognizing artists.  Awesome.

I showered, dried my face as told, opened the sealed door, stepped into the room (it was a room, not a pod, though he showed me what those look like, too), laughed to myself at how slick the floor was and the fact that I hadn’t anticipated that, latched the door completely, and lowered into the water.  

I pushed the only working button, and the teal light gently faded away as zen-inducing music came in.  

For a long time, I had pictured myself in this setting: closed eyes (like it mattered in the pitch blackness), neck and shoulders finally straight and relaxed, arms drifting a few inches from my hips as I found my center, or peace, or nirvana, or whatever it was that I was supposed to find when my physical senses were finally given a chance to rest.  Instead, I spent the first I-want-to-say half of the experience with my arms up over my head (because that’s where they kept drifting, forcing me to finally understand where the “Dead Man’s Float” got its name), bending in different angles at the waist because I suddenly felt so flexible and free, and since I couldn’t see anything, hell, maybe I WAS a contortionist all of a sudden!  Montel had told me that at the end of the session, the light would come back on and some piano music would come in, and at that point, I should just let loose and play: bounce off the walls, try to float on my stomach, swim around and be silly.  

Faced with the darkness and impending silence (the music was going to fade out eventually), I instead told myself that my spirit is too playful to lie still like I was supposed to, and I gave myself permission to move however I wanted, instead of berating myself for wasting this opportunity on movement.  

The music died away, and in the silence I could hear my breath extra loudly, thanks not only to the water, but to the earplugs I wore to protect me from it.  I felt like I couldn’t get my neck to relax, so I tried the floating headrest.  It was fine for a while, and I started to grow still, but it threatened to give me a headache once my head started to feel heavy for some reason, so I reached for the wall (there it is. No, that’s the door.  That means it’s to the right.  Here we go. The hook was above the light. There’s the light.  No, that’s a filter jet.  There’s the light.  That means the hook is…how far…?) and hung up the headrest only to have it fall and splash a drop of salt water on my face.  Part of me knew immediately that this droplet would not bother me.  I’d practiced enough mindfulness meditation that I could just let it go, but a louder, more controlling part of me said, “This is part of the experience!  You have to use the spray bottle and the towel he recommended hanging near the door to wipe your face so you aren’t distracted by the itch of drying water!”  So I did.  I also pushed the music note button, and sure enough, it didn’t do anything.

Looking back, I think it was at this point that my maternal self looked at me lovingly and sternly, with “Alright.  That’s enough,” on her face, and I finally felt like I was ready to stop doing the float and just be floating.  

It grew quieter in my head, all the gnat-like thoughts flitting and staying away for longer and longer, and in this new, different silence, I surprised my future self. I said (in my head), “Alright, god. Here I am.”

You probably don’t know me too well (so it surprises me that you’d have read this far), but I am not a religious person.  And this isn’t a religious piece, at least not as I understand it.  I was not taught to foster any kind of relationship with a god, and I never really spoke to one growing up unless I wanted something.  I was great at bargaining with a hazy, distant god vaguely introduced to me by my born-again Pentecostal grandma, and sometimes I let myself be comforted by the notion that someone might be looking out for me, but for my adult life, the idea of g/God has been like kombucha for me: I know it does some people real good, but I just can’t make myself like it.  I don’t mind if you enjoy it; I’m going to say, “No, thanks.”

I also said, back-to-back with my announcement to that god, “Enlightenment, or whatever you are, I’m here.”  This is less surprising, because I know myself well enough that while I don’t dismiss most things New Age or holistic, when faced with the opportunity for enlightenment, I’m so tired and tense and perpetually drained lately that I would approach it with glibness, that I would look it in the face and say, “Well???”

I’d love to say that I then had some kind of vision or realization, that some fog had lifted for me and everything felt clear and right again.  Some people hallucinate; I did not, aside from thinking that I was seeing light come in through the door when I definitely wasn’t (the door wasn’t where I thought it was when I made that trip for the towel).  I may have fallen asleep, or started to, more than once because I felt myself come back to my body (this is the only way I know how to describe the feeling of waking up when opening my eyes was no different than closing them) without realizing I’d lost awareness of the water around me.  No god spoke to me in any voice, my own included, but when I used my last conscious thought to announce that I was ready to listen, I did finally go still.  I did finally just exist without exertion and breathe without listening to my own breath. For ninety minutes, I unplugged from everything I could, and got as close as I’ve ever been to some intangible, indescribable peace.  My nose started to grow a little stuffy, I breathed too shallowly and had to take some catch-up breaths here and there, my joints popped and cracked as I shifted here and there and it was loud in the water, and all of that was no longer worth thinking about.  It was all genuinely okay, and that was enough to put me in a daze.

The room lit up soft blue again, and I had no concept of how long I was in my two states.  I am hopeful that I was quiet longer than I was restless, but it doesn’t matter.  I tasted the stillness and confirmed that even in me, in ever-reaching, ever-worried, ever-wanting me, it’s there. The promised piano music was instantly familiar: a softer version of The Pixies’ “Where is My Mind?” The choice made me smile—my husband introduced me to this song when we started dating eleven years ago, and I’ve never stopped loving it.  And you’d better believe I took Montel’s direction.  I pushed off the walls and glided across the water, bouncing here and there, waking up my limbs in the most fun way I could imagine until the song ended and I was left in the light.  

I smiled as I carefully pulled myself up and pushed open the door.  I smiled as I took my second shower, washing away all the salt water that threatened to really dry me out in the middle of winter. I smiled as I toweled off, put my clothes back on, took a deliberate last look around the little room, and stepped out into the hallway.  

I smiled when Montel found me in the quiet nook filled with cushions on the floor, mixed and matched blankets and a salt lamp decorating the small, cozy space intended to ease me back into the world.  He offered me water, and I smiled when I took it from him.

Had I not had a sitter waiting on my  return and a chiropractor appointment set later than afternoon (read: a life to return to), I don’t know how long I’d have stayed there.  When I first passed it, I didn’t think I’d use that room at all. But when I sat there on the floor drinking that water, I could still feel traces of the stillness sitting below the light headache that was setting in—a happiness hangover—and I wanted to live there.  

I don’t live there, though, so I walked out into the bright front space, hair still damp and messily finger-combed, face bare and relaxed as I found my shoes where I left them by the door.  I sat where Montel had in the beginning and made myself comfortable while I put them on, and he took my earlier seat and said a little bit more about how he loves the experience, throwing in a few lines about a membership that on another day might have irked me.  I didn’t mind.  We thanked each other, we said our goodbyes, and I stepped out into the wind to make my way back to the car.  I conformed to my seat a little more than usual on the drive back, and when someone almost clipped me on the highway, I let it go a little more quickly than usual. (Still, later that night, when someone ran a stop sign on my street, I honked at them and then flashed my brights at them, so you win some, you lose some).