True to self. I struggle to find me in a sea of others, others who gather like a school of fish, swimming in unison, following the leader, accepting the hand off to swim in the front, but always going together. I drift on the edge like a piece of floating sea junk bobbing up and down.
Pulled into the updraft, I slide into the stream. But the school takes a sharp left and I go straight, fast and furious as if my steering is set on ahead, cruise control, no means of adjustment.
They don’t see me leave, don’t care, don’t notice. Except for one, out of the corner of her right eye. A pulse of kindness, yet she stays with the pack.
My eyes follow the ocean floor, notice the sway of seaweed, the loner fish dipping in and out of rock dens. I let the current carry me forward, trusting the glide, trusting the ride.
The colors reside in the palette of cool with occasional punctuation marks of red and orange. My arms extend wide and I am an airplane underwater, dipping and soaring, dipping and soaring.
Ahead the sea grows murky, cloudy, destination obscured. I disappear into the haze hoping to emerge into clear when the sea rests, when the waves stop, when the sun shines down from above.
Patience, I tell myself. Patience. And I close my eyes.