Push,

Pull.

Pressure,

Release.

The dusk, the dark hour before dawn.

A friend gave me a back massage last year and I was reminded of it recently, how she said “You carry so much tension in your shoulders!”

I’m sure that every amateur masseuse in the history of the world has told their friends that. We all carry that weight, like Atlas, hoping that we can fix problems with the comfortable flex of a familiar hand.

Here comes another wave, deep breath, close eyes, dive.

I tumble and tumble and the wave pulls me down. Maybe I’ll be under the rough sea forever, inhaling salt.

But I come up and I gasp and I open my eyes and there’s another one so I take a deep breath and I close my eyes and I dive.

And I am pummeled by the wave and it flips my feet over my head and I can hear the heart of the ocean beating in my ears and maybe I’ll be sucked down beneath the wave and never come up again and

I surface

It wasn’t my hands that pulled me back to the air.

It wasn’t my hands that pushed me into the light.