After a quick shower, I stepped over to the pod and looked inside. The white interior was bathed in a blue, diffused light that reflected all around, giving the water an otherworldly hue as it’s own slightly blue tinge was added. Stepping into the warm salt water, I lowered the hatch to the pod and lay back into the water’s embrace. I was floating.
With only my face above the water, the nearby gentle crash of waves broke on a rocky shore. After a few minutes, the lights went dark and the surf subsided into the distance. Pitch black. Nothing but the sound of my own breath. I suppose it could have been claustrophobic, but with no sense of the boundaries of the pod, there was nothing to distinguish between where I was and the massive expanse of space. I was no more trapped or enclosed than I chose to be. In a sense, I was as free as I’ve ever been.
With the absence of light, the uniform touch of water on skin, and only the sound of my breath, I began to notice to sounds typically ignored, like the rhythm of my heartbeat. Not just the heavy downbeat, but the counter-beat as well. Slow and peaceful. Comforting. Occasionally, a finger or toe would be gently nudged by the wall of my floating bubble in space. Without effort, the extremity in contact with the wall would seek once more its natural position, passively pushing me once again into a delicious limbo.
Time passed. I became aware of muscles that were clinging to their habit of detecting and managing my world around me. They didn’t want to let go. My eyes didn’t understand how to. I gently recited a line from The Art of Noise’s Paranomia: “Relax. You’re quite safe here.” As they let go of their relentless search for something on which to focus, there was an instance of alarm, and then relaxation. This was something new.
More time passed. I stepped out of my thought stream and viewed them as observer rather than participant, or as most of us do, captive. I listened to the symphony of my lungs drawing air in and letting it out, my heartbeat reverberating in the water.
At some point, the nearby rocky shore and it’s waves returned. Shortly after that, the lights came on and it was time to come back to Earth. I opened the hatch, stepped out, showered off and dressed, but all from a distance. Not through a fog, but from a point of intense clarity – of purpose and situation. Time felt slower, more leisurely. Every action and thought was intentional and un-rushed. The man behind the counter laughed happily as I came closer and he saw the expression on my face.
(For more information on floating, location, etc., see The Float Spot’s website.)