Below the Surface

July days were spent deciding whether to belly-flop off the diving board, buy an ice cream sandwich, or swim. As a game, Megan and I would release all the air in our 11-year-old lungs to defy Archimedes Principle and sink ourselves to the bottom. The pool bottom was filled with this new, blue perspective of a world above. Swirling, distorted faces morphed into quiet otherworldliness. We were mermaids for three seconds until our ears popped. Then, we pressed foot to concrete and emerged gasping. It was fun.

In what Patti Smith refers to as her ‘lethargy’ in the M Train, I have not succeeded in conveying my current state to my closest friends. I am hollow. I am dazed. I am restless. The past two weeks, I’ve slept through my morning alarm. Why? I don’t care. After 43 minutes of weaving between the fence pickets of consciousness, I realize I can’t lose my day job and grab the same sweatpants that I’ve worn the past three days and one new sweater. Yesterday, I got lost en route to my artist studio. Time is emptying like air from toddlers’ arm inflatables.

In truth, I am under water. I am able to hold my breath now for hours, days, weeks. If surreal is ‘above’ real, then this is below it: “en dessous de verite.” I tread past younger versions of myself, where I am coddling a baby and singing James Taylor lullabies, drawing doodles on lunchbox notes, clapping at science fairs, and snapping photos at graduations. I only see my holding her. But she is no longer with me, so I’m left navigating the carousel of random people that float by me. None matter. They are irritatingly in the way. They cannot help me because I’m underwater and they can stand. My feet have been trying to reach the floor, feel for concrete, but there is none. And I’m not ready to come up for air.

My Liza.

I miss saying her name. I say it less because she’s not here anymore. It seems deliberate and mischievous if I pick up her sweater from the laundry mound and say, “I better hang this up in Liza’s room.” After all, to whom am I speaking? It’s so familiar on my tongue and yet silent on my ears. I’ve been out of practice and I’m sore about it.

I recently finished reading this book called Dark Lies the Island by this Irish bloke named Barry. His shorter stories place his brilliantly created characters in towns where we stopped through on our trip through. Like the two road town of Killary: Ah! Do you remember the hot fish and chips dinner there? It was rainy and misty and we could barely see Skellig. In this book, the central character has a conversation with his (deadpan, single malt engrossed) father when he is ailing. “You’re not like my crowd at all, Maurice” his father says, “You’re like her crowd.” I’ve considered that paragraph for the past few weeks. E, as you know, favors her father’s side. From her quick wit and social prowess, she excels in areas I don’t. She also throws grapes at him towards the end of dinner, a sure sign for my attention or to shake me into playfulness, but I am left to pick artifacts of these exchanges off the floor by the cupboards. They tease me incessantly. I sit and listen and watch and think of Liza. Then collect the grapes.

In the most recent newspaper article written about her last week, the reporter wrote, “That’s what Liza set out to do.” This was the plan! A brilliant trajectory, and one that I am proud to embrace for her purpose and future, except that for me I clearly fucked up. Neptune must be laughing.

I invested every part of my being and time into this rare and marvelous creature who is now free to roam the world without my hand holding. I am trapped in fishnetting that I wove. I allowed myself to define and understand love, in its genuine novelty, which cannot be replaced. Eighteen years of learning to feel emotion. Which is why I keep swimming.

My bloated body feels her spirit pushing me into the current. While the water swirls over my head, I am keenly aware that my survival instinct nods that this cannot last much longer. So I am searching for an eddy, a rock that I can hold to pull myself above the surface. Or at least to rest, and possibly — in Loss’s most terrifying prank— to coax me to forget, while I watch the others swim by.