The Shape of Submergence

There is a specific weight to the water that once held my father’s watch. It was a heavy, silver thing that stopped ticking the moment it touched the salt of the Pacific, leaving behind a silence where the rhythmic pulse of the second hand used to be. We spend our lives trying to anchor ourselves to the solid, to the things we can touch and keep, yet we are constantly being pulled toward the fluid, the dissolving, the things that refuse to be held. To be submerged is to lose the edges of the self, to become a blur of motion where the boundary between the body and the world simply ceases to exist. It is a terrifying surrender, to let go of the dry land of our own definitions and drift into a space where we are no longer defined by what we do, but by how we yield. If we were to let the current take us entirely, what part of our history would remain on the shore?

Maureen Mayne-Nicholls has captured this beautiful image titled Acua. It serves as a haunting reminder that we are often most ourselves when we are dissolving into the elements. Does this image feel like a drowning to you, or a beginning?