The Pool — A Sanctuary Like A Mother's Womb

As I sit here, at the edge of the pool, watching the morning light break across the water, rippling gold and silver, unhurried —

I take a deep breath. Close my eyes. My head bows into the water. My body finds its position.

And then — bubbles, rising upward, slow and certain, as I become one with the water.

I have done this a thousand times.

And everything —

stopped.

Not the world. Just the noise inside it. The shimmer of light bending through water. The muffled hush of everything above turning soft, distant, kind. And from my nose — one perfect bubble. Unhurried. Rising slowly like it had nowhere more important to be.

I watch it go.

I glide through the water, moving forward, leaving my past powerless.

Suspended. Weightless. Held by something vast and gentle and completely without demand.

The breath finds its rhythm before my mind does.

Inhale. Turn. Exhale. Repeat.

I don't decide this. My body already knows.

The water parts — resists for just one breath of a second — then surrenders. As if it simply needed to know I meant it. And I do. I always do.

I move forward. Stroke by stroke. Each one a quiet conversation between me and something I cannot name but have always trusted.

Sound doesn't disappear here.

It transforms.

The world above becomes a whisper. A rumour of itself. And underneath — only this. My heartbeat. My breath. The soft rush of water against skin. A language older than any I have ever spoken.

Time lets go of me here.

No score to keep. No clock cutting through the blue. Just the pull. The glide. The release. Over and over until I cannot tell where the water ends and I begin.

Each lap peels something away.

Quietly. Without drama. Without asking permission.

I don't always know what I leave behind at the bottom of this pool.

I only know —

by the time my fingers touch the wall —

I am lighter than when I began.

As I lift myself out of the pool, I feel it immediately.

Lighter. Stronger. Certain.

The water runs off my skin in slow, deliberate streams — each drop finding its way back, gravitating home, and as it goes — it takes something with it. My apprehensions. My weight. The quiet accumulation of everything I was carrying when I arrived.

I watch the last drops fall.

And I stand here — new.

Ready for the world that awaits me on the other side of this stillness.

Because this is what the pool gives me that nothing else can.

Safety. Energy. A return to something ancient and unhurried. Like a child held in the warmth of her mother's womb — weightless, protected, completely and unconditionally held.

The world will ask many things of me today.

But first — it gave me this.

And this — always — is enough.