Reflections from a pool of water

The air conditioning being broken in my apartment, I took the leave of the heat this afternoon to go to my parents house. I sat in the pool, trying to purge my body of the memory of a 93 degree apartment. Submerged to just below my nose, I watched as the air leaving my nostrils made a thousand tiny ripples, which were quickly consumed by the stillness of the water around it. Had they been joined by others, the ripples might have turned to waves and changed the landscape, moved the leaves, frightened the bees that hovered along the surface. But alone, they traveled a couple of inches and vanished, as if they had never existed at all.

The water refracted the light, turning the edges of things into a spectrum. My toes took on blue and red edges, as if one could put on a pair of 3-D glasses and things could somehow become realer than real. But as I moved toward the surface everything became foreshortened. My appendages turned to stumps and it felt as if they would never breach.

Life these days seems as though it should be so full of possibilities. As though it should be easy to change the world, or even to just change my life. But small efforts dissipate without someone to share your effort, and what looks to be an incredible possibility swiftly turns to a concrete and disappointing reality.