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Gaining Peace By Diving Deeper in the Mediterranean Sea
My take on “space” for Medium’s latest writing challenge
I have terrible claustrophobia. Catch me in the backseat of a tiny car, a shoebox-sized Manhattan apartment, or trapped under a blanket, and I am most likely doing rescue breaths. I even had to make a safe word with my boyfriend who enjoys jumping on me while I’m in bed because sometimes, I’m sure I’ll never be able to get out and a panic attack ensues.
I’m not sure where this fear originates, but it is definitely connected to my anxieties; our crumbling environment that will literally limit the usable space on earth, my fears about being forgotten as a writer and taking up zero space in anyone’s memory, or the very real concern that an earthquake will wipe out my apartment. All in all, I have no chill.
But this week, while floating in the salty, inky-blue water of the Mediterranean Sea, I learned something that’s made me re-consider my way of being.
When my boyfriend handed me goggles and a snorkel, my pulse quickened. We’d just arrived at Villasimius in Sardinia where his family has a white-clay cottage just off the shore. We had climbed down the jagged grey rocks to the thin strip of sand where the aquamarine water slashed against stone.
