immersed

There’s a photograph of Dory that I recently made the background of my computer desktop, so that I see it every time I open my computer.

She’s standing on a rock in an emerald pool of water: the swimming hole at the ranch. This is her favorite spot in the creek—before I can even walk all the way down the sloping hillside to the creek, she is across the swimming hole on this rock. In a year of plentiful water, the rock is submerged, and when she stands on it the water nearly reaches her belly. Her tail skims the surface, and water from her body drips back into the creek.

The photo is from December, still considered fall in the Texas hill country. Most of the sycamores have lost their leaves to the wind and the creek, but those that remain are tinged yellow, brown, and green. The grasses exploded with late rain, and they extend towards the water from the bank. Though the prior days were quite warm, recent rain blew in a colder day, and the high is in the 40s. I won’t let her stay long, and I wouldn’t have even brought her, but it’s her second birthday and I couldn’t deny her a swim.  

I’m upstream on a gravel bank across the creek, alternating between skipping rocks, sitting lost in thought, and watching Dory. At one point I look up and capture this moment. Dory is paying me no attention. She’s lost in her own world—or rather, she’s lost in this world. Lost, and still totally present. Fully immersed.

Her head is down, nose millimeters from the water. When I look at the photograph, I see Dory’s reflection staring back at her, Underwater-Dory rising to meet Abovewater-Dory at the surface. But Dory is focused on life beneath the surface: the bass and cichlid fish swimming, the leaves floating downstream. She’ll stay this way, observing, until she can’t resist any longer, at which point she’ll launch into the water to join in. It’s an attention and an intensity so pure it brings me wild joy and a hint of ache.

I watch her legs for shivering, my sign to drag her out of this watery world towards the ranch house, and warmth. But I keep the photograph close at hand, because this is what I want from my life: to stand—fully immersed, totally present, paying attention, lost in this world—and then dive in, to become part of it all.

Is there a photograph, or a piece of writing perhaps, that you keep close to remind you of how you want to be in the world? I’d love to hear in the comments below.