Dancharthos : Autobiography :

2.1 -- In the Water

I am not sure how old I was, maybe two, maybe it was 1953, maybe. I didn't know it yet, but my father was a rocket scientist, well, really an aerospace engineer. He had to spend time testing engines at a military base in the desert, maybe Edwards, maybe China Lake, maybe someplace else I don't know. Mom and I went out to spend a few days with him when he got time off between tests and stuff. Maybe it was the weekend, maybe not. We stayed at a motel. There was a swimming pool.

We are out by the pool. Mommy must be lying down, maybe reading, maybe not. I wander over toward the water. I will remember that I can see the blue and white sparkles coming closer and closer. I lean over. I want to touch it. I fall in.

Only a moment passed before a big grey man pulled me out. He must have been following me with his eyes and then ran after me. I was not underwater long enough to take a breath. Or maybe I knew not to. I remember no pain. Something else. In that moment underwater I felt, I saw, something wonderful. Warm. Wet. Full of light. Comforting.

I remember the womb like that. That is what I think now. That is what I have thought for many years, whenever I remember this moment in the desert pool. Maybe there are rocket planes rumbling in the sky above the air base. Maybe it is only the sound of my own heartbeat underwater, in my ears. Maybe it is people shouting. Then they pulled me out, the big grey man and my mother. She is worried, upset. I start to cry, not because the water hurt me, no. I cry because they are upset, because they pulled me out, because I had to be born.