...and this leads me to another thought

I fear the stagnation of trembling passion. It was with love that I dove head first in the river. Starting at the deepest part. -- This reminds me of a time around the tender age of eleven or so when the discovery of unwalled fear was a 18 foot 2x4 stick that me and my brother and apartment dwelling play-cohorts would use to test the depths of the pool in our complex. Taking this cumbersome piece of lumber, I knelt on the edge of the kidney bean pool at the 12' ft marker, the deepest part. Why this memory suddenly comes to mind baffles me but what I do remember is I came within four minutes of my life when, as I pushed this long wood plank into the water towards the bottom, and as fascination took hold, I was bumped into the chlorinated depths of a mealy-mouthed shark ready to devour me. I was sucked in like an uncorked drain. Out of us four, no one, including me knew how to swim, so as I flailed and flung wildly (I'm later told), they watched aghast, in shock. My brother in his infinite wisdom of 10 years managed to lean into the water and catch my flailing hand as I was going under-probably for the last time...ok, ok...I may be dramatizing a little but, hey! I could not be here right now writing this so I'm telling you this with factual embellishments...anyways....I'm, pulled out sputtering & coughing and after I fully recover, I resisted the urge to smack Dana because we were all scared and glad I was ok. We ditched the plank in search of safe, more mischevious ways to stir up trouble like catching butterflies and putting them in a mayonaisse jar prisons. We even had the nerve to put blades of grass in the bottom -as if that would ease their confined comfort or we would pluck leaves from the sticker bushes and sneak up on each other until we all were walking around paranoid. After the drowning episode though, I learned how to swim but I've never been able shake the idea of feeling like I'm in a room without walls when I'm near large bodies of water or bridges-just the idea alone of driving over a bridge fills me with panic. I would rather drive the long way around...it un-nerves me. I get all prickly, dizzy and sweaty. I'll skip the bridges and deep wide mouths of the hungry oceans, keep my feet fimly planted on terra firma thankyouverymuch.