Cue the music-- Suz breathes under water

The book and the video said that the first time you breathe under water will be something you never forget. It's supposed to be a magical thing, I guess. I was picturing the clouds parting, angels descending, and a choir singing majestically.

Yeah, I forgot that you can't hear under water.

And I was a bit too preoccupied to really appreciate it, I think.

I was thinking about whether or not the booties and fins made my calves look big.

I was thinking about Sr. Zen's cousin, who was swimming merrily at the bottom of the 13 foot side of the pool, coming back occasionally to see what we were up to. He's a natural, apparently. Big jerk. Too bad he's such a nice guy, or I'd have to hate him.

I was SURE I was going to bob right back to the surface, and I was unnerved by the fact that Sr. Zen was sitting serenely at the bottom of the pool, facing me, fingers laced together, and completely nonplussed. HOW was he not drifting and weaving? Breathe, schmeeve, I can't hold still.

So I'm breathing, underwater, and I'm thinking about how I'm supposed to be treasuring this moment, and then I'm thinking that in my nervousness I'm breathing really hard-- there's about 10 times the bubbles coming from me than are coming from Zen-- and I'm flailing my arms.

Zen signals for me to look at him, and I'm again unnerved at how completely serious he is. He takes my hands and makes me fold them in front of myself, and I now remember that book and the video both telling me not to use my arms (it's a swimming habit and is unnecessary in scuba-- one little gentle motion with your legs and you're propelled wherever you want to go).

We practice taking the regulator out of our mouths and putting it back in. We practice filling our masks with water and getting it out. And yes, we do all this under water.

Once I quit fighting and resign myself to hanging weightless-- or rather, once I free myself of my misguided instincts, I start focusing on the breathing part. I am very conscious of how much I am taking in and letting out. My throat gets scratchy from breathing too hard for too long. I realize I am biting down on the regulator way too hard. I slow down my breathing-- too much-- I'm still nervous-- but eventually I'm wandering around below the lap swimmers and playing with things at the bottom of the 13 foot pool. Zen lays on the bottom on his back and blows bubble rings. I am more impressed with this than anything else.

The thing is, it's so calm down there, and scuba is so EFFORTLESS, really, that I can see how freeing this is. It really IS Zen. Today, out of the water, thinking back, I realize that I'm too much of a control freak, and that was my main problem. I thought I should be WORKING. I was thinking too much: about whether or not I was really getting air, about where I was bobbing, about how to "steer." Chill. Meander. This is scuba diving.

It's sort of the anti-Suz. I think I need more.