There is a girl who weighs many tons in a river in Spain. She's supposed to be art. She floats, drowns, submerges and resurfaces as the water shifts. She's made of fiberglass, apparently. I don't know if water erodes fiberglass. If she were rock or earth, wood or flesh, her surface would wear down and crack, and each time she reappeared she would be less herself and more water. One day she might be water itself.
This I know because about twenty years ago I wrote what it feels like to be the person trying to avoid slipping into the dark. I hold on to stuff, and each day is a little harder. Each time I slip, it is harder to shake the water off. Even on days the river runs dry and joy is blinding sunshine the water claims a little more. I can cling to rock or shore, but the contours of the river, the weight of its water, these are as much part of me as the things I hold close. I think the river has a name. I think there are ways to tame the water. Some day I will be strong enough to reach for them. Tomorrow, perhaps this will all be art. Today, I drown.
