The Mariana Trench of Missing Motherhood

Light has never been here, in the deepest part of the Pacific.

The closest to the core of the earth any surface dweller can go is named the Mariana Trench, which feels rather Biblical.

Maternal.

And apt.

Maternity is often marine-like in my mind. Aquatic. It’s bathed in water, birthed in water, healed through water.

Drowned, by water.

My mother is a swimmer. Even in her seventies, she still swims a mile, back and forth in a lap pool, three times a week. She wears goggles now — giant, snorkel-like goggles that must make the physics of movement more challenging — it’s clear her objective is not to break speed records, although she makes the mile in under an hour through a variety of strokes. Ten laps crawl, ten breast, ten left side, ten right side, chicken-airplane-soldier, repeat. Meditation, by any other name. Her gaze is unobstructed now, clear down below, watching.

Waiting.

She shares the story of bringing me into the water early and often, reminding infant me to hold my breath, to float, to swim. Infants naturally hold their breath when dunked in water, for the first four months of life. It’s a skill you can lose and need to re-learn, but I never did, thanks to my mother. She taught me to roll and surface, float on my back before I could crawl. Rescue myself. Keep myself from drowning.

In later years I became a lifeguard, as was my mother in her youth. Trained not only to self-rescue, but how to retrieve someone else from the depths.

I have no memory before a time that I knew water, and as I grew into an independent (and often obstinate)…