file under: the deep end

although i used to enjoy likening the cold blackness of deep water with outer space, over the last few years my thinking of such environs has made a turn towards something like dread.

it's not that i'm an awful swimmer or anything; i'm no spitz the second, for sure, but i'm not exactly afraid of drowning in a bathtub, either. i actually used to like public swimming pools - there was something comforting about the overwhelming presence of chlorine and the clear, clear water that i can't quite explain.

but natural bodies of water are another story. they freak me right the fuck out. i can't quite say why, but the thought of floating near the surface of some expanse with murky depths makes me want to, shall we say, lub the land. it doesn't really make sense, even to me.

within the last year or so, that dread has manifested a silver lining-like thrill of fascination in the form of tv shows about shipwrecks. my first real taste probably came with a documentary on the endurance, whose bleak story has literally caused me to lose some sleep on a few occassions.

after that, any coverage of divers flitting about graves of the sea could transfix me for hours.

thus, i was both thrilled and a bit nauseated to learn that a new, well-preserved relic has been found on the bottom of lake ontario, more than 60 meters underwater (shudder) with both masts still intact, rising "upward in the dark waters."

ack!