For my new Substack subscribers—WELCOME! I’m so happy you’re here. This is chapter 27 of my serialized memoir Unfixed. I recommend starting from the beginning for the full experience.
The bedroom windows are wide open and a cool, Pacific Northwest summer breeze feathers my skin. Morning light reminds closed lids of time and opposites.
The day prior my friend took her son to swimming lessons at North Portland Rec Center. While her boy flung pre-adolescent limbs through heady chlorine, she snuck into the equipment closet and snapped a few photos of “Timmy and the gang”—plastic, unemployed CPR dummies scattered about in eery repose, waiting to be rescued.
Knowing my affinity for slightly off, dark or storied imagery, my friend texted me the photos later that night. We LOL’ed, commented on Timmy’s great eyebrows, and then sleep pulled me under. But I nodded off with a curious longing to play with, pose, animate and hold those symbols of resuscitation. I needed them near. I needed to know their story.
The next morning, as I drift in and out of sleep, Julianna Barwick’s pulsing, etheric Bode stitches wide, slack loops between my dream and waking scape.
I don’t open my eyes. Not yet. Images are unfolding.
(Pause for a moment and queue up Barwicks’ song. Hit play. Ok, now you’re in it with me.)
I see a woman reclining, swimming wrap draped over her body like a burial gown. Poly Blend folds of chemical blue mirror the pool beside her.
I see lifeguards performing rescue drills—mock resuscitation an urgent, red contrast to the woman’s ennui.
Compressing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale. Exhale.
I see the limbless torso of a CPR mannequin bobbing face-down in the pool.
I fall further into the scene—my body, like a greedy specter, wants every point-of-view.
I feel the quickening rhythm of rescue.
Compressing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale. Exhale.
Something startles the woman out of indifference.
She dives in, joining me in the dream state. Roles blur.
She rescues the mannequin. The savior becomes the saved. The saved, the savior.
Compressing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale. Exhale.
A rhythmic then quiet transmutation, ending with the woman face-up on the bottom of the pool.
Un-rescued but alive.
Unsaved but unbound.
Compressing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…
INHALE.
She awakens from the dream with a peculiar freedom—no one is coming to save her.
She must rescue herself.
With pictures still playing as I open my eyes, I pull myself from bed, hit rewind, and scribe what I see. But words aren’t enough, I want to feel the scenes over and over again, like a prayer I must not forget.
I wonder, How does one make a film? Could I make this prayer into a film?
And then decide, I must.
Oh! That was surreal and beautiful, Kimberly - I found the full length film on YouTube! Sharing the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05oYUE105ZY
"She awakens from the dream with a peculiar freedom—no one is coming to save her. / She must rescue herself." - As saddening as it may seem, it is also freeing. Simply beautiful, Kimberly!