the well

Today, i'm going down a well. i just found it, lying there. probably it's been there for quite some time; i mean, i never saw it being dug out, so either it's always been there, or they dug it when i was very small. but i just found it recently.

i'd been rummaging around in the the long grass, you see, busying myself with the brambles and the weeds, tidying, clearing... busy.
i had to come out here, because i just couldn't be in the house anymore.
i don't know exactly what happened, but the walls were suddenly not so comforting: not so much protecting me from the outside, creating a cosy, warm place; but suddenly closing in on me, and getting in the way of my movements. and also, in a certain way, the walls seemed empty. the house seemed empty, unfamiliar, as if i didn't know how i got to be there at all: as if it was someone else's house. so i came out here, and now i'm going to have to go down the well.

to be honest, i'm a bit nervous. i don't know what's down there. i mean, it's been there a long time. and it sounds strange, but it seems to be pulling me in, like when you're a bit afraid of heights, and as you look over the edge of a high place, something seems to draw you down, your mind unstoppably imagining falling, as if, when you wouldn't keep very attentive, you would probably just slide over the edge. that's how it feels like by the well. it sucks me in, and i'm a little dizzy, my head spinning, as if control is slipping away. but i won't jump down. i'm going to climb down slowly.

i've got this rope, you see, which i wove myself, actually. for years, i've been weaving threads. i thought i'd use it for climbing high, up trees, and i did do a bit of that. so, you know, i'm alright at using it: knotting and climbing it. i didn't think i'd use it to go down, though. i'm going to tie it to my favorite tree, there - the huge apple tree, that's been there as long as i can remember - so that it, you know, holds me.

i'm a little nervous in case i can't climb back out again, but i have to go down, now that i've seen it. as preparation, i'm trying to remember the opposites: you know, how movements always contain their opposite, so that a push contains a pull, and the idea of lifting up is contained within the idea of moving down, since all movements come from the inside, rather than the outside. i'm trying to hold on to that idea: to hold on and to let go.

-

I'm part-way down the well, now. it's dark here. really dark. i did bring a little head torch, but it just makes a thin stripe-spot of light. it's dark and i don't know why, but i feel kind-of defenceless, and it's making a small panic prickle across my skin and catch in my throat.
it's dark, and it's very, very quiet, and i don't know why, but it makes me feel very small, as if i need to curl-crouch inside myself, as if there could be nothing else to do.
and, i know i came here myself, but it feels all of a sudden as if someone left me here. i can almost feel their absence, as if they bleed out of the air, drain the warmth of it away from my skin.
it's cold down here.
i know i chose to come down here, but for some reason this feeling of being left alone is making all the energy sink down in a slow collapse: a prickly, panicked collapse.
and, i don't know why, but my skin is becoming paper-thin, vanishing into the dark, empty quietness: no defences. and suddenly, it's as if my chest is too soft and open, as if something is flowing out of me from there, and as if things could too easily come in from the outside. painful things. it's too open. it's not normally like this. it's too soft, and it's spreading, and overwhelming sadness washing all over me, sadness so sharp it cuts from my chest down into my belly, and suddenly i'm crying in the well, unseen tears, that seem to spill out from long ago.

i'm not sure whether to go up or down. i shine my little torch light on the rope, look at the fine, strong threads. they'll hold me here, right? the answer flashes into my mind without any thought: of course they will. i made it well. as conscious thought catches up, i realise i must have some kind of instinctive trust in myself. and this gives me courage.
then i think further up the rope, to the tree and the knot securing it there. will they hold? i go through the actions of the knot in my memory, testing it out. i think of how i learned those knots, and times i've used them before. i think of the tree that i've known so long, how the apples taste, always slightly different each year, it seems. some minutes go by in a dazed swirl of thoughts and memories, until i realise that the soft-pain-fear feeling has gone.
i had thought it away. distracted it. reburied it.

but i came down this well, and the soft-pain-fear was what i met, so i should go on.
i climb down further, looping my feet around the rope. and soon it comes again: panic, defenceless, small, left alone, sad. i don't think this time. i know i have to keep climbing down.
the waves keep coming. sometimes the thoughts jump in and take me away, but always i come back, and keep climbing down.

down, until my feet meet the firm rungs of a ladder. why is there a ladder only half-way down the well?! why was there no ladder before? while my mind twists itself around the new information, my feet settle themselves down, and accept my weight, gladly letting my tired arms-shoulders-back have a rest. the weight through my feet sends a kind of calm through my body, and the panic-alone-pain begins to feel less threatening. the feeling seems to be circling round my body now, a light buzzing just under and just above the skin. it makes me feel bigger, more whole, less defenceless, and less afraid. it makes me feel fuller, and so not so crushed at being alone. and the sadness seems to become a kind of glow.

i continue down the ladder, moving slower, my whole body more at ease now, until, at some point, there is solid ground beneath my feet. i don't know how, but it's dry. i sit down and rest. the darkness holds me in place, presses gently on my edges so that they don't fall out. the quietness pulls my ears far into the space above me, as if i stretch much further than before, beams reaching to, or from, my head. i fall asleep for a little while.