A memory: floating on my back in the Gulf of Mexico, where it's nearly a mile deep, listening to the ocean and wondering what was down there in the depths. I had jumped from our family's boat as it drifted. My mother was making sandwiches for lunch. It was a sunny day. I was about eleven years old. Earlier, we had seen a manta ray at the surface, and had circled it for several minutes. In my memory it is immense.
     I am grateful for my life.