I love the color blue…a symbol of harmony…peace and relaxation…calmness and serenity…it is sky and water…
I had been basking in the warmth of the placid cerulean blue sea of my life here in South Africa…unaware that a incoming squall would send me into the cold depth of the sea of life…again
There had been some choppy waters…now and then…but nothing that had thrown me overboard…but an unknown storm had been a-brewing…
There had been a whispering in the air…but I thought I had only imagined it…I told myself that it was only the haunting of long dead ghosts…no need for preparation…
…clouds had started to gather…the cocktail blue sky had started to darken to the cold blue gray of hard stone…the light nuzzling breeze burgeoning into a huffing wind that started to roll my boat from side to side…
Uneasiness started enveloping…fingers whitened with the tightness of the fear gripping my heart…the sea began to churn and bubble like a witch’s cauldron… in the tranquility and serenity of my life now I had repressed the knowledge that storms are an inevitable part of life…
A mountainous swell rose from the depth of nothingness and darkened the sky… 
my little boat hovered for a moment at the peak of the wave…the squeak of the timber prophesying that my doom was inevitable…
First up waves at forty-five degrees, and then crashed down jarring my bones…spinning my only refuge sideways.. then rolled over on its side…over board…swallowed whole…I sank for a moment…and with all the strength that I had…I came to the surface…spitting…sputtering
gulping in hope…the boat had righted itself… I bobbed back to the surface…fear froze my stomach…despair filled with every struggling gulp…
So so tired…tired of the struggle…drowning is a quiet thing…it becomes peaceful…it’s just a letting go…the darkness starts slowly enveloping the senses…the coldness that becoming warmer…wrapping itself gently… thoughts and memories ebb away as I slowly sank to the bottom…to the place of nothingness…letting the darkness overtake me…one more time…
“I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.”
― John Keats
Yet in this soothing quietness… there is a shadowy light shining through the ever changing dusky dark blue of the water…it danced with a delicate hope…
Quietly beckoning my heart to beat one more time…the warmth of the memories of those that I love and those who love and need me…the glow of gratitude for the delightful experiences that dwell within my memories…and the warm anticipation of the future adventures…gives me just enough strength to do what I need to do to come to the surface…
I painfully and deliberately chose to rise…the dancing shimmering light beckoned…the magical sensation of a new day as I burst through the heaviness of the depression danced within…
The Storm had passed…and I survived
“REMEMBER YOUR GREATNESS
Before you were born,
And were still too tiny for
The human eye to see,
You won the race for life
From among 250 million competitors.
And yet,
How fast you have forgotten
Your strength,
When your very existence
Is proof of your greatness.
You were born a winner,
A warrior,
One who defied the odds
By surviving the most gruesome
Battle of them all.
And now that you are a giant,
Why do you even doubt victory
Against smaller numbers,
And wider margins?
The only walls that exist,
Are those you have placed in your mind.
And whatever obstacles you conceive,
Exist only because you have forgotten
What you have already
Achieved.
Poetry by Suzy Kassem”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Threads of Thought 