"Colby, are you not going in?" I asked looking from his face down into the falls below us. Several of our team mates had already taken the plunge into the water and I was longing to join them.
"In but not under. I just want to soak my legs off those rocks over there," he gestured, "I'm aching and from what I hear, we're going to need to be ready for tomorrow."
I grinned at him. The final run at camp was infamous. We had just piled out of the van after our final easy run at Pink Beds and we had an hour to soak up Looking Glass Falls.
"I'll hold your glasses if you want to go under. Go cliff dive with Katie." He smirked at me. I stripped down to my sports bra and handed him my signature purple frames. I hugged him, muttered a sincere thank you and trotted down the steep steps to enter the water below.
I dipped my toes into the edge of the pool without any hesitation. The water was piercingly cold for the dead of summer, but it was that tingly kind of cold that makes your whole body feel electric. Goosebumps prickled the surface of my skin as I waded over to where Shannon was sitting on rock in the middle of the water. We smiled at each other as she scooted over to make room for me to sit next to her. We remained there in silence, watching the gallons and gallons of water pouring over the rock faces. Our team mates shrieked around us as they splashed each other and we glanced at the boys climbing up the boulder piles that surrounded the edges of the pool. I watched Katie and Anna scale the slippery surface of the rock that the waterfall encompassed and wait for their turn to jump into the water below them. They looked so free.
I slid of the rock and dipped my whole head into the water. It was like my insides were waking up. I dove underneath and swam through the deeper water to the head of the falls. I relished in feeling so refreshed and clean. I pulled myself up and maneuvered across the rocks in the shallower part of the pool as I walked towards the place where the water tumbled over the rocks. I climbed up over the boulders and started inching along the edge of the waterfall's face to spot where the water poured down from the source above. I crept carefully, so not to slip, along the mossy wet rocks.
When I was just inches from the waterfall's downpour, I reached my hand out into the cascading falls, testing the pressure. The boys had warned me that the water was intense but had encouraged me to try it out. I crept closer forward until the water completely encompassed me. It pounded over my head and down over my body. It was so powerful. It filled my ears and my nose and my mouth. I opened my eyes and whispered into the falls. I spoke into the water that was trapping me inside a world of glassy blue and white. There was an air about that seemed like it would keep your secrets. When I could no longer take the pressure of the pounding on my head, I crawled through the funnel and to the other side. I clung to the cliff face, catching my breath and savoring the moment of being so alive. Then, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and jumped from the rocks into the water below, knowing that it would catch me.