At the lowest place on earth, you’ll float

Also: it will burn.

Our guide was a little cagey on the details as we made our way from Ein Gedi to the Dead Sea. As we slowed to turn into the parking lot toward the bus drop off point, she shared the itinerary for the remainder of the day.
"You’ll have about 45 minutes to an hour to swim, then 20 minutes to shower off and head back to the bus.”
Many of us groaned. “Why would you only give us 45 minutes to swim? That’s cruel!”

We were 45 college co-eds, most of whom had escaped the midwestern January weather for this month long trip to Israel. A beach opportunity was a rare heaven. And in a place where you automatically float!"

“Most of you won’t need more than thirty minutes, to be honest.”

As we began to disembark the bus, I paused at our guide’s seat.
”Really though, why won’t we want to swim longer?”

She sized me up and considered her answer, which was just two words long.

Mucous membranes.

I wasn't quite sure what that meant. I mean, I knew what it meant, but not in this context.

I was too excited to be uneasy, though, so I piled off the bus and into the nearby shower house to get changed. One piece swimsuit, to ensure that despite extra buoyancy, my top heavy luggage would remain in check. Rubber flip flops I'd brought because I knew if they slipped off my feet, at least they'd float so I could fish them out of the water.

In minutes, I realized how silly that was. Because everything floats in this water.

I waded in and couldn't really tell you when my buoyancy switched over, all I knew was that at some point, my feet were no longer on the ground and the water had decided I should be on my back. So, that is what I did. I lay back, sunning myself and talking to my classmates while floating on the very top of the water, rubber flip flops kicked off and floating loyally by my side. When I wanted to shift in the water, an easy swoosh of my hand or arm was enough to get me where I wanted to go.

Eventually the antics began. We tried to see who could stand "upright" in the water the longest before the water pushed us back onto our backs or stomachs, surrendering to the hydrodynamics. For most of us, though, there was one rule that we were happy to follow: Don't put your face in the water.

Let me stress again: Most of us.

Some of our number decided to try to dive down and see if they could fight their own floatiness to submerge their bodies. Not one was ever able to submerge their upper body beyond their waist - they'd plunge their top half in, leaving their legs kicking wildly in the air, trying to swim down.

They'd emerge, inevitably, coughing and snotting everywhere, their eyes immediately bright red.

The salinity is not kind to open places on the body, and certainly not those sensitive orifices on the face. So, those foolhardy ones cut their time in the Dead Sea short, paddling back to the beach to rinse off and receive some relief.

How sad, I thought. I could still be out here for hours. I'm staying for every last second.

Every last second, it turns out, was roughly 15 minutes later, when the salinity finally became too much for my...ahem...non-facial orifices.

You could watch the sensation slowly spread among our group. A half hearted excuse would be made: "I think I'm getting a sunburn" or "I'm really starving, gonna go back to the bus and grab a snack." And they would paddle off, half heartedly, back to the beach - not in a hurry of their own making.

Finally I took my turn. I can't remember what I made up - I think something about the water stinging the windburn on my cheeks from hiking up Masada? But I knew. We all knew. It wasn't the wind doing the burning.

I forced my floating flip flops back onto my feet as I neared the beach - the rocks at the seaside were covered in extremely sharp crystallized salt formations.

In the shower, I rinsed off and found my whole body had been exfoliated, meaning my skin everywhere was soft and SENSITIVE as hell. My lips remained salty for the rest of the day and my hair was straw, leaving me a cross between Raggedy Andy and Scarecrow.

As we pulled away, our guide hopped on the bus intercom.

"Congratulations," she said. "That was literally your lowest point. From here on out, everything else is up."

In the intervening 11 years since that day, I've thought of it often, wondering what it means that at the lowest point on earth, you float.

At the lowest point on earth, the water switches up its normal act.

At the lowest point on earth, if you stop fighting, you'll just be...held.

But it will burn. And you're not meant to stay in there long. And you're absolutely not meant to try to push down deeper just to say you did.

I think there's something holy in that. Not in a saccharine way, just in a way that this is what is. It's what's true.

At the lowest point, if you let go, you will float. It will burn. You might want to stay, but you can't.

And from there on out, everything else is up.