I read a story a couple of years ago about a couple who were scuba diving in Thailand during the tsunami. They came up after a couple of hours in the water and were shocked by the devastation everywhere. They'd barely noticed anything ("it was maybe a little wavy there for a few minutes") different while they were under. I think about that sometimes and it freaks me out. Other times it seems like the perfect metaphor for a calm, lovely, safe self-contained space. If you have your own tank of oxygen, you can survive anything, right? And in almost every circumstance it's possible to just continue breathing. Sometimes when I'm really freaking out I imagine that I have my very own oxygen tank strapped to my back.