Learning to Float

I thought I'd share the following passage from a novel I'm reading called Benediction by Kent Haruf just because I think it's beautiful and because it reminds me of what we are doing here in our world when we are at our best: having the courage to figure things out and being there for one another. 

To set the scene, three women and a girl called Alice are skinny dipping on a hot day in a stock tank for cattle on the Colorado range.

Then Lorraine said, Alice, do you know how to swim? 

No. 

Can you float?

I don't know how.

It's time to learn. Come out here in the middle. Alene, will you help?

The two women held her as she lay back. 

Now just breathe. And spread your arms out.

When she began to sink they lifted her up, and after a while she was able to stay up and they stepped back and she lay out on the water, half-submerged, her blue eyes open to the blue sky.