A (Self Indulgent) Dive

A (Self Indulgent) Dive
December, 2013

"Vas señorita," they tell me. But I'm not ready yet. Inhaling my last breaths of real air, I treasure the moment. "Chica!" I hear again and now I'm almost ready. "Bonita, estas preparada?" I hear as I kick back and fall backwards off the boat. Suddenly I'm in, not quite submerged but underwater and panic hits.

When my brother came diving with me, he described hitting the sea and being taken by surprise by the sudden rush of water into his mouth as he lost his mouthpiece and the sense of a lack of control as his goggles filled up. I recall shaking my head sagely and telling him that if only he had held his regulator right that then this would have been avoidable. What I didn't tell him was what I meant. The water in your mouth and eyes was avoidable. But not the panic. 

I panic until I'm totally submerged. When I begin to descend to 6 or 10 or 18 or even, as it turns out, 25 meters all the panic that I'm stricken with at the surface, all the fears of drowning, of oxygen deprivation, of decompression sickness and of nitrogen narcosis disappear. I'm suddenly confident in my ability to dive effortlessly, to swim naturally and to not sink to the bottom, not float unexpectedly to the top. Like a fish in water they might say. 

Then the real magic begins, at the bottom of that dive. A deep breath takes me slowly floating a few centimeters up, just enough to avoid that particularly sharp piece of coral. A longer exhale takes me down to duck a nearby line and a slight kick of my fin takes me through a possible entanglement. A little turn to the side moves me far enough away to not scrape my stomach and get a tetanus prone scratch from the sunken submarine. Underwater, I find the confidence that I lack entirely above water. 

But that's not the only reason I love diving. 

I'm notorious for "zoning out". Mid conversation even when I'm speaking, I'm prone to be thinking about something entirely different. My mind is somewhere far from whatever I'm avidly and eloquently telling you about. It's a frustrating sensation to have a wandering mind. I can't easily sit by the pool and relax because I might well be thinking about all the things I urgently need to do in New York when I return or penning my next blog entry as I am now. I can't sit on the subway and "turn off" either. I begin to obsessively catalogue what the current forgotten genocides are or list all the things that the person across from me is doing that are and aren't presentable. I can't sit at a dinner table in quiet silence and I can't walk from my room to the library without a song blaring in my headphones. 

But underwater for the first time I discovered a kind of tranquil, calming, soothing silence. In my exhales, I can hear my breath bubbling next to my ears and upwards. On the inhales I can hear the surge hitting the dunes on the contours of the bottom and the movement of the sand. I see the fish in their own little world swimming around me, ignorant of my troubles, ignorant of how I look, ignorant of how I feel and instead rightly self consumed with their surroundings. I see the aquatic plants billowing in the underwater "wind," the current. I see the coral live and breathe even though it isn't visible to the eye. And I feel a whole new world that I had previously been ignorant to come alive. 

I turn onto my back to check on my dive buddy and signal the 'okay' to make sure alls well with him as well and when I receive the 'okay' back I attempt to recover to my original position: belly down and fins above the rest of my body. I continue slowly moving forward. This is the most graceful I've ever felt. Even more graceful than when I took the stage to perform a ballet, granted that wasn't very graceful in my minds eye. This is the most at peace I've ever felt. Even more at peace than in my own bed at the end of a day, which isn't very at peace at all. This is the most in control I've ever felt. Even more in control than when every morsel that entered my body was strictly regulated. But we all know that wasn't very in control either. This is even the most alert I've ever felt. I wasn't more alert in the beginning of a sparring match, at the top of a mountain before descending with my snowboard or on the back of a motorcycle moving tens of miles an hour. No this might be my peak. 

What I hope is that I can take this centered, alive and yet relaxed feeling with me. That I can commute these sensations into the life I have to continue to live above water. Because if I can, life will be both easier and more efficient. It will be more focused yet more at ease. And what could beat that? 

My life has been one characterized by the constant need to fight and struggle. By restlessness when others are at ease and by a confusing disarray of sensations at all the wrong times. Yet would I only be able to export what diving brings me to my studies, to my interactions, to my time alone, I think life would be, in a word, better. 

Too long didn't read? Go diving.