In the Blink of an Eye
Lessons in Life School (Lesson 2)
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Reality Check
In just over a week my husband and I will be spending time near Cancun. What I most look forward to is snorkeling. Just off of Cancun one has access to the second longest reef in the world. But my first experience snorkeling was in 2010 when my family traveled to Boracay Island in the Philippines. I had no idea what an impact snorkeling would have on me. I loved being in the sea water and seeing the sea creatures, schools of fish, and the coral neighborhoods.
It was in that first experience snorkeling that many lessons presented themselves: how two diverse worlds could exist literally only separated by the membrane of the water’s surface. How another world was always taking place just below the boats where I was a passenger enjoying sand, sky, birds and water and only knowing that world as my reality. How to move from one world to the next was so instantaneous and how everything changed in the blink of an eye (like birth and death, one could say). How at home I could so instantly feel in a world I’d never witnessed before. What follows is a poem inspired by that first experience snorkeling.
Different Worlds
The day is sunny and hot in the Philippines
Not as oppressive as a sauna
but more so than an apartment with no air conditioning.
We twelve wade out to the catamaran 50 meters from shore
holding high our towels and knapsacks as azure blue laps at our knees.
The rickety stepladder sways to the rhythm of the water,
So we carefully mount, flanked by Filipinos extended hands.
"It's hot," I say. "Almost unbearably so."
Four men with dark skin and hair and friendly smiles
take their positions having done this a thousand times.
But this is our first so we chatter "This is so cool!" and
"I'm so glad we waited for good weather."
The sound of the engine suddenly drowns our musings,
As it backs out of the shallow water of Boracay.
The sails flick into the wind;
Securing our bright orange well-worn life preservers,
Someone asks my oldest, "Isn't this fun?"
She interrupts her singing long enough to smile and nod her flopping braids.
The wind is intense on the Sibuyan Sea.
I hold my hat with one hand and the boat with the other.
Our group laughs at the sea spray soaking us.
My youngest holds tight to the boat, his blue eyes squinting.
Arriving at an uninhabited island, we wade in.
The sand underfoot is brown and rough.
The palm trees and beach welcome us.
In the quiet, only a few straw huts sit about empty.
At a lookout, high waves are crashing on the windward side of the island.
I breathe in the deep blue of the water and the foamy white of the caps and spray.
The breeze threatens to snatch my sarong and hand it to the ocean as a gift.
I clutch it tighter.
Off again to snorkel the coral reef. My first time.
The kids are brave and excited to snorkel for real;
My husband wonders aloud what we'll see "down there"
Leaps in and begins drifting away, discovering the sea’s treasure.
I carefully secure my mask and breathing tube then jump feet first.
The rich sapphire water embraces me, warm and refreshing.
My lips wrap the breathing tube tightly.
I attune only to respiration - In. . . out. . .
all sounds of the world above are blocked.
I blink.
I've entered another world.
We are visitors - or invaders, in the case of our anchor wedged in the coral below.
It is simply our privilege to view life teeming beneath our floating human vessels.
Brown, green, blue coral, black spikey sea urchins, Nemos and Dories,
Near the bottom, a school of fish swim upright like floating seaweed.
Someone spots a blue starfish and we fin over to admire it.
No need to swim here, the current takes us from one coral to another.
Fish with neon colors swim alone while others swim as a school.
We had no idea this world was under our very noses.
I muse about the existence of these widely diverse worlds
and their thin dividing membrane.
Lift my head to a world of sails and ships and coke bottles marking waterways,
A world of poverty, 16 hour days, threats of war.
Lower my head - Triton's world of coral, fish, seaweed, starfish, and urchins.
Head up - creatures breathe air for oxygen.
Head down - creatures breathe water.
Head up - airplanes, boat engines, men mumbling at a distance.
Head down - water, only muffled water.
I wonder if this is what it is like to enter the world of souls.
Head down - earth, land, sea, and sky.
Head up -
Who knows?
Upon Reflection
In the previous poem I had hoped to capture my impressions of this new experience of snorkeling and the world it opened to me. In Life School aspects of insight can overcome you in a moment. We are somehow reminded of this again and again, both through amazing experiences such as this and much more challenging ones, too. But to realize that the world we thought we lived in was somehow only part of the story, only part of the greater truth of reality is humbling. It reminds us to stay alert and open. I reminds us that to live a life is to be an individual life with ever-expanding experiences and knowledge.
Dear reader, what is Life School teaching you today? And can you recall an experience such as this, when a new world presented itself in an instant? What did you learn? Leave your comment below.
You can find all of my series in the archives:
Adulting 101 Coupons: A Gift from your Parents
Partnering 101: A Deep Dive into Leaving Kindly
Me-Time: Self-care in the time of Covid
Reasons for Hope
From Fog to Flow
With a Grateful Heart
Lessons in Life School
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Writer. Gong Player. Teacher.
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All photos by © Brenda Brayko 2022 unless otherwise credited.