When I had to put my mask back on underwater and I did so upside down, I freaked out, and signaled with my thumb to Martine to go up to the surface. Somehow, I couldn’t get past the fact that I could still breathe through my regulator without my mask. The next time out, I passed this test easily, along with taking my weight belt and scuba gear off under water and learning how to sit like Buddha, cross-legged, while hovering above the ocean floor. When I came back up to the surface, Nayomi took movies of me like a proud mother.
“I was watching from above. Did you see that little fish? He was just hanging out watching you.” I could tell that my fears were starting to fade since I barely recalled the little guy keeping attention while my knees sat in the ocean’s sand.
When it came to our dives into deeper waters, I was focused on remembering my skills in case anything might happen, that I didn’t even have time to worry about whether Jaws would come float behind me to nibble on my fins. Martine was always nearby, and usually beneath me, since I had to work on my relationship between my buoyancy and my breath. While I barely had to kick my fins in the pleasantly warm water, Martine pointed out lobsters, crabs, and even put a sea spider into my hand. This broke the comforting silence and let me giggle into my regulator. All through my deep breaths and regulating (plugging my nose and blowing to un-pop my ears), I stared down into tubes of lavender coral and the electric blue fish with orange stripes that swam into them for feedings.
This was when I realized that what I was doing down here was exactly what I loved to do on dry land through my travels: to discover new worlds. I almost pinched myself knowing that I could have gone a lifetime without having known this one. This world allowed me to swim above fish while watching them cruise along with no attention paid towards me. I began to notice how my meditation practice, with focus on the breath, helped me breathe more slowly and deeply, as well as focus on the present moment that lay out as coral and fish beyond me. This world was calm, quiet, and filled with new life that moved with the current. This world calmed all the people coming off the dock, with their smiles stretched across their faces.
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