Life is about moments-minutes that tick away and each one is one that can never be restored. Some time we waste and others are the minutes we treasure. It is often the moment we treasure that gets us through the dull parts of life. It is the hope for a better future moment that moves us beyond our current sadness. It is our future that we hope for, the past that we regret or embrace and it is the present and the future that we try and control.
Today was as much about my adventure in Greece as it was about myself and the type of life that I hope to live. Today was rainy. The sky was long grey and I awoke in the nick of time for pulling on a swim suit and heading out to sea. I decided that this trip was going to be about scuba diving. I have always loved snorkeling. I love the ocean but hate to sunbath or lay in the sand. It has always bothered me to do nothing when there is a big ocean right next to you that you can play with. So yesterday I put on a scuba mask, waddled under the weight of a 12 liter tank, a weight belt, regulator, in a wet suit out to sea. I carefully put my fins on and re-thought through the entire procedure for diving. The hand signals a thumbs up indicating the need to ascend, the last three fingers raised to make the OK sign. The basic recovery techniques, the use of your lungs to control buoyancy. I tried not think about the risk for a fat embolism if you ascend to quickly without breathing out as you do so causing the air in your lungs previously compact to expand inside the body. Causing serious consequences. But mostly I think about my ears, my very pressure sensitive ears. I am careful to equalize, pinch my nose and blow hard into the sinus passage to clear them.
I review them all step by step. Then we go in the water. I could say that it was a strange feeling being completely submerged, breathing under the water. Demanding and pulling the oxygen from the regulator. But I loved it. I have always loved snorkeling examining fish and just looking at the whole world that can be found right under the surface of the water. I loved the way the water feels against my skin. I love the way I don’t feel cold even when I should. But mostly I feel that if you don’t dive then you are missing the whole point of the ocean. It is a boundless resource. The ocean was and is barrier and protector of the continents of the world and those who conquered it reaped great rewards. British, Dutch, Spanish, French ships all danced across the waves. Bringing exotic delights from other lands.
Now and then fishermen mine the deep for the great herds of fish, shrimp, mussels, and other tasty delights.
The ocean is a place that is very dangerous, descending ten meters in the ocean is the same as having a second atmosphere placed on top of you. Meaning that when you go down to 30 meters, then you have 4X the pressure of the atmosphere on top of you. This also decreases the volume of air in your lungs by half every ten meters, meaning that every ten meters needs to double the oxygen and decrease your dive time.
These thoughts aside the fact that in the water space and movement and dimensions are so free. Up and down, gravity have much less meaning here. It is a planet with knew rules, and frankly we are very ill prepared guest. Alone a human could not survive in the ocean. The temperatures, the need for oxygen, the sensitivity of the human body to pressure all make us ill equipped to visit this watery world.
My instructor and all the Greek people pronounce my name the same SAN NON. I have noticed that in Europe people tend to speak English the same way they do their mother tongue. So a Greek person tries to make English sound Greek. Sound “right” in their ears. No with enough practice people can weed out those little anachronisms that make the language of my native tongue sound so foreign. But the truth is you need to listen differently. Most people form sentences to try and say things with a much smaller word. They don’t know the exact term but they know that the word implies the same meaning. For example: in Luxemburg the guide said, “the bus could not go into the square because it is forbidden.” In Ireland they called it a “Pedestrian Zone.” Do you see the difference? I love it. One of my new friend at law school majored in psychology and she talked about how language shapes thoughts. Think about it. The way that the people of Thailand describe beverages is combining the flavor with the word water. Making wine-water grape, apple juice-apple water. So when people in Thailand think about drinks they think about water.
I had a Russian friend Elle who would always say, “I can not feel smells.” My personal favorite language anomaly. How would we say it in America? “I can not smell well,” or the more repetitive “I don’t smell, smells.” In truth me and my extremely sensitive sense of smell, I can smell the wine in a friends glass across the table, I can smell cheese through plastic. Believe that smell is something we feel. It is our strongest memory sensor right? I cannot smell aqua digiou without thinking of my college boyfriend. I cannot smell sweet almonds without thinking about Oregon. I cannot smell sage and fresh ponderosa without being taken to a small cabin in the wet mountains. I cannot walk through the chilly wet mist without thinking of the hike that Tonya and I and a few leaders took in preparation for girl’s camp immortalized in the photo in the family room. I think that we do feel smells. When it stinks our nose stings, or when I smell a flower I feel the sweet fresh opening in my nostrils almost like the flower is breathing into me. Do you see? How all my thoughts about smell had been a totally different sensory experience then the one I think about now. Feeling a smell.
She also said “Your water bottle is punching me.” Anytime something hit her it punched. Punched means to hit, but it is only one way to say it. We have all kinds of names for “hitting.”
Collide, crash, kick, punch, strike, slap, claw, run into, graze, full contact and I am sure many more. Think about it. All the ways we touch each other. Words man-they matter.
Anyway that was supremely tangential and for those of you who ignore the extremely dense prose above or who are skimming for a more interesting recount of my trip here is a photo:
And a cue to begin reading again.
Today I also rented an ATV and drove her on the road, I got extremely lost on a island that has approximately 2 roads, I got rained on, sand in my eye very nervous while driving on a deserted road at night with high grass on either side. My rebellious imagination conjuring lions leaping out at me, and or crazy men leaping out and pulling me from astride my ATV. Either way I loved it. I want to take this opportunity to thank Devin from my Senior year at USU for teaching me how to drive one. It was a fifty CC automatic and baby it could move really move if you were going down hill with the wind at your back.
The trip to way full of scenery and photos on my way from the capital of Santorini to Oia were all the famous white buildings are. The trip there was sunny and breezy with many photos taken. The ride back was dark, windy and rainy as I drove along the ridge of the island. Once I got out of the rain I got hopelessly lost until my third set of direction brought me exactly to the road I needed. I also found the map marking my hotel on it on the floor of the bathroom when I got back, which would have been helpful during my frantic searches. But I got a lot of time on board that little four wheeler. My arms are now sore and my calves tight. But the truth is the moments I had today are the ones that I hope reflect who I am.
I sometimes wonder if I waited to long to really embrace life. I always felt like being alone kept me from doing and being happy. That if I had the right friend who wanted to do just what I wanted to. I hoped for a best friend or a lover to fill that post. But the truth is that happiness has everything to do with ourselves and very little to do with others.
So I am happy. I decide to do as many of the things that I have always wanted to do. But never had the courage to do alone. Not that I don’t love doing things with people, I do, I really do. I love the group trips. But I decided this Summer after my trip to Israel that I am was the person stopping me. It was not the fact that I did not have a travel buddy that I never went any place. It was me.
