That We Do Reappear

When you realize you're drowning you have to find new ways to breathe.

After losing a lobe of my lung to cancer I was obsessed with the idea of snorkeling. Of getting back in the ocean to tango with the tiny turquoise fish... the bright-orange-dotted-with-black fish... the lime green ones with splashes of yellow, and the purple fish, that deep purple that makes you feel, at least for a moment, that everything you went through was worth it to witness such purple again in your lifetime, whatever's left of it anyway, because early on "later" takes on a new meaning.

One you won't know for a while.

And these multicolored fish of Hawai'i, they're something alive that wakes you up.
 
They've been endangered lately, along with the coral reefs, because of the toxic sunscreen tourists tend to slather on before they enter this ocean.

I went out on a small boat with Big Island friends the first moment I could after cancer. When there wasn't enough air that day, I panicked. When I couldn't breathe through the hose, and no one could see me not breathing because I was too far out, I had to figure out a way to get back to the boat.
 
It never occurred to me to just take off the gear. To float on my back. To stay above the water.

I believed I was drowning so I couldn't see the bigger picture.

What I did realize, when I realized it, was that I had to relearn to swim with less air in the eight minutes it would take me to get back to the boat. And that my lungs were a reconfigured organ I also had to relearn.

I made it back... and the colors of the fish from that day were burned into memory. Turquoise, bright orange, lime green, yellow... the purple I never wanted to relinquish, like all the other things I don't want to relinquish now.

My boy reading a scene from his new play on the phone.

My girl singing in a zoom room during the writers' workshop yesterday.

April in Paris.

The rainbow eucalyptus... all the colors of the rainbow in the bark of a single tree.

The gecko who's moved into this office, waiting patiently on the wall while I write, and then disappearing when the workshop is over, only to reappear the next day in the same exact spot.

The way we do reappear.

Today a dozen people in my life told me they've hit a wall... they're at their wit's end... they're losing it.
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Here's the thing. When the way you once breathed is no longer an option you find new ways. And I know, firsthand, that there are new ways.

For me, life during the time of coronavirus has been a marathon of facilitating and writing in these workshops every day, except the day I lead a youth theater troupe. The joy of all that.
 
My friend is teaching herself taekwondo in her back yard. Another is reading some of the significant books she'd never read because there wasn't time. Someone else is learning French. Listening to books on Audible. And so many of us are writing and then reading our work in the literary salons that are popping up in zoom rooms. That's a beautiful thing.

And then there are the people practicing stillness. Doing none of the above because they're regrouping. Yoga. Reflection. Breath.

Netflix. If we're telling the real story, there's always that. The binge-watch.

Here's another gift to come out of this...

The fish of Hawai'i, the ones that were dying off because of the toxins in all the sunscreen tourists use, they're coming back. Along with our coral reefs.

The turquoise and orange with black dots and lime green with yellow and that purple that makes you want to live. It's all coming back.

And if there's any major gift to come out of this pandemic, it's the one we're giving nature by leaving her alone to recover.
 
To relearn how to breathe.

When I held my Hawai'i ocean retreat in November and we went out with the whales and the dolphins, I didn't tell the writers about my last snorkel experience, my post-cancer snorkel experience, the one where I couldn't breathe, the one where I thought I might drown.

I wrote the story afterwards, and in that piece was the story of the ancient tattooed whale we discovered that day, and the mother and baby spooning past us, not swimming down as whales sometimes do when humans appear, not moving away from us.

And the joy of the snorkel was returned to me in that ocean retreat. It swam in on whales and dolphins and the bliss on Mary Artino's face when she sat on the edge of the boat looking out into the ocean. Even seasick. Even that.

If you can just find new ways to breathe during this, you'll make it back to where you need to go.
 
Hang in, loves.
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There's purple everywhere.  💜