For multilingual Friday, I’m trying a photo “essay.” As I’ve worked on this, I’ve realized how little I know about this as a form. I have struggled for a theme, tried to figure out organization, made choices about what to keep and what to cut. I thought I was just going to play and share pretty pictures – and in the end, I think that’s what it looks like – but it turns out, given a new language, I had to work to understand form and learn how to manipulate things. Also, it looks different on a laptop than on a phone. Gah! If I had been at home rather than on vacation, I would have given up because this took so long. Makes me think of what I’m asking for when I ask my students to “just” write an essay or some such. Interesting.
We finished our scuba course today: we now have four certified divers in our family. We loved the diving, but after three days in and out of the water, learning, we were so tired that we all – including the teens! – took a nap.
The sun is slowly setting as I sit on the porch and try to find words for what it was like to experience this part of the planet we live on. Even after the nap, I’m so tired that words just keep swirling around. Our instructor told us that it’s the effects of pressure changes on the body, and he knows more than I do. Either way, I can barely think, so for today I will let words swirl and aim for watercolour impressionism:
Under the blue Kneel on the white sand and pass the tiny crab from hand to waiting hand; watch the clear blue shrimp wave their antennae, safely tucked in the tentacles of the curly anemone that peeks out from under a shell. Breathe. Silver bubbles rise. Touch the anchor of the wreck – No rust, but maybe luck, rubs off. Ascend no faster than your silver bubbles. Breathe. Equalize. Fly from coral mountain peak to coral mountain peak. Although the deep blue beckons below, Don’t descend. Know your limits; Share your air; Practice breathing as the gray sharks swim by and one turns, curious. Who are you to be in her world? Hover over a sting ray as she feeds, disturbing the white sand on which you have knelt elsewhere under the deep blue ocean. Breathe. Rise with your silver bubbles.
I have woken first. I sit at the table on the porch of my aunt’s cottage and sip milky spiced chai. I am relaxed.
The white-winged doves call almost continuously over the soft susurration of water and the cool rustle of the morning breeze through the palm leaves. I know that beyond the porch screen, the world is awake, although from here everything looks still. The deep green water in the little bay calmly offers a mirrored view of everything it sees. If I wander out across the white sand, I will be able to see hermit crabs exploring the shallow edges of the water, jelly fish – beautiful pulsing flowers – a little further out, and fish of various sorts swimming through the reeds, but for this moment, I am quiet on the land.
A grackle flies into the jungle geranium (ixoracoccinea) bushes which surround the house, and she poses. She tilts her sleek head at me as if she knows how beautifully her iridescent black feathers contrast against the green leaves and red flowers. Really, she’s just hoping for food. “I don’t have anything for you,” I say and, as if she understands, she flies away. She’ll be back throughout the day, but for now, I imagine her reporting to friends, “No, she’s the only one awake, and she’s still drinking her tea.”
Soon, my spouse appears and joins the lively quiet of this space. We speak occasionally, easily, but mostly we allow ourselves to exist independent of whatever expectations weigh on us elsewhere. The birds continue to call.
Now the human world begins to wake. Now engines growl from the road, from the water. A couple walks by, conversing in hushed tones, moving towards different water – the pool or the ocean. Two paddleboarders slip almost silently into sight. Next door, a little one runs to the edge of the bay, a pail in hand, ready to shape her tiny part of the world. I stand to make a second pot of tea and the curious grackle comes back.
View from the porch
This place – my aunt & uncle’s cottage – is my favourite place in the world.
Persistence and Pedagogy 