THE REST OF THE WORLD: AN OCEAN TAIL
When I was young and swam all summer in any pool, lake, stream, or mud puddle that I could throw myself into, I used to do a stroke I called the Mermaid Stroke! This stroke involved the arm action of the Breast Stroke, with quite a twist, literally, in the legs. I would match my legs close together to resemble the lower body of a mermaid, with my feet touching at the ankles, and flared out from the ankles like tail fins! Then I would undulate my legs somewhat like the Butterfly stroke, but not so vigorously...Usually I would dive up and down in the water, imagining that I was a mermaid in the ocean, with a, of course, completely different life than my more prosaic life on land. Surprisingly, I could keep this stroke going for quite a long way and for quite a long time! I loved this movement! It was sensual and sweet and welcoming, and I can still swim this way today if the spirit moves me, only not for as long...
The Stroke that was my basic stroke was the Breast Stroke, which was not my most effective stroke by any means. Due to a systemic Polio as a young child, my left leg had an inefficient flutter instead of a sharp snap, when I closed my legs in the frog kick sequence. I've always looked a bit like a frog who's been shot in the left hip...pretty sad follow-through! My arms are very strong, though, probably in compensation. I can do a leisurely Breast Stroke for up to an hour-and-a-half, even in very cold water. I could probably save my life using that and a just as lackadaisical Side Stroke, for hours on end.
My Dad taught me to relax in water. He was totally relaxed in water! He made water seem like a fluffy down bed that could just hold you up and hold you up indefinitely. I never have been afraid in the water. That was his doing.
He taught me and my sister how to swim. He taught us what he called "The Aussie Crawl", which was really a Free-style Stroke, that we both flailed around with forever. I have to alternate it with the Breast Stroke even today, as my leg kicks are, as I noted, not symmetrical no matter what I do...I also wear my dive goggles and snorkel all the time, to keep chlorine and other chemicals from the pool off my face, and the water out of my contact lenses. since I insist on wearing the lenses, because I want to see Everything! So the turn of the head in the stroke is too modified to be efficient...my arms do well, though, as usual....
I have worked my self up to ninety laps many a time over the years, which is well over a mile, three times or so a week. Right now I'm only at about twenty, and they're pretty slow laps...well, all of this is the Prelude to the Grand Symphony, which is about The Ocean. The Mer. The Sea. and what it is to be in the Sea on the coast of California. which is where, between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-two, I was a Scuba Diver on twenty Dive Trips....
Any one who has ever scuba-dived will tell you that the experience under the waves is "beautiful". it can be many, many other things to each diver and on each and different dive, but, always, Beauty is one of the words that come to a diver's lips...The Sea is quite wonderful. When you are in it, under its surface, you are very aware that you are in the Rest of the World...the whole, immense part that is not land...it literally Weighs on you. You can feel its enormity all around you. It is not a local affair....
It truly helps to have a few of the skills I already had in place, to even learn to be a diver...I had better-than-fine endurance in the water. could swim in a relaxed manner for hours. had a natural rhythm of strokes to propel my tall self about in a wet-suit with equipment all over my body. wasn't uncomfortable about losing said-equipment under water and finding it again. was OK about being far from shore if I came up in the 'wrong' place away from the shore or the dive boat. was able to watch air supply, compass, and tubes and so on without fuss. didn't suck air...
I was certified twice by a NAUI/PADI stamp of approval on testing for all the skills that keep you underwater safe and happy...fortunately, the testing for navigation was pretty basic. I never did get the hang of elaborate maneuvers under the sea...just basic go-out/dive/get-back-to-boat-or-shore. I was pleased enough to be able to do that!
Each dive was completely, completely different. The moods of the sea and the ambient weather were never the same. animals you had never seen before would be in sites you thought were habitat for others you had seen, on the very last dive! Surprises abounded...I never went lower than eighty feet...the pressure on my ears was intense...but the world I really wanted to be among was not that deep...twenty...thirty...forty...fifty feet....
a world of pleasure to the sight, to the touch....
Once, a gigantic jelly fish danced her amazing and fluid ballet with me and my two male dive partners. We undulated with her for the entire dive...
Another time, the sea around me cleared like an evacuation from a fire-zone! Into my view came a large and beautiful Tiger Shark. It followed me with leisurely and minimal movement all the way back to the boat. I scrambled into the boat quite excited and not a little alarmed!...
Resting my hand on a rock at the bottom, around twenty feet under, the rock moved! A furry, bewhiskered harbor seal looked me in the face, quite startled itself! Then it popped towards the surface! Indicating to my dive buddy to go up, I reached the surface. I popped up. my buddy popped up. the seal popped up! We all looked at each other and laughed! I am sure the seal laughed along with us!
I saw the largest, most beautiful lobster I have ever seen, on a night dive off the Catalina Islands...of course it was large...it was a protected area! It made its way without fear among the rocks thirty feet under, unperturbed and in no fear of being eaten for supper!
The jeweled walls of the under-water cliffs of the Catalina Islands: what beauty in encrusted, small animals, competing for every space on the ledges and rock faces...a jewel box of gems everywhere in sight!...
And then, suddenly, a burst of small bright yellow fish by the hundreds across a purple and green rock face!...
Swimming under water back into shore with California sea lions...twenty or so of them...all heading into shore together...
Holding onto the holdfast of a large Kelp, waving violently in the surge, while two sea lions wove a web of water around me...
'Beauty' does not begin to describe the Ocean. the Mer. the Sea....
Here is how the Sea feels on my body: No walls. no rooms. no buildings. no rules of land. no cement. everywhere. just endless, endless sea, pressing on me from all sides and above me...
Not a womb, not at all...
simply, the Rest of the World....
my long silver-scaled tail waves and undulates through the kelp bed...
a stream of golden fish and all the ocean breath of their gills follow in my wake...
I pull up and away with my strong arms in great pleasure...
Breaching the surface in a burst of spray -
my mermaid tail slaps the waves
and they all, every and each wave...
SING!....
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