Deep Black Water

Published July 8th, 2009

July 4th weekend. Independence Day, for those of us in the USA. How many of us really think about that anymore? What it really means? I don’t know. Mostly we use it as an excuse to drink, grill, eat and blow stuff up. But then again - maybe that’s exerting our freedoms in a very visceral way. Maybe that’s close enough.

I’ve been going through some internally stressful times the past couple weeks. I needed an out, a release of this tension and had to get away from familiar, lazy things. I left town. I headed up the coast to Santa Barbara.

My weekend enjoyment was cut slightly short by me falling ill on Sunday night. Unfortunate. But that’s the way it goes with me sometimes. Once I was finally feeling OK I headed home, down the coast, down the 101. The traffic was thick heading out of Santa Barbara. Just a long trail of red lights on a thin ribbon of asphalt, a sinew of civilization, hanging on the edge of the continent. The moon was out and close to full. It reflected off the water in a way that I’m sure humans have marveled at for thousands of years. The only lights were from the cars, the moon and the oil rigs, clusters of jewels on the horizon in an otherwise black and forbidding ocean. Why is it that the moon looks silver? Moon rock and dust is remarkably dark…but from here it looks like silver or brushed metal. The light off the water is a streak of metallic white. The water was so calm this weekend I could almost make out the features of the moon in the water before the ripples muddled it all up.

I was in that water just the day before. The plan was to join in on a rafting trip of sorts - to float from one beach a few miles down the coast to another beach, haul the rafts up and bbq there. Of course there were beer rafts. I chose to express my independence by selecting a raft resembling a pirate ship. A kid’s toy, though as big as any single person pool raft. Most other people had opted for actual boats. A pool toy, in the ocean? Was this wise? Probably not. But I did it to be interesting. I fight off boredom with myself almost every day. I rebel against laxity and this trip was all about getting away from “me” for a few days too. By launch time, I was getting pretty nervous - not just because of my seemingly inadequate raft, but also because I harbor a deep fear of the ocean. I hadn’t been in the ocean in 25 years, even though I’m a perfectly competent swimmer and don’t fear swimming or water in any way.

What I fear is murky water, water I can’t see the bottom of. I fear the suffocating dark. I fear being dragged under or swept away and no one ever hearing from me again. I fear being forgotten, forever. The ocean is the perfect embodiment of those fears. Who knows what lurks in the murk… In that deep, black water, what monsters under the bed await? Is the water the monster itself?

A few of the fellow rafters - I only knew a couple participants - decided to lash (duct tape) my raft to others for added stability and safety. They didn’t trust the ship either, I guess. We headed out into the swell, into the breakers, heading for open, flat water to relax and drift away on. Once that water was up to my chest, the panic - oh, god, the panic - set in. I broke into a sweat. I started looking around for an out. Could I still bail and swim back? Where was everyone? Is everything floating? Am I floating? Oh god, I can’t touch the bottom anymore…that’s when it really set in. But I faced it. I stared it down. I shoved the panic deep inside me and told it I’d deal with it later. I just kept moving - I had to…if I stopped, I’d have surely broken for shore. I just kept going. Panicking all the while, wishing I’d never done this, wishing I wasn’t alone on my raft, wishing I’d had someone to go with me so I’d have bought a real 2 person raft. Not a pool toy. But that was not what happened - that’s not where I was. That wasn’t reality. I was ultimately stuck in this and I wasn’t going to quit, since I’d never have forgiven myself.

Why is that the swell looks so benign from shore, but when you’re in it, suddenly it looks like a mountain, 20 or 30 feet high, looming overhead? How is it that it makes you think you’re suddenly swimming uphill? We paddled, and kicked, and paddled. My raft’s configuration - lashed to others - was not real convenient for paddling. The beer rafts were too heavy to tow. Our lashed rafts too clunky to get out past the breakers. Paddles snapped. Rafts drifted back to shore. Other people, with better paddles and no towing responsibilities made it out onto flat water and drifted down the coast. The rest of us…we headed back to land, only a few hundred yards from our starting point. My raft would have made it, I’m convinced, but that was not my fate.

We sat, drinking our dead weight and enjoying the sun, waiting for rescue. I shivered. The sun was hot, the wind was cold, but really I was shivering away the panic and fear. Now I knew no one. They had no clue who I was. My friends had succeeded in reaching the main phase of the voyage. I relaxed on my pirate raft, now detached from the fleet and I tried to join in the fun as best I could. Who knows if they’ll remember me, or if I have since been drawn beneath the waves of their memories. I may not have made it down the coast, but I faced a deep, personal fear and beat it back as best I could. For that, I’m a little more independent. Until next time.

And that’s how I celebrated Independence Day. I relived it all, driving home on that slash of humanity, straddling the black rocks on the left and the liquid obsidian reflecting the moon on the right. I took a deep breath and remembered. I headed home, back to my everyday problems, my current worries and unpleasantries - but now with one less phobia. One less reason to panic in life. One more reason to believe I can win, once in a while. One more reason to smile.

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