Oceans, Islands, Boats There isn’t a thing I’ve thought about or felt regarding oceans, islands, boats that hasn’t been before [i] . Anything to find myself on a boat. Anything to live and love on an island. Here’s a list of islands I’ve been on. Catalina Island, CA Mackinac Island, MI Balboa Island, CA Coronado Island, CA (briefly, but enough) Alcatraz, CA (it counts, thank you!) Manhattan, NY (this one, too) Kauai, HI To get on an island, you need some sort of boat or plane vehicle. But I’m easily made motion-sick. When road-tripping, I need to probably drive. When airporting and airplaning, I opt for wine and Dramamine (makes flying a breeeeeeeeze!). Because of this sensitivity, I forced my sea-legs when I was preadolescent. Being on a boat was just that important [ii]. Here’s some more about my relationship with oceans: when I was a college student and I’d had a particularly bad day, I would take the bus all of the 11 miles west to sit on the Venice sand. An attempt at articulation—as to why being near large bodies of water makes me feel more unified, less crazy, sexier, etc.—is probably useless. I really can’t evoke in words the feeling of being on a coast [iii]. I’m not a surfer, I don’t scuba dive. But if I were to think about settling down somewhere in the Midwest, my lungs constrict a little. I could settle down somewhere in the Midwest and be extremely happy, but when I think about the idea of the Midwest and how far from the ocean, my lungs constrict a little [iv] . Moving on. Out of all the islands I’ve ever been on, Isla Mujeres will be the one I return to until I die. Isla Mujeres is a four-mile long island about 8 miles northeast from Cancun. One day, my dad, brother, my aunt’s family, and I decided to go swimming with whale-sharks off the coast of this magnificent island. We awoke at 6:30 in the morning, boarded and unboarded a bus, then stood in line for another. In Mexico, there are no lines, there is only the illusion of them, and people are so very non-confrontational that they avoid eye contact as they cut in front of you. This is particularly true of “buses” that are actually minivans; cheaper than taxis, these “buses” take you where buses don’t go, and the lines can span a block long. In the one we pressed into, my brother and I estimated there were seventeen people accommodated on the benches positioned up against the sides of the van. I sat on a seat with my back directly to and behind the driver. Next to an open window, the car drive felt like one long goodbye to everything we drove past as I watched things diminish in the distance. I said good bye to boats split in half on the side of the road. I said good-bye to fresh fried fish stands with new coats of paint, waiting for tourists to stop, on the side of the road. A security guard waved hello (good bye) to me, and I waved back. One thing that makes me an idiot is how confused I get by the architecture in Mexico. It’s simple, angular, unconscious, which I love, but it’s hard to tell which is greater: the amount of buildings that look abandoned but aren’t, or the amount of businesses that have been abandoned and left to weather. They each have a combination of black streaks brought by downpours from the rooftops, graffiti, rusty chain-link fences. The part of me that loves architecture makes me feel like these buildings are strays. I’m like, why doesn’t someone feed these buildings???   This whale-shark business was a private tour commissioned by my dad from a duo who told us to meet them at a private dock at 7:45. By 8:00, my aunt’s husband, an American, remarked that maybe they had meant 7:45 Mexican time. The private dock had water as clear as glass, with leaves swaying a couple of feet below. I discovered that water with vegetation in it/around it harbors mosquitos enormous enough to make one shriek in pain. In the distance, we saw several boats approach the smaller wooden pier, and it was here that we were introduced to Martin, the guide, and Guadalupe, the boat driver. Once on the boat, Lupe explained some rules, the most important of which were not to touch the whale sharks and to wear sunscreen even though there was a storm coming. The way MY sea-legs work is if I keep my head straight ahead in whichever direction the boat is going, I’ll be fine. I cannot, ever, be facing elsewhere. If the water is particularly choppy, I should probably dance along with the movement of the boat. I cannot, ever, move below the deck.   All of this invariably makes me the lookout on boat excursions. I’m the first to spot marine-life surfacing[v] , and on this trip I noticed two dolphins flirting (probably just friends, though). A little later, I saw a dolphin leap and dive the prettiest little curve. I yelled, and when everyone looked, a manta ray leaped out after it. In the distance, straight ahead, was a two-tone horizon created by the storm. To the left and right of the boat were normal colors, but ahead, I could have traced a straight line from the sharp horizon. Actually, the sky ahead looked like someone had pressed a thumb on the dark clouds above it and created a thick streak of white gray by swiping straight down. We passed Isla Mujeres, and then, 10 miles out, we were in the white gray spray. I couldn’t see the island or the other speed boats nearby headed to the same whale-shark spot. When there is no sun above, the waves are blue charcoal chaos, and the rain drops hitting them look like a simulation of quantum mechanics. I thought about how the Spanish conquistadores were rocked by these same waters, and how people before them, on their ways to and from each other, also got acquainted with nature like this.  After a while, the water started to look like aluminum foil coming to life and dying in millisecond spurts. This went on for a while until we passed the storm and dove into the open water with the whale-sharks, who were feeding. Through my goggles, I could see their gills, doing their gill-thing. It’s just shocking how tiny I am in comparison to everything below, I kept thinking. Somehow, when I’m not near water, my tiny little self in this particular universe [vi] is not—so not—ok with the uncertainty of why we’re all here, where we’ll all go. But being in these parts, worshipping the enormity, humbling myself, is maybe a collusion of acceptance and reverence. To actually see it and feel it and have it be so beautiful instead of sensing that I’m a speck; maybe that’s why! After we made friends with the whale-sharks, Lupe drove us to the island and its acres of chest-deep, turquoise shore. He made fresh ceviche before dipping his short, stocky, tattooed body into the water. My dad and Martin had a heart to heart back in the boat. We all hung out until thunder and lightning threatened us from a distance. On the way back, Lupe talked a little bit about how the whales are dying. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why do we do the things we do?” The sun was visible again headed mainland, and I looked out at the extraordinary azures and ceruleans, a landscape so unreal it was like a card on a paint swatch. Why we do and don’t do, Lupe, is a constant question that drives me insane, I thought, but as I looked out, hair whipping in the salt air, it felt like a question that I could process, with a little help from these shores. [i] I don’t need to say, right? Ok. [ii] Here’s how many times I’ve been on a boat: almost 20. Will someone buy me one please? House-boat, even better. [iii] To live and die in West-L.A., that’s what they meant. [iv] Palm trees, which makes for good skyline, may have something to do with it. [v] At which point I scream and point a lot. [vi] I always say ‘this particular universe’, and maybe it’s time I make clear the implication is that there are probably others; it’s my shout-out to string theory. I probably say this-particular-universe too often without explaining, but whatever!

Oceans, Islands, Boats

There isn’t a thing I’ve thought about or felt regarding oceans, islands, boats that hasn’t been before [i] . Anything to find myself on a boat. Anything to live and love on an island.

Here’s a list of islands I’ve been on.

  • Catalina Island, CA
  • Mackinac Island, MI
  • Balboa Island, CA
  • Coronado Island, CA (briefly, but enough)
  • Alcatraz, CA (it counts, thank you!)
  • Manhattan, NY (this one, too)
  • Kauai, HI

To get on an island, you need some sort of boat or plane vehicle. But I’m easily made motion-sick. When road-tripping, I need to probably drive. When airporting and airplaning, I opt for wine and Dramamine (makes flying a breeeeeeeeze!). Because of this sensitivity, I forced my sea-legs when I was preadolescent. Being on a boat was just that important [ii].

Here’s some more about my relationship with oceans: when I was a college student and I’d had a particularly bad day, I would take the bus all of the 11 miles west to sit on the Venice sand. An attempt at articulation—as to why being near large bodies of water makes me feel more unified, less crazy, sexier, etc.—is probably useless. I really can’t evoke in words the feeling of being on a coast [iii]. I’m not a surfer, I don’t scuba dive. But if I were to think about settling down somewhere in the Midwest, my lungs constrict a little. I could settle down somewhere in the Midwest and be extremely happy, but when I think about the idea of the Midwest and how far from the ocean, my lungs constrict a little [iv] . Moving on.

Out of all the islands I’ve ever been on, Isla Mujeres will be the one I return to until I die.

Isla Mujeres is a four-mile long island about 8 miles northeast from Cancun. One day, my dad, brother, my aunt’s family, and I decided to go swimming with whale-sharks off the coast of this magnificent island. We awoke at 6:30 in the morning, boarded and unboarded a bus, then stood in line for another. In Mexico, there are no lines, there is only the illusion of them, and people are so very non-confrontational that they avoid eye contact as they cut in front of you. This is particularly true of “buses” that are actually minivans; cheaper than taxis, these “buses” take you where buses don’t go, and the lines can span a block long. In the one we pressed into, my brother and I estimated there were seventeen people accommodated on the benches positioned up against the sides of the van. I sat on a seat with my back directly to and behind the driver. Next to an open window, the car drive felt like one long goodbye to everything we drove past as I watched things diminish in the distance. I said good bye to boats split in half on the side of the road. I said good-bye to fresh fried fish stands with new coats of paint, waiting for tourists to stop, on the side of the road. A security guard waved hello (good bye) to me, and I waved back. One thing that makes me an idiot is how confused I get by the architecture in Mexico. It’s simple, angular, unconscious, which I love, but it’s hard to tell which is greater: the amount of buildings that look abandoned but aren’t, or the amount of businesses that have been abandoned and left to weather. They each have a combination of black streaks brought by downpours from the rooftops, graffiti, rusty chain-link fences. The part of me that loves architecture makes me feel like these buildings are strays. I’m like, why doesn’t someone feed these buildings???  

This whale-shark business was a private tour commissioned by my dad from a duo who told us to meet them at a private dock at 7:45. By 8:00, my aunt’s husband, an American, remarked that maybe they had meant 7:45 Mexican time. The private dock had water as clear as glass, with leaves swaying a couple of feet below. I discovered that water with vegetation in it/around it harbors mosquitos enormous enough to make one shriek in pain. In the distance, we saw several boats approach the smaller wooden pier, and it was here that we were introduced to Martin, the guide, and Guadalupe, the boat driver. Once on the boat, Lupe explained some rules, the most important of which were not to touch the whale sharks and to wear sunscreen even though there was a storm coming.

The way MY sea-legs work is if I keep my head straight ahead in whichever direction the boat is going, I’ll be fine. I cannot, ever, be facing elsewhere. If the water is particularly choppy, I should probably dance along with the movement of the boat. I cannot, ever, move below the deck.  

All of this invariably makes me the lookout on boat excursions. I’m the first to spot marine-life surfacing[v] , and on this trip I noticed two dolphins flirting (probably just friends, though). A little later, I saw a dolphin leap and dive the prettiest little curve. I yelled, and when everyone looked, a manta ray leaped out after it.

In the distance, straight ahead, was a two-tone horizon created by the storm. To the left and right of the boat were normal colors, but ahead, I could have traced a straight line from the sharp horizon. Actually, the sky ahead looked like someone had pressed a thumb on the dark clouds above it and created a thick streak of white gray by swiping straight down. We passed Isla Mujeres, and then, 10 miles out, we were in the white gray spray. I couldn’t see the island or the other speed boats nearby headed to the same whale-shark spot. When there is no sun above, the waves are blue charcoal chaos, and the rain drops hitting them look like a simulation of quantum mechanics. I thought about how the Spanish conquistadores were rocked by these same waters, and how people before them, on their ways to and from each other, also got acquainted with nature like this.

 After a while, the water started to look like aluminum foil coming to life and dying in millisecond spurts. This went on for a while until we passed the storm and dove into the open water with the whale-sharks, who were feeding. Through my goggles, I could see their gills, doing their gill-thing. It’s just shocking how tiny I am in comparison to everything below, I kept thinking. Somehow, when I’m not near water, my tiny little self in this particular universe [vi] is not—so not—ok with the uncertainty of why we’re all here, where we’ll all go. But being in these parts, worshipping the enormity, humbling myself, is maybe a collusion of acceptance and reverence. To actually see it and feel it and have it be so beautiful instead of sensing that I’m a speck; maybe that’s why!

After we made friends with the whale-sharks, Lupe drove us to the island and its acres of chest-deep, turquoise shore. He made fresh ceviche before dipping his short, stocky, tattooed body into the water. My dad and Martin had a heart to heart back in the boat. We all hung out until thunder and lightning threatened us from a distance.

On the way back, Lupe talked a little bit about how the whales are dying. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why do we do the things we do?” The sun was visible again headed mainland, and I looked out at the extraordinary azures and ceruleans, a landscape so unreal it was like a card on a paint swatch. Why we do and don’t do, Lupe, is a constant question that drives me insane, I thought, but as I looked out, hair whipping in the salt air, it felt like a question that I could process, with a little help from these shores.

[i] I don’t need to say, right? Ok.

[ii] Here’s how many times I’ve been on a boat: almost 20. Will someone buy me one please? House-boat, even better.

[iii] To live and die in West-L.A., that’s what they meant.

[iv] Palm trees, which makes for good skyline, may have something to do with it.

[v] At which point I scream and point a lot.

[vi] I always say ‘this particular universe’, and maybe it’s time I make clear the implication is that there are probably others; it’s my shout-out to string theory. I probably say this-particular-universe too often without explaining, but whatever!