Plunge

A few months ago I had the super-bright idea that it would be cool to snorkel between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, having two continents within arms’ reach.  Cool, I thought.  I’m going to do that.  Because I do all the things.

So off I went to Iceland, where I did all sorts of other things.  I went zip-lining upside down.  I went hiking in the mountains.  I bathed in the Blue Lagoon.  I paid 35,000 Icelandic króna for a pair of rain pants that I didn’t end up using (that’s okay — it’s just money.  Sometimes it goes away like that).  I photographed geysers and waterfalls, soaked in hot springs, and ate rye bread that had been baked for 24 hours underground, where the water is at a constant volcanic boil.  I wandered the streets of Reykjavik, went to the flea market, and ate an incomparable fish dinner.  I bumped my head on the top of a cave and marvelled at the almost-midnight sun.  All the things.

Oddly, though, I found myself getting a little nervous about my upcoming snorkeling adventure.  I thought maybe it was about the cold, as the water is said to be a frigid 2 degrees year-round.  I countered this unease by packing layers and layers of thermal clothes and underclothes to wear under my drysuit.  “You will be warm and comfortable,” the website assured me.  “Only your hands and face will get cold.  And we will have hot chocolate and cookies for you afterwards.”  It will be fine.  I’ve had a cold face before.  It will be fine.

As the day approached, however, my unease intensified.  I had a knot in my stomach.  I felt panicky feelings.  “What is this?” I wondered.  As an adventurous introvert, I get nervous for Christmas parties and piano exams, not for extreme sports.  I am a strong swimmer.  I am comfortable in the water.  I rather like hanging upside down in my sister’s pool.  I have had plenty of aquatics experiences in lakes and oceans all over the world.  This queasiness is unreasonable.

And then, as I lay awake in the middle of the night googling “panic attacks while snorkeling,” I figured it out.  Back in 2017, I had a traumatic experience at the bottom of the Mediterranean.  In my eagerness to “do all the things,” I had signed up for a day of scuba diving, which I recount with surprisingly good humour here.  In a nutshell, there was inadequate training, my equipment was ill-fitting, and my guide left me face down and immobile at the bottom of the sea while he went off for an eternity to do who-knows-what.  My oxygen tanks were full but I never felt I was getting enough air.  I ended up spending the rest of the day trembling on the boat, cursing my cowardice but feeling a great deal too intelligent to descend a second time.

Snorkeling, I thought initially, would not be like that.  I would stay on the surface.  I would be in complete control.  Everything would be fine.  Just fine.

But at 1:00 am on the eve of my underwater expedition, the thoughts I was thinking were not at all fine.  My body remembered that feeling of trying to take in air through a tube, Darth-Vader-style, and I began to panic right there in my bed.  “I’ll practice breathing through my mouth on solid ground,” I thought, and felt my chest constrict.  I cannot do this.  I cannot do this.  I cannot do this.

Then I remembered the awkwardness of the gear.  The fins, which do not allow for proper treading of water.  The suit, which never actually keeps me warm.  In my scuba diving experience, my tanks were not securely attached to me, so I found them constantly pulling me onto my back.  I was weighted down and couldn’t just swim to the surface when I felt like I’d had enough.  I was too encumbered to control my own movement in the water.  Would the same be true with a bulky drysuit, which is said to be incredibly buoyant? Buoyancy is great for the non-swimmer, who may be afraid of sinking, but it is not great for someone who appreciates verticality in the water.  What if I found myself stuck in an uncomfortable position, floating way into the netherworld with water in my breathing tube? At 2:00 am, I was googling “how to swim in a drysuit,” and imagining the worst of outcomes.

Morning finally came.  I lost a bit of my breakfast.  My stomach was in knots.  “I don’t know if I can do this,” I told my travel buddy, Jennifer.  “You don’t have to,” she said.  “But I do,” I said.  “I do all the things.” 

And so she kindly drove me to the diving site.  She stood by me and took my photo as I geared up.  We laughed together at the teenagers beside us, who were wearing thermal long johns under their flamboyant swimming trunks, and bantering as teenage boys do.  “I’m a little nervous,” I said to my guide.  “Don’t worry.  I will be right beside you,” she replied.  She was kind and nurturing, not at all like the macho men in Greece.  This is different than that.  Maybe this will be okay.

When I got my gear, I started breathing through the tube right away, before we were anywhere near the water.  “I’m practising,” I told my winsome guide.  “You will be a master,” she reassured me.  It wasn’t so bad.  I could breathe.  I was not the Dark Lord.  Breathe.

The moment arrived.  I entered the water.  I floated, face-down.  I saw the clear depths below me.  I frog-kicked my legs.  I was okay.  I learned how to float on my back in the “safety position,” which I could assume whenever I wanted.  It would be okay.  I would be okay.

I won’t say that it was comfortable.  I did find myself drifting along with the current a few times when I would much rather have stayed put.  I was stuck in a horizontal position when I would much rather have had the option of being vertical.  I did find it nearly impossible to steer.  Before long I felt a cool trickle running down my back.  But I managed.  I managed.

The view was every bit as beautiful as in the photos.  With clear glacier water that had been filtering for decades through hardened, porous lava rock to reach its sublime state, divers are said to have a view of up to 120 metres.  The rock formations and the floating bits of iridescent algae were surreal.  At one point my group lined up hand-in-hand between the two continents, a human bridge across the world.  Cool, I thought. 

 My clothes were soaked.  My teeth were chattering.  But I did it.  I did it.  I did it.  Because of all the “things” that I do, cowardice is not one of them.  And even now, I am determined to keep doing the things that remind me that I am alive and moving through this enormous world. 

Because I’ll be honest, my world has been feeling a little tiny of late.  It’s felt like a pretty stagnant four years since I left Morocco and settled down in London.  Not a single stamp in my passport.  Just a few short drives across the bridge to Detroit, which is practically Canada, distance-wise.  And apart from the sense of geographical captivity, I’ve often felt stifled emotionally as well.  Covid was a big part of that, but my social isolation in London began pre-pandemic and has continued until now.  I’ve had teaching assignments in four different schools, some of which were in entirely different municipalities.  With a few exceptions, most of my interactions at work have been collegial, but shallow.  The same has held true in the various groups I’ve tried to integrate myself with on evenings and weekends.  London, I’ve been told, is notoriously impenetrable by outsiders.  “It took me a good ten years before I really felt established here,” said one acquaintance.  Great.  Six more to go.

But it’s beginning.  I’ve joined a choir that has turned out to be made up of friendly people.  I dug out my flute, which I’ve rarely played since high school, and joined a couple of concert bands.  I’ve continued with my French conversation group.  And I bravely did a couple of “things” right here in my own city.  Not extreme sports.  Things like saying, “Do you want to go for coffee?” and “Do you like to cook?”  I would rather jump out of an airplane than say those kinds of things out loud.  There is no need for social interaction when skydiving, after all.  But social interaction is as necessary to feeling alive as wandering through a Moroccan souk or paragliding in the French Alps.  One must have friends to live an unencumbered life.  One must plunge, not into glacial Icelandic waters, but into the world of conversing human beings.            

So please, if you are reading this, and you know me not-so-well, take a moment to say hello and welcome me to your world.  And if I venture into your realm and invite myself over for tea, forgive my audacity and applaud my bravery.  The boundary between acquaintanceship and friendship is a tricky one to navigate, but it is every bit as exciting as traversing the distance between two tectonic plates.  The discomfort is real, but so is the beauty.  Take a breath with me, and plunge.