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Show For a while my father's rules made me feel safe in the ocean. Gradually I began to regain some of the fearlessness I had had when I was younger. The first year or so of our second tour of duty in Hawaii, the years that I rode the cusp of adolescence and my body began to follow rules of its own, I tested my relationship with the sea, diving under i some waves, riding others in, playing at the edges, snorkeling beside my father, his arm available, our faces framed by oval masks filled slightly with the sea. Even so, nothing held. I remember one night my parents took us snorkeling when I was eleven. We were staying in a beach cabin at the Barber's Point Naval Air Station and only had to walk a few yards from our door to the sea. The water was as black as the sky only without the encouraging pricks of starlight. Standing on the shore, holding my mask and snorkel, I could not recognize the body of water that only a few hours before had nursed me along its shore. Flashlights only made things worse. The weak beams illuminated the salt and plankton, turning the blackness into a murky chaos. We had only swum a few yards before my brothers and I insisted that we return to the shore. Don't be silly, my father said, treading water, it's the same water as it is in the day. I can't see, I said. Something might get me. Don't be ridiculous. You know what's here. Scott began to whimper with me. / want to go back, I cried, lifting my mask from my face and breaking another rule of the sea. Keep your mask on and stop being emotional. Use your head. It 'sfine 120 |
