Into the Deep Blue

lost and found

by Jeneen R. Garcia

 

 

 

Just as I do not know when I first learned to use words to name the world and make it my own, I do not remember a time when I did not have the sea.

 

Perhaps it was an ancient stirring in my cells that had me walking the shores of Samal Island in the summers--nine years old, magnifying glass in hand to peer at the curious creatures stranded by the tide.

 

Even going to college in hilly Quezon City, I swear I would sometimes smell brine in the air while walking under the acacia trees. Summer kept me in school, too, but it was during that long separation that I found the sea spilling over to--no, totally saturating--my poetry. I fed on words like perigean spring tide from enormous libraries that said so much about the sea, but had not a single drop of it on their shelves.

 

A few years later, after getting my diving license, I would lose all the words as I drifted in awe for the first time beneath a huge cloud of jackfish, 90 feet underwater, a tiny speck in that infinite, encompassing blueness. I did not know it then, that I belonged to the sea, simply because every part of my being had always ebbed and flowed with it.

 

Meanwhile, there was the real world I had to figure out and learn to flow with. I had a dream I loved telling people, about wanting to work on a beach for the rest of my life. In the back of my mind, though, was a practical voice that said I couldn’t have what I wanted and actually get paid for it. After college, I learned to compromise: bits of fieldwork and a better-paying desk job over a field job that would probably lead nowhere career-wise.

 

Up until two months ago, I had even decided to spend the next four years of my life studying to become a lawyer. No more starving-writer-environmentalist-NGO-worker drama for me. Twenty-six going on twenty-seven, with probably more than half of my generation married-with-kids and halfway up the ladder of worldly success, I felt I had already wasted too much time on fanciful things. It was time to take on the real world, for real.

 

The future suddenly looked wonderfully secure and respectable. My parents, though taken aback by the sudden decision, happily told all their friends. Everyone was glad for me.

 

Except that every time I told someone I planned to go to law school, I would feel my heart cringe. I thought, maybe I’m just not used to saying it, and indeed, the feeling became less and less distinct over time. But it never disappeared.

 

I am an extremely practical person, the type who needs to see the pro far outweigh the con for sure before making a decision. Although it was the natural choice, I did not take up Marine Biology in college, nor did I consider it for my Master’s degree, because I felt it was too narrow a field of study, with no immediate use; surely, the world was so much more than the sea.

 

I had to rationalize my finally buying an underwater camera this year by resolving to earn from my underwater photography, when really, all I want is to share with people all the amazing creatures I see when I go diving. Feeling that heart cringe like never before, I knew I had been too practical far too long.

 

I took a deep breath, dove in, and applied for a Master’s in Marine Biology. The moment I made the decision, an incredible wave of peace washed over me. I didn’t have to struggle anymore. I was a child again holding my breath underwater, the warm waters of the sea wrapping me in its comforting silence.

 

Still, my grown-up mind fidgets as the start of classes draws near. I’m not getting any younger; I might just be wasting time and money on something I THINK I want right now. I might end up jobless and starving because there’s no space left in the world for someone who knows the names of fish and corals and the different kinds of tides; maybe I’ll scratch my head at age 40 and wonder where I threw my life away. The pros cannot even begin to compare with the cons.

 

But my heart--it tells me now it is certain, as if I have finally deciphered a message written deep in the nucleus of my cells millions of years before I was born. I have taken the plunge, and in the coming months, I will be totally immersed, going deeper and deeper to know fish, sea slug, the very heart of the sea.

 

I might sink so deep, I will never find my way back up again. But to know at last where I belong, and to live the life I am called to--that, I think, will be worth risking drowning.