Kelp beds called me, beckoning with their olive green, slippery arms. "Come swim with ussssss...come swim with ussssss." Bright orange fish followed me, dancing and darting and then crowned me like an underwater queen. Swimming along the pale sandy bottom I startled a shark, who in a flash of creamy sand darted away into the gloom. I happened upon a baby shark that turned and darted for my outstretched hand which I jerked back with a start. I picked up an urchin with its purple needles waving and reaching all around, and fed a slippery, green-silvery eel. There was a foray into an underwater cave, dark, mysterious, claustrophobic and uncomfortable, with a space just large enough to surface in, with fresh air and the sounds of the outside open air.
I swam in the echoes of my own bubbles and whispered breathing, and the swoosh and swish of my fins. The ocean is a heavy quiet, filled with vibrations, burblings and rushings and splashes. It is a peaceful place where there is silence in the filtered blue and green shadows and the golden lights that dance like diamonds all around you.
With my air tank beginning to run low, it was time for the ascent. Time to leave the peace of the green and the blue, and to surface back into the warmth of the air with its blazing yellow ball of light. And so I began to swim, and spiral upwards, slowly, quietly, happily.
At last I bobbed my mermaided self into the airy sky once more, sound exploding in rushing waves and cawing seagulls. And as I adjusted to the bright sunshine and fresh air, and as the waves gently bobbed me to and fro, only a short ways away my human eyes were riveted by two large, brown, beautifully-lashed eyes of a harbor seal.
We stared,
surprised and curious. I could not...dared not...move for fear of
destroying the moment.
The ocean became a pool and seconds became a
lasting moment permanently etched in memory.
With a dash and a splash
she was gone, and the human girl bobbed alone in the waves once more.
1 comment:
Beautiful!
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