We were snorkeling between the shore and the little rock island, my mom and I, that little island that lay only a few hundred yards from the shallows where the waves broke; to me, it looked--well, it was--much farther. I was about six--actually, I distinctly remember being six, because it was a topic of discussion about whether or not a six-year-old could make the swim with snorkel and fins, and I had pleaded and pushed: my sister was already on her way out. Every few seconds, I had been tracking her snorkel poking out of the water, straight and steady. It had looked simple and besides--I ran miles every day--I ran everywhere--it was a point of pride for me. A runner, a horse, a galloping thing, a bird flying low to the ground, I could walk all the way up to Panorma, miles above Thessaloniki, by myself (though my mom didn't know that). Nevertheless, the logic was easy: I could therefore swim a few hundred yards to that island, that other world, that place forever separated from land, a place that basked above the swirling sea. I wanted to go out there, and I wanted to even more because I'd heard my sister saying that she hoped to catch a glimpse of the bubbles from the divers below, to see them as they grew and expanded with the lessening water pressure, as if, as they rushed upwards from the confinement of the tank and the lungs deep underneath, they felt more and more free to be themselves, to be air, the closer they got to the surface where they would once again, be part of that greater air, their home. Though I could not articulate that clearly to my mother as I had tried to persuade her to let me go, that is what I wanted to be, a bubble...
I remember her sighing and getting up from her towel, brushing sand from her legs--in this present moment, I can see my mother young again, not so small and not so, so thin; her legs then were miracles of shape, smooth and artfully proportioned ("Except my knees," she'd say); her hair was long and dark, and her face was beautiful like a doll's. I know her again in this moment as a young woman, much younger than I am now, full of life and strength...and in that moment, she was the slightly annoyed but deeply patient elementary school teacher who saw the concentrated-in-a-cup dreams of a six-year-old child.
"Ok. I'll go with you. Just a sec..."
I hopped around, adjusting my snorkel and checking on my sister's progress every few seconds. She was so far out already! We'd never catch her. Finally, the shapely legs were moving and there was a hand for me to grab. We got in and started swimming; now I was going fast, confidently, and I began to relish the view around me, as the bottom, the boring sand bottom, faded and the sea took over, that great and clear Adriatic, great womb of beauty and myth, great storyteller, great wild one. Here I was in her, swimming, my mother beside me, just a little ahead; she would turn, her mask hiding any expression, and check on me every few seconds. I could swim to that island ten times and back.
I looked for bubbles, but the concert of blue, pale fading into dark, and finally black below us where the divers were, my father and his friends, was the only reality--and I wondered about my father. It looked so dark, like death beyond the upper registers of blue; color was somehow life, or perhaps it was light. There was no light down there, and as yet, no bubbles dancing upwards. I began to look for the bubbles as signs of life from the depths, but still I saw none, and the water pressing on me, the small caressing weight of it at the surface, became somehow tinged with malice.
Then I saw them. At first, floating innocuously in their relaxed way, they looked like bubbles through the blue water-lens that was thick and slightly distorting like thick colored glass. My thoughts of the depths disappeared in a rush of expectation. As we got closer, they resolved into what they where: huge jellyfish, their heads pulsating like bubbles on the rise, but they were not rising; they kept themselves at the same level, their heads drawing entrails behind, and I knew what those meant: pain. They weren't bubbles, they were predators, and they'd got me a few times before; the searing pain reared up in my memory as I began to slow my pace. At first it was only one or two floating in front of my mask; then, as I turned sideways, right and left, I realized that it was a school. They were dotted in maddeningly regularity all around us at about ten feet apart; we were now threading through them.
My heart began pounding, and I needed air, but I was afraid to take my eyes off them; though I knew they didn't behave this way, every skin cell fully expected a concerted rush to sting the life out of me. I wavered there, finding it hard to breathe, feeling the thuds inside my chest. I finally just needed to be in the air, so I broke surface and ripped the mask and snorkel off my face. Head just above water, keeping my fins going below to keep me just at surface, I treaded water. My mom popped up and pulled off her mask.
"I can't make it, Mom," I panted. She stared at me for a few seconds, saying nothing, just staring at me. I know now, years later, that what she translated was "I'm too tired to swim farther; I'm too weak"; what I meant was "I'm too scared of those jellyfish." Lost in our own translations, we stared at each other; I could see the island a hundred feet off, much bigger and closer; it looked enormous from the perspective of the irregular, rolling surface of the water. She didn't grab my arm or say anything, until, very quietly, she said: "You can make it. It is just a little farther, see? Follow me. Follow me."
Her calm demeanor translated itself to me; something in her eyes and voice came through, across the rolling water, above the water bursting with mindless energy, above the wind wantonly slapping waves together, dancing facade to the horrors beneath. Strength came across to me, like an arrow, tinged with a certain firmness, steel-like. She put her mask and snorkel in place, and nodded to me. I followed suit, imitating, and I decided I would just watch her legs and fins and just go right behind her, like a little duck across the road. Pride was all gone, and I just wanted to get to that island. She threaded her way through the jellyfish, and feeling safe behind her, I began to look around again and realized that they were, after all, ten feet apart and they were kind of interesting up close. They even looked pretty dumb.
I remember to this day the feel of the first island rock I grabbed, that rough yet slimy feel, that strange juxtaposition between the solid and the fluid; I climbed up expertly and only then did I notice that my mom, sitting beside me on the rocks, was breathing hard in relieved fear. "Oh, that was scary, " she breathed, as my sister came up with the predictable, "What happened?"
"I'm sorry, Mommy, I just got scared. I am sorry I scared you."
"That's ok. Look, here's Dad; you can go back in the boat."
Later, many years later, when I had my own little children, my mom and I remembered this together; I don't remember the circumstances of the sharing, but I do remember what she said: "I was so scared; here I was with this six-year-old in the middle of the ocean and I couldn't carry you; I wasn't strong enough. I knew I couldn't save you. So I just started praying; I knew then to tell you that you could make it; I suddenly got the strength of will to hold it together for us both."
I then told her it was really about jellyfish, and we laughed. I told her it was really about jellyfish, and we looked at each other again, across the years, across life, and we could see one another again, both young again, without masks, in the air, close to shore, out of the depths.
