Chapter 8 #2
Movement in the water catches my eye. A stingray glides toward us, its fins cutting through the water. It’s majestic, the way it floats to us and then right past us. Instinctually, I reach out to touch it, but miss it as it goes past.
“There’ll be another one, I’m sure,” says Walter, and as he’s finishing his sentence, another one comes toward us. This time I’m ready, hand out. I skim my fingers along its back, the slimy, silky texture of its diamond-shaped body sending the strangest sensation through me.
“Ooooh, it was so weird.” I snap my hand back and curl it against my chest. “Your turn.”
Walter doesn’t require any further prompting. The next time a stingray comes by, he bends, hand outstretched, and as it swims past, he does the same as I did, skimming the back of the animal with his fingertips.
The joy on his face is nearly unmatched. He smiles so big, the corners of his mouth practically touch his ears. He flushes, his cheeks pinked and eyes bright. He’s beaming. I think he’d glow in the dark if it were nighttime.
“That feels way different than what I expected,” he says, shouting like I’m much farther away than I am.
“Should we venture out a bit?” I ask, and Walter nods enthusiastically.
We shuffle through the water—waist-deep for me, but hip-deep for Walter.
We both giggle at how silly we look and feel shuffling along, and I’m glad for the company of my new acquaintance.
It would have been fine to do this activity alone, but sharing this joy with someone else makes the experience ten times better.
Maybe it’s not a husband, but maybe that’s just as well.
We make our way over to a pair of guides, a girl holding a bright blue bucket and a guy holding a stingray.
The man has his two hands under the ray’s wings as if he’s holding a kid in place while they learn to swim.
The stingray flutters its body, and tourists walk up to get the chance to pet the creature.
Walter and I line up for a turn, both tickled by the experience.
Before we walk away, the girl with the bucket gives us a squishy piece of squid to feed to a stingray.
Walter and I shuffle away from the new crowd forming around the guides and find a quieter spot to drop our squid pieces and attract some stingrays.
They come floating toward us in search of the food, but instead of petting these ones, we just watch them float by, although the temptation to touch each one is hard to ignore.
I steal glances at Walter, whose face is glowing with the kind of childlike joy you only get from experiencing something awe-inducing.
The first time I went to an art museum, I was with my parents and spent the entire time slack-jawed in awe.
They’d picked up on my keen interest in art, and for my thirteenth birthday, we drove two hours to visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
I knew better than to try to touch the art, but I wanted to touch everything.
As if the only way I could really process the magic I was seeing with my eyes was to also see it with my hands.
I left the museum that day more sure than ever that I wanted to create art for the rest of my life.
I wanted to contribute to the wonder that other people experience in this life.
Teaching feels like that sometimes. Like if I can’t contribute to the magic, I can teach my students how to.
Is there magic like that in graphic design?
Watching these alien sea creatures float by us feels like witnessing some kind of art piece come to life, and the only way to make it real is to see it with my hands, too.
This kind of wonder doesn’t happen every day, and it reminds me of my long-buried desires to contribute to the world in that way.
Most days, I feel like I’m surviving, just keeping my head above water and hoping I can catch a deep enough breath before another wave comes through.
There’s no awe or inspiration in survival.
When our time is up, Walter and I exchange disappointed looks. Although my fingers are pruning and I’m almost uncomfortably hot in the early afternoon sun, I could spend another two hours out here, witnessing the alchemy of the ocean and the life within it.
But I let the guides shepherd me to the boat, where everyone gets a towel as we load up. Walter sits next to me on the boat ride, which is too noisy for conversation with the roar of the engine and the splash of the waves, but as we board the bus, I’m eager to chat with my new friend.
“How come you didn’t bring any friends on your trip with you, Walter?”
“I’m afraid my answer isn’t very happy,” he says. “I don’t have many friends at my age and the ones who are still alive aren’t healthy enough to travel.”
“Oh gosh. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for, it’s just a fact of life. Plus, I don’t mind a little solo travel, but I do miss my wife.”
“Is she…?”
“She died seventeen years ago. We always meant to get around to traveling but never did. After she died, it was hard for me to leave the house.”
“That sounds lonely,” I say.
“It was. I’m not so lonely now. I have lots of friends in my retirement community, and I just went on my first date in, oh, fifty years.”
“How did the date go? Tell me everything.”
Walter eagerly tells me all about his first date with a woman named Ethel, whom he met at an art class in his hometown in Copper Springs, Colorado. They went to dinner, and their next date is a pottery class when he gets back.
“And what about you? Is there a special someone in your life?” Walter asks.
“No, no, no. Not—no. This was supposed to be my honeymoon, actually. My fiancé ended things six months ago.”
“Oh, Abby,” Walter says in a way that makes my eyes prickle with tears. He sets his hand on top of mine and gives it a squeeze. “How brave of you to come on this trip.”
Was it brave? It didn’t feel very brave to do it. If anything, I felt bad being the one to take this trip. I wasn’t sure I’d come at all, but Hazel and my parents convinced me that it would be good for me, and in a way, it was easier to agree to go on this trip for them than for myself.
“Can I tell you a wicked secret, Walter?”
He nods eagerly, hungry for whatever I’m going to say.
“I’m glad my fiancé isn’t here.”
He raises his eyebrows at me, reacting appropriately to my confession.
“Todd was a really nice guy, and he’s also a very particular guy.
He would find something to complain about no matter what we did and I just know he’d be here criticizing the room, the food, the activities, the weather.
” Years of frustration bubble up in my chest, and for once, I don’t shove it back down.
“It always bothered me and I never said anything, but you know what? I’m glad that I don’t have to listen to him bitch about this beautiful place and amazing things like this excursion. ”
“That’s the spirit,” Walter says with a chuckle.
“Plus, you and I might never have become friends if I were here with my ex.”
“Now that would be a damn shame, wouldn’t it?”
“A real shame, Walter. How long are you at the resort?”
“I’ve been here a week and I’ve got three weeks left. A whole damn month,” he says, bright and excited.
“I’ve got six days left. We should have lunch together one day.”
He agrees, and we exchange information, going through some of our other plans. It turns out that we’ll also be visiting the sea turtle hatchery and conservation center together next week, too.
As we settle into conversation, it becomes more and more clear to me that it doesn’t take an ocean adventure to experience the magic life has to offer. Meeting a new friend, connecting with a stranger—these things are magic in their own right.
It’s the sort of thing that might make a burned-out elementary art school teacher finally start to relax and clear out all the junk in her mind to make room to marvel at life again.