l’amour c’est bon

l’amour c’est bon, originally uploaded by someguynamedmatt.

It’s true.

Hit broadside by love

Nobody can prepare you for the day you first experience real love.  It hits you in a big wave – heavier than you’d expected, colder, more powerful, insistent; it almost knocks you off your feet, but you brace against it and keep your footing.  The taste of it in your mouth, the physiological reaction to the other’s presence, the sharpness of focus: all of these things surprise and delight.  There is an overwhelming sense that you have broken from reality and that you and your love are the only people in the universe; this thought is comforting.  Your experience of each other is single-minded, razor sharp, intimately focused.  You want to know and to be known at every level; boundaries and filters are not an option.

If this sounds like Hollywood crap or pulpy romance novel fodder to you, trust me, I understand.  I’m talking about the type of love that we’ve all been promised, that we’ve seen on TV, about which many (many and much) better writers than I have extensively indited; the type of love that most of us don’t allow ourselves to believe in, lest we chase it forever and leave the world without having experienced it.

Turns out it’s a real thing, friends: the experience of becoming a single, integrated being; of completely surrendering to each other; of implicit support; of room to grow and to be; of anything being possible.  It’s amazing and liberating and scary as hell and you spend a lot of time wondering how it could possibly be happening.  You and your love do and say things that you might not have done or said before; you think things that seem like other people’s thoughts.  You will think and without a hint of embarrassment say a thing that would have made you cringe – or actually physically strike its origin – in the past (as an excellent example, I give you the entirety of this post).

the thing is done

excitedconfident all prepared arrive now and execute the plan
feel fine and composed and talk and laugh and sign and the thing is done and
then the screaming electric noise cuts brainnerves tickled by an emotional circular saw
through fingertipsarmsback and eyes and a little light-headed but largely ok
surprised by the intensity of the response but unwavering in commitment and feeling that
the thing is done and that is good

St Paul’s

1)
cold metal warmsshines in my hand
as we both await
your return

2)
surrounded by patientsimpatience and filled with
it
anxiety fearhope cannot stop myself running through
so many futures in my head

this could end
any time now

3)
i have never felt so
powerless
powerfully connected
so much the need to
hold you

Wind powered

Just in case we weren’t getting enough of the ocean from all the scuba diving we’ve been doing lately, Degan and I decided that we should take an introduction to sailing class with Cooper Boating on Granville Island.  We’ve both been interested in learning to sail for awhile, and Living Social had a coupon deal for them a little while back, so we signed up.  Something like $100 for the two of us to spend 4 hours on a 24-foot sailboat with an instructor and two other people, learning the very basics of sailing.

Allow me to summarize the things we learned, for starters:

1. The difference between the jib and mainsail and how to unfurl, trim and stow each
2. How sails actually work (hint: they aren’t always just “catching” the wind, there are some sophisticated aerodynamics at play)
3. How to use the wind direction indicator on the top of the sail to maximize velocity and minimize not-actually-sailing-due-to-collapsed-sail syndrome
4. How to get the boat heeled right the hell over to maximize fun

A truly amazing dollars-per-fun value that may be best described with these photographs:

It’s not totally obvious from this photo, but Degan is on the tiller in this picture.  Even though the outboard is clearly in view, we’re under sail here.  The outboard was used only for navigating the marina and the channel east of the Granville bridge (and generating smoke, but that bit comes a bit later).

Here’s the view forward with the boat heeled over at around 45 degrees to starboard.  We had it over even a little more aggressively a couple of times, which was really, really fun.

Here we are heeled over to port, still having lots of fun:

After around 2.5 hours of cruising around English Bay (sometimes quickly, and sometimes barely at all), we headed back towards False Creek and Granville Island.  Due to a lack of wind, we stowed the sails and I ended up on outboard duty – we ran it for around 10 minutes on the way in.  I mentioned that we were losing RPM slowly as we approached the entrance to False Creek; either our instructor was unconcerned about it, or I wasn’t communicating clearly.  The sputtering death of the engine and the amount of smoke it expelled made us all take it a bit more seriously, however.  Upon inspection it was determined that we had lots of gas; when the dipstick was pulled, it was both dry and melting.  For the less mechanically inclined, this is a really bad sign.  Some oil was located on the boat and added to the motor; yanking on the starter cord caused the oil filler spout to blow smoke-rings, but it didn’t seem likely that the still-smoking hunk of metal was going to get us into the marina.  An emergency maritime iPhone was produced and used to call home for help – but immediately after the call was placed, help arrived:

This foiled the marina’s plan of sending out another boat… with a spare outboard… and swapping them at the mouth of False Creek (which would have been a dashing, bold adventure and so I’m actually a little miffed that the overly-complex undertaking didn’t occur).  Lines were tossed and tied, we were dragged alongside our saviors into the dock, and we made it back in one piece and no worse for wear.  Easily one of the best uses of a Sunday afternoon I can recall – we’ll definitely be back to take their certification course in the spring so that we can pursue yet another expensive hobby in earnest.  The good news: we can take the sailboat out to some kick-ass dive sites…

I’ll leave you with a photo we took whilst waiting for rescue:

Matt’s underwater adventures (part 3 of n)

It’s been awhile since I posted about diving, and that’s mostly because the rest of it went so smoothly.  The last three pool sessions were almost without incident – although I was freezing my ass off, and feeling glad that I took the drysuit option for the ocean – and the drysuit orientation was absolute cake.  Getting out of the pool and being warm and dry 30 seconds later was an grin-inducing experience that I won’t forget – even though there was a bit of a leak in the suit that resulted in wet legs.  C’est la vie.

The ocean, though – I knew the ocean was going to be the deciding factor for me.  I’d never been in the ocean before, not even to swim, so I didn’t know how I was going to feel.  No idea how I’d react to the smells, the tastes, the waves – all a mystery.

Last Saturday we arrived at Whytecliff park, near Horseshoe Bay – the place where almost everyone in Vancouver who has learned to dive here did their open water dives – and assembled gear.  It was hot as hell – almost 30 degrees – a beautiful day to be on or in the water.  Although our instructors didn’t seem even a little excited to be there (hey, they’ve probably done 100+ dives there, and these are not going to be interesting dives), we class-takers were all a little giddy.  Grins were worn all round as we toted tanks down the hill, returned to the van and assembled our kit.  Hell yeah!  We’re going diving, and it’s not in the pool – for the first time ever!

Putting on a drysuit in 30 degree weather feels weird, but putting on the fleece insulation beforehand feels even weirder.  I wait until the last possible moment to zip in, and even then it is too soon.  Sweat pours down my face.  I’m 60 pounds heavier than I was when I arrived and now I’m enclosed in an airtight rubber suit.  The water looks refreshing and all I want is to get in it, but I have a briefing to get through first.  The drills we’ll do today are summarized; we learn that we’ll also be doing some free swimming to check things out.  Cool.  Looking forward to that bit; maybe not so much the rest of it.  Oh well, the free swim is the sugar that makes the bitter skills medicine go down, right?  I recognize that practicing these skills may save my life one day, so I’m going to do them right; that doesn’t mean that I’m excited about taking my regulator out under 13 meters of water.

Before I know it, we’re wading in.  There are half-meter waves; apparently this is abnormal for Whytecliff.  It is a bit of a challenge to get my fins on when I’m waist-deep and being knocked around a bit, but I keep my side to the waves and it goes pretty well.  I hold my buddy up while she puts hers on and we float out a bit.  It feels good to be bobbing in the waves; I’m surprised at how good.  The horizon is hidden periodically by the doubles; I feel the push and pull of the waves and the wind on my face.  This is pretty damn cool.  I could float here for awhile.  It reminds me of being under canopy when skydiving: peaceful, quiet.  Soothing.

Time to dive.  We raise our BCD hoses and press the big buttons: we’re sinking with the hiss of escaping air.  Necks, chins, regulators, eyes underwater – we begin our descent along the line attached to our buoy.  We proceed slowly, equalizing regularly; I experience mask crush for the first time and remember to breathe gently out of my nose to fix it.  I’m grinning, I can feel it.  Before I know it, I’m kneeling on the bottom of the ocean, waiting for my instructor to swim to me and have me demonstrate an important skill.  I’m not afraid.  I put a bit of air into my drysuit and wait.

Our visibility is as-expected at Whytecliff: poor.  Around 2-3 meters.  Fortunately we’ll be diving on the Sunshine Coast at Tuwanek on Sunday, and it is supposed to have excellent vis.  I tell myself to grit my teeth and bear it, but next thing I know it’s time to get out of the water and I’m still grinning.

On our second free swim, a Dogfish darts past me almost close enough to touch.  I’m amazed to see this creature so close.  It’s nothing extremely rare, or particularly interesting to someone who has been diving for awhile, but it’s my first real encounter with ocean life and it floors me.  On Sunday the hundreds of little jellies floating around Tuwanek cement it: I’m completely hooked. In spite of equipment malfunctions on my 3rd and 4th dives (a stuck-slightly-open drysuit inflation valve combined with ~1m visibility and vicious cramping made my 47 minute 4th dive a bit challenging), I can’t wait to get back in the water.

On top of it all, I’ve got a wonderful partner who is a built-in dive buddy (and dive master [mistress?] soon), with whom I can’t wait to explore a bunch of chunks of the ocean.  After my first session in the pool I wasn’t sure if I’d ever do it again, but I now realize that this is an activity that we can enjoy together for many, many years to come.  Incredible.  Powerful.  Exhilarating.

It’s a good life, isn’t it?

Living, together

We were supposed to move everything on Saturday the 26th, but somehow ended up with nothing on the calendar for the 19th and 20th.  What the hell, right?  We moved the date forward a week.  Exciting times; we didn’t want to wait.  Boxes, packing tape, things everywhere; piles and stacks and bags of our individual lives in the middle of our individual apartments waiting to be sorted into the subset called “ours”.  Packing and sorting and stacking and reorganizing and more packing later, we’re ready to go.

Saturday morning, we rent a storage locker and a U-Haul and drive to Degan’s place, where there is adequate space to legally park the truck right in front of the door (!).  The smallest team of movers of which I’ve ever been a part: just the two of us.  Eye of the Tiger 2010 Buzztech Remix on repeat – on my iPhone – pumps us up.  We put the stuff going to our apartment in first, then the stuff for the storage locker – it goes very quickly.  The weather is perfect.  The sun is shining and the day is breezy but neither overpowers; we are laughing and enjoying each other’s company (when I close my eyes now I see the twinkle and teeth and that amazing smile as she laughs: so beautiful) as we haul chairs, desk, couch, shelves, books and more books and all of the other artifacts that impart mass upon our lives into the truck.  Uneventful stop at the storage locker, but powerful Tetris-fu we have – it is stacked to the ceiling.  Fortunately there isn’t all that much stuff going into storage from my place – right?  We’re a little skeptical, but figure we’ll play it by ear.

Onward and northward to Water street!  The loading zone in front of the building is empty (!), so we park there.  Unload into the entryway, my stuff headed for storage into the truck, lock it up, everything up into our apartment, just like that.  We return to the truck and our things are in our apartment, unsupervised.  I wonder to myself if they’re all going to get along, or if we can expect little spats and misunderstandings between the couch and the rocking chair for the next little while.  Just until they get to know each other, anyway.

Storage locker: now very full.  Tetris-fu is exhausted, but we won’t need it anymore (until the kitchen, but we’re not worrying about that today).  Truck: now empty.  Drop it off – the fuel needle hasn’t even moved, so we don’t have to top it up (!).  We drive home to our home – to the place where we live together.  We begin living together.

A little over a week has passed since the move, and we’re almost completely organized now.  There are just a few little things we need to make our place as close to perfect as a studio can be for two people.  We are comfortable there together, sharing time and space and life and love and looking forward to finding out what comes next for us.