It’s true.

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).

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

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:

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?

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.

One giant stride later I’m bobbing on my BCD, checking my gear: everything’s good.  Switch to snorkel.  I’m OK.  We practice switching back and forth between our snorkels and regs, it’s all good.  I need to remember to put my reg in the water with the mouthpiece down, but if that’s the biggest problem I have tonight I’ll be pretty stoked.

I’m having fun.  Degan’s showed up too, just back from a business trip, and I’m really happy to see her.  I flash her an OK and am smiling hard, but I know she can’t tell.

It seems like a few seconds later that we’re on the bottom of the pool, drilling our new skills.  Completely flooding / evacuating mask: OK.  Removing mask and breathing without it for a minute: OK – actually no problem at all.  Air shutoff: although I’d like to never experience this sensation again – I’m OK.

We’re done with the teaching; it’s time to swim around.

I’m having a lot of fun – I think I’m going to like this after all.  I can’t wait to get into the ocean.  I can’t wait to do this with Degan.  After too little time, we’re done: thumbs up, time to get to the surface.

There’s a hug filled with love waiting for me when I finish changing, and it’s the perfect end to the session.  Time to go home.

Thumbs down: under we go.  I am almost immediately seized by the most intense feeling of panic I can remember experiencing  – the kind of primal impulse to flee that keeps prey alive when predators are nearby.  I have never understood the phrase “panic attack”, because it’s always been a background noise for me – informational, a suggestion from my mind – but I feel like I’m between the rails and the train’s headlamps are slicing three quickly-diverging shadows out of the darkness.  It’s a groundswell, then a breaking wave of terror from the oldest parts of my brain.  My subconscious is screaming at me as loud as it ever has: “Stand up!  Stand up!  Stand up!”  I’m fighting it, staying on my knees, but the look in my eyes gives me away and the instructor flashes “A-OK?” at me.  I’m not.  I want to say I am, but my body ignores the lie percolating from my conscious brain and waves “ehhh…. kinda”.  She locks eyes with me, the question in them piercing and insistent, and survival instinct wins: I stand quickly and spit the regulator out of my mouth like an unexpected mealtime bone fragment.

The question, from an unknown source and direction: “Are you OK?”

My answer, reflexive: “No, I am not.  I am very much not OK.  I really need to not be underwater right now.”

Another instructor is assigned to me and we move to a different part of the pool.  She says reassuring things in a soft voice (a Kiwi!), asks if I want to keep going or if I want to get out of the pool.  The fear is replaced by shame and frustration with myself: I do not accept being – do not allow myself to be – bad at things.  I will not get out of the pool, I will not give up, I will sort this thing.  Sorting things is what I do.

We breathe through the regulators out of the water, which is fine.  The regulator itself, the act of breathing underwater, isn’t what is bothering me, I don’t think.  We submerge to the bottoms of our goggles – she’s very good about maintaining eye contact, checking in – and it’s still fine.  I’m still fine.  I feel good.  I can do this.  We put our faces underwater and it’s still alright.  Eye contact, A-OK: I’m A-OK too.  To the knees, then.  It’s fine now.  I’m calmer; I look around and see my classmates learning how to find their dropped regulators.  Eye contact, A-OK: I’m A-OK.  The bubbles attacking my mask seem less obtrusive now, less solid.  The sound of my breathing and the water moving around me doesn’t grate as much.  I’m not smiling, but I can tell that my eyes are no longer as wide as I am tall.  I’m breathing less insistently and more naturally.  I’m not in love with this activity, but I don’t hate it; I remember a book I bought just for the title (A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace) and it makes me smile.  I realize that I’m uncomfortable being unable to breathe in through my nose; the water seeping into the mask and pooling around it is also not my favourite thing.  It’s all good though – I’m not dying or panicking – and I’m still really interested in this thing.  Eye contact, A-OK: yup, I am.

The main instructor glides over and checks in: A-OK.  She takes me through the night’s drills and it’s good – I remember to never hold my breath, which earns me a  high-five – and I’m not worried about having the regulator out of my mouth underwater, which surprises me a bit.  Evacuating water from mask, clearing reg (exhale), clearing reg (purge), dropping-finding-clearing reg, alternate air: done.  Skills acquired.  I play around with my BCD and achieve a hover, have some fun with different amounts of air in my lungs (float-sink-hover-float-sink-hover); try to use the fins (wow, that totally isn’t working the way I expected, but fuck it: I’ll worry about it tomorrow).  I accidentally take a bit of water through my nose (can’t breathe through the nose can’t breathe through the nose can’t breathe), have a bit of a moment, and realize that I can cough just like normal through the regulator.  Phew.  That sucked, but I sorted it out – and stayed underwater, to boot.

Out of the pool.  Disassemble and rinse the gear.  Disassemble and rinse myself.  Outside, the warm fresh air has never felt so good on my face.  I make a call: Degan (“Sorry baby, I’m not sure I like this”: supportive, calming response + love; I feel better).  I crave a cigarette like I haven’t done in years.  I separate myself from my classmates, like in the pool: I am beating myself up.  We load the van and I feel uncharacteristically quiet.  I am inside myself, asking if I want it badly enough to come back.

The question is answered back at the dive shop, where I sign up for the rest of my sessions.  Four more pool training evenings as part of the basic course, one extra evening for drysuit orientation, two days of ocean diving.  I think the open water dives will really tell the story for me – I just need to get to them so I can see what this diving thing is really about.

Back to the pool tonight: I think I’m kind of looking forward to it.