Snorkeling

by Nick Niels Sanders

  Val was using the small blue flowers. Because they were smaller than the others, she sometimes had to put two or three of them together to get enough blue together in one place to have a visual impact. She finished one and started another, this time selectively putting only the small blue flowers on the lei. This made the lei much thinner, but of a uniform and interesting blue color. Anyone watching her would have inferred that she really didn’t have much in the way of artistic design in mind, but was experimenting to see what she might like, and that she had a color preference for blue.

  Shelly continued to put whatever flower came up next on the string, threading some on stem-first and some flower-first, so that they were of random color and of random orientation. A strict colorist might have objected because of the random imbalance of colors, but all the colors seemed to go well together; the effect was generally pleasing.

  Mark sat working on getting long strings out of the palm frond stems. To his own surprise, he was being quite successful at this. Paul came to join him, accepting what hints Mark had to offer after having worked on it for some time. Paul was relaxed and comfortable and willing to enjoy whatever activity came his way. At the moment, whittling was just fine with him.

  Jeanne and Ralph were off in another corner of the Kitchen Tent, still working on tree-climbing equipment. After some time, they had a short, excited conversation, then picked up Ralph’s equipment and left the Kitchen Tent and the immediate neighborhood. Mark noticed their departure, but when he looked around, he couldn’t tell where they had gone.

  James followed Roger away from the Kitchen Tent. It was his intent to invite Roger to go swimming now and to come snorkeling later. In his inner sense, he continued to regard Roger as a patient – with grief reaction in the resolution phase. His clinical mind pulled him around to the consideration of the interesting set of self-contradictions Roger represented, and the rather explosive emergence he had made from his abject sense of deprivation during the first few days after Jayne’s death. James thought back to the Fiji Queen and couldn’t remember a single word that Roger had spoken that had not been a spoken “yes, dear” to his wife; here he was a week later, giving tai chi lessons and volunteering to judge a sand castle building contest, and wandering naked and unabashed in a world of dressed (if scantily dressed) people. There was no question that he had become a full member of the community, and in a very short time.

  James realized that he had stopped walking and was staring off into space. Well, all of that was very interesting to speculate about, but the job for the moment was to continue to move with the situation as it offered itself and that meant offering Roger the opportunity for a supervised swim.

  James arrived at Roger’s tent to find him in the middle of the Yang Long Form, his flower lei sitting on his box. “Have a seat; I’ll be done in a couple minutes.”

  “Thank you.” James sat. Roger completed his exercise as James’ watched, assessing Roger’s increasing fitness and learning some of the moves of the later part of the form at the same time. After three or four minutes, the form came to an end.

  “What can I do for you, Doc?”

  “I came to wonder if you would like to swim together again.”

  “I would be delighted. Shall we go now?”

  “Certainly.” James left his sulu and lei draped on Roger’s lean-to and they walked to the water. Using the side stroke, they swam to the Bathing Beach barrier. Roger suggested that they swim around it, which entailed swimming out farther from shore to where the rocky lava flow disappeared under the sand, then curving in toward shore again and swimming parallel to the shore to the other side of Bathing Beach. Roger called a halt there

  “This is really wonderful. Either I am gaining conditioning really quickly, or the side-stroke is the most efficient way to move through the water that there is.”

  “Side stroke is pretty good, Roger, but there is something better. Snorkeling. I am planning to give whichever men would like one a lesson this afternoon. Would you care to come?”

  “I don’t think so. I have activities that I am doing that all seem to be pushing me along in the right direction. I would not want to dilute that.”

  “OK. It is clearly your choice. The offer is not a one-time offer – it is open for as long as we are here. If you change your mind, let me know.”

  “OK, I will. Let’s swim back now.”

  And they did. Roger was pretty tired by the time they arrived back at their starting point, but he was very happy. He had just proved that he could swim a distance equivalent to the distance out to the reef. If he could do that a few more times, he would be ready to visit Jayne and say good-bye to her. He spoke none of this to James for fear that he would be prohibited from doing so because James would fear that he would end up with a dead Roger just as he had ended up with a dead George. But Roger intended to be sure that wouldn’t happen.

  Roger sat down on his box, slipping the flowers over his head. “Where did you find the flowers?”

  “On the other side of the wall behind us, on bushes that grow on Coral Beach. There are lots of them.” James wrapped himself in his sulu, tossed flowers over his head and departed, expecting to see Roger again for tai chi in a little while, returning to the Kitchen Tent to see what was going on there.

  Jeanne and Ralph wandered a fair distance from the Kitchen Tent before selecting a palm tree for Ralph to climb. Ralph was not being daring, in fact he was being quite conservative, and did not want anyone encouraging him or being disappointed if he did not get to the top of the tree. He intended to carry out as rigorous a test of the apparatus as he could. He had left his sulu and was wearing his pajama pants because they offered him a bit more freedom of movement and a little protection to the insides of his thighs.

  As before, he started up the tree, hands first, lifting his feet up, then extending hands, like an inchworm. But he only did this twice, then stopped and rested in place. He released his hold with his hands, keeping them loosely in place, as he might if he were using a palm frond to hit at coconuts, but none of his support came from his hands. The feet held perfectly. He bounced up and down a little. The feet still held. He wobbled back and forth from side to side, as he might in trying to get at one last coconut. He thought his right foot slid a microscopic amount after the first two or three wobbles, but more wobbling did not reproduce the movement. Then he bounced up and down more emphatically than he had before and suddenly he knew his right foot was slipping.

  He rescued himself with his hands and lowered himself quickly back to the ground. Off came the ankle gauntlets for inspection. Symmetrical as they had tried to make them, there were more of the distal ends of the palm leaves on the inner surface of the right foot facing the tree, and several of these had come loose by unweaving themselves. Ralph and Jeanne both started to speak at once, and in virtually the same words, to describe what needed to be done.

  Ralph took off the wrist gauntlets and they headed back to the Kitchen Tent to make the needed changes.

  James, Ralph and Jeanne all arrived back at Kitchen Tent at about the same time. In the interval since they left, Ron and Jim had reappeared, sitting where they had been earlier, Ron again making sketches in the sand while Jim worked on variations on the theme he had started in the morning. Marcella and Julia had done some work in the kitchen and were now making flower leis again with Maria, Val and Shelly. Mark had made Maria some longer threads and she had completed one longer lei, which was hanging down across her breasts, a distance the earlier three were all too short to reach.

  James invited the men to go snorkeling. This offer was declined by Mark and Ralph, but Jim, Ron and Paul all agreed to come. They grabbed equipment and walked to Bathing Beach.

  As the women had, they left flower leis and clothing on the rocks between Camp Beach and Bathing Beach, then proceeded to the water, where they strapped on equipment and got into the water. Paul needed no instruction. Jim and Ron had each snorkeled before, but were h
appy to receive pointers. James guided the group out the lava flow to deeper water, noting the young coral growths on the relatively recently deposited lava. He also noted the number of fish, and took pleasure in pointing them out to Ron and Jim.

  However, it was when they got to the reef that Jim and Ron really came alive in their enthusiasm. The colors of the coral and of the fish were striking. There were large patches of purple filter feeders, then large patches of white ones, then a brain coral or two, then something completely different. There were large sea anemones. They saw several large rock shrimp and a moray eel. Their enthusiasm was really infectious and both Paul and James enjoyed this trip snorkeling more than they had any of their previous outings in this lagoon. On their part, Ron was moving his hands before his eyes, taking in the shapes and colors an memorizing them with his hands; Jim was singing quietly to himself a melody that was an interesting counterpoint to the one he had played earlier on the recorder.

  They snorkeled along the reef to the east for a long way, then turned around to snorkel back, discovering that everything looked completely different on the way back. But James knew his landmark, and turned them in to the beach just over an hour and a half after they had set out, four men savoring a few moments in a paradise that can only be believed when it is experienced.

  They arrived back at the beach with enough time to spend a few moments dripping dry before it was time to put on clothes and join the rest of the group for tai chi.

  Tai Chi

  It was 5:45 and once again all thirteen were gathered on the beach, lined up in two ragged rows, Roger in the front by himself, leading them through qi’gong exercises, then moving on to the form: “Starting position, arms at your sides. Exhale. Listen to the clues and watch me. Bounce the Ball. Strike palm. All in. All out. Grasp bird’s tail. Good. Back to starting position and we’ll do it again.” And they did.

  “Now I’ll show you what comes next.” First he demonstrated the next move in the form, called “push.” Then he said that they all needed to learn how to close up, to end the exercise, at any point in the form. He showed them the basics – to turn back to front and end with feet about shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, hands before face. Pull the hands apart and drop them, extending the knees and exhale. They practiced this twice.

  Roger had been facing his twelve students through all of this, his pleasure at their performance obvious from the smile on his face. “You are all doing very well. Don’t race through this. The slower you do the form, the better it is for you. If you find yourself a bit ahead of me, just stop and wait – we’ll catch up – then slow down. So far, I’m not going too quickly for anyone. OK. Now we’ll start all over and when we get to the end of the push, I’ll show you the next thing to do.”

  They did, and everyone stopped in “push” position to watch Roger.

  “Now lots of things are going to be happening all at the same time. First, your right foot should be aimed right front and all your weight should be on it. It will stay just like that for a bit. Second, your right hand, pushing in front of you at shoulder height, the elbow moves up and out so the palm turns down. The wrist rises and the fingers fall and you form a little ‘o’ with your thumb and long finger. Your forearm rises slightly. This is a blocking move.” He demonstrated and his students followed. “When you have done this much, the right arm stops moving while the left arm and foot continue. The left hand rotates so you can see the palm, the elbow dropping a bit and the hand migrating a little closer to your face, then the arm rotates outward to point left and at the very end of the move, the palm turns back away from the face and there is a small push. Both hands move at the same time, but the right hand finishes first.” He demonstrated and everyone followed. They returned to “push” and did both arms together twice, then stopped. “In the meantime the left foot, which was moving toward the right foot, gets extended to the left and sets down on its heel with the toes pointing forward, but as the left hand extends to the left, weight shifts to being equally distributed and the left foot rotates out to point to the left. That whole movement is called ‘single whip’ and it is quite beautiful when done well.”

  He demonstrated what he had just described. His students copied. They went back to “push” and did “single whip” several times, Roger walking up and down to look at everyone. “The most common problem we have here is that you have moved your torsos more than you should. I have described a lot of movement of arms and legs, but I did not tell you to move your torso. Your torso should be pointing forward, but your head should be looking left. Back to the push and let’s try it again.”

  They did it again twice with Roger talking them through it. Then they started at the beginning of the form and did the whole thing. By this point, their half hour was nearly done, so they did a few more of the exercises they had begun with and all moved off to the Kitchen Tent for supper.

  Supper

  Marcella was prepared to serve supper essentially as soon as everyone was gathered after tai chi. She had prepared several cans of beef stew, with added herbs and spices to improve the flavor. She had prepared the “spinach” she had planned at lunch, and had used up the last of the fresh leaf vegetable on another salad with herb vinaigrette dressing. For dessert, she had sacrificed two precious eggs to make coconut macaroons, using one of the ripe coconuts that Ralph had knocked off of the tree before he almost fell. By the time tai chi started, the stew was simmering at the edge of the fire and the macaroons were fully cooked. The salad was ready to dress and serve and the dressing was already made. It took only a few moments to reheat the water and cook the spinach, and supper was ready.

  Tai chi ended, Marcella dressed and tossed the salad and began to serve the stew as the spinach steamed. Once again the general consensus was rave notices on the stew; they liked the spinach even though it was a bit strange and bitter; everyone ate salad. No one could believe that she had made macaroons. They ate them by moonlight, the gibbous moon, high in the sky as the sun set, provided plenty of light for eating and for straightening up after supper.

  Jim asked Ralph how the trial of tree climbing had gone.

  “Not as well as I had hoped. There is still a problem with the ankle piece. Jeanne and I are working on it, but it isn’t ready yet.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but I am very glad you are being careful.”

  “So am I,” Jeanne contributed.

  Mark cleared his throat and asked for confirmation of the teams for sand castle building tomorrow: Team A: Maria, Jeanne, Marcella; Team B: Val, Shelly, Julia; Team C: James, Paul, Ralph; Team D: Ron, Jim. Did anyone disagree?

  Everyone agreed.

  “Then Roger and I will be working on the rules tomorrow morning, and will announce them in detail at lunch. The sand castle contest will start at 3:00 and end at 5:00, giving us time for judging before tai chi at 5:45.”

  Again, everyone was in agreement. Jeanne was particularly pleased that her idea was moving forward. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to building sand castles.

  Shelly turned to Jim: “How was your snorkeling lesson?”

  This innocent question provoked long descriptions from Jim of the music of the coral reef and from Ron about the forms and colors along the reef. Paul and James remained silent. The initiation of someone new to tropical snorkeling is something special. Julia had been rapturous about it a couple days ago, but it had not had much impact. Jim and Ron fed on each other, continuing the description past anyone’s continued interest – except that of Roger, who was feeling that he might have turned down the wrong opportunity.

  Conversation eventually moved on to other things; Maria, Julia and Marcella had cleaned up the kitchen after supper, the diners each taking plate, fork and spoon to the water’s edge to use sand and ocean water to clean them off so that Maria and Julia could put them to drain until the next meal.

  Sunset long past, the moon high in the sky, shrouded now by thin, high clouds, the macaroons all e
aten, a comfortable dusky shadow settled in at the Kitchen Tent and when time came for a story. Julia volunteered to tell tonight’s story.

  Julia’s Story

  “Once upon a time, long, long ago in India, the Buddha went to stay at his monastery in Jetavana. At that time, there was a monk studying there who had had some kind of problem in his past, and was in constant fear of his life. If the wind rustled the leaves of a tree, or a shrill bird call rang through the forest, the monk shrieked and quickly hid under the nearest table. Soon, his constant fear began to affect the other monks. Not wanting to be infected with similar fears, the group of monks had just begun discussing the problem when the Buddha entered the room.

  “Hearing all about the jittery monk, the Buddha gently suggested, ‘don’t be angry …”

  Suddenly, there was a scream from next to the fire.

  Burned!

  They were sitting by the kitchen tent, some on boxes, others on the sand. Jeanne was sitting close by the fire, facing away from it toward the rest of the group. Suddenly, she jumped up, screaming.