by Becky Aikman
“Ladies,” Tara said with full solemnity on our arrival, “this is … serious. Our leader … has never been to a spa before.”
She and Dawn, veterans of such indulgences, promised to guide me. First we changed into fluffy white robes and matching slippers like escapees from a virgin-sacrifice slumber party. Then they directed me toward the spa services, which included this Soothing Herbal Body Wrap that was turning my skin—and possibly my brain—into custard. Algae-scented custard.
They explained to me the purpose of a spa—equal parts chakra-aligning relaxation and drill-sergeant-sanctioned self-improvement. We would achieve a higher state of being through pampering, exercise, and food so healthy that I’d considered smuggling in my own stash of bourbon and Mallomars.
I wasn’t opposed to healthy per se. I knew that healthy was crucial for anyone overcoming the loss of a spouse, because such a loss can have devastating consequences for the survivor. Men and women who have experienced the death or divorce of a partner have more chronic health problems later, including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, even if they remarry. The stress of uncoupling damages chromosomes all over our bodies—researchers have seen it through their microscopes. So I recognized the value of spoiling ourselves a bit, eating properly, maybe even getting slimed with a soothing algae wrap or two. Our chromosomes might thank us.
Nevertheless, normally when I traveled, I chose options not likely to extend my life for long. Back when I vacationed with Bernie, if I wasn’t faceup on a beach somewhere with a book, I might fancy a dose of Paris, where the regimen was more my style than the soy-based menu at the spa. But experts had told me about the benefits of novelty in breaking the cycle of grief, and my own experience reinforced that message. In fact, there was one particular exploit that had turned me into a convert, in large part because it was unlike anything I’d ever done before. It was the single episode most responsible for helping me to turn a corner and heal. And it was truly, at least for an office-bound city girl like me, a far-out adventure on the far side of the world.
IT HAPPENED A FEW MONTHS after my misadventure with the widows’ support group that rejected me, a far-out experience of a different sort. There I was, a year and a half after Bernie died, still out of place among my contemporaries, out of place among other widows, too. Maybe that’s what led me to sign up for a trip to a place that I’d never considered visiting before, a place, in fact, that had never interested me in the least.
I had worried that my first vacation alone after Bernie died might be not only lonely but boring as well. I didn’t care how empowering it was supposed to be for a woman to dine alone in a restaurant—I’m a slow eater, and I like having somebody to talk to. And group travel? I envisioned myself stuck on a bus with Iggy Pop and Mrs. Schreckengost, my high school home ec teacher. Breezing around the Internet, I came across one last opening on a trip to the Galápagos Islands. I saw beaches and a sailboat. I somehow overlooked the fact that the water temperature was fifty-five degrees.
After minimal research, I decided that this excursion might be the fix for my travel problems. The Galápagos, I vaguely recalled, were famously populated with creatures that had washed up alone in a harsh environment and had to learn to adapt and evolve. I could relate. And to protect the islands’ unique environment, visitors were required to travel with a group and a licensed guide. That way I’d have company over dinner every night and something to talk about after spending days trailing around after peculiar wildlife. The romantic in me liked the idea that the trip was really out there—in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, far from everything in a daily life that now was such a challenge.
Oh, I got challenge, all right. The trip involved ten days of hiking, sea-kayaking, and snorkeling with twelve strangers, all organized by an adventure travel company known for African safaris and Himalayan mountain climbing.
I recognized the scope of my mistake at the first rendezvous with my fellow travelers at the airport in Quito, Ecuador. I was wearing clothing appropriate for the snack bar at Cap Juluca. They were wearing gear—ultralight, water-repellent, moisture-wicking, mesh-and-spandex actionwear in blazing colors that gave conspicuous definition to their lean and sculpted bodies. They frisked about in the waiting area like racehorses at Churchill Downs. We introduced ourselves. One woman let me know that she had completed marathons on all seven continents, including Antarctica, where her husband, equally fit, had shoveled the snow off the course. This same couple had scaled some of the highest peaks in the Andes on their last vacation, hiking to safety when their bus veered off a mountain road. Another imposing figure had sea-kayaked through Papua New Guinea on her most recent trip, sleeping on floors of mud huts. She swam every morning in the icy currents of San Francisco Bay.
I’d spent much of the last five years in hospital waiting rooms. Thinner than thin and frailer than frail, I didn’t even belong to a gym, and my writing job hardly required feats of strength. Because I had signed up for the trip only a week before, I had assembled a mishmash of sporty togs from the recommended packing list on a last-minute shopping spree that I called Survival of the Fittings. My Puma cloth sneakers provided no shock absorption, torsion stability, or functional support of any kind, but I held out hope that my new wetsuit, a size too small and strained to the point of snapping, made me look like Lara Croft. Once, I reminded myself, I had been a competitive swimmer, even though now my foremost association with water was the series of drowning nightmares that were all tied up with Bernie’s death.
Our guide handed out the itinerary, jammed with activities several grades beyond my endurance level. There was also a list of our fellow travelers. I had signed up too late for my name to be included. Someone had written in ink only this: New York Woman.
Unlike the seasoned adventurers in the group, I hadn’t done much reading about the Galápagos or Charles Darwin or nature in general, for that matter. Our guide, Klaus, filled me in on the plane. A true action hero who looked the part, with sun-bleached hair and a square jaw, Klaus was skilled in surfing, scuba diving, and mountain climbing. He explained how the barren mass of islands had been formed by relatively recent volcanoes. The only creatures that lived there were descended from birds that could fly hundreds of miles without a place to rest, or land species like turtles that were capable of surviving long sea voyages on tree branches or other floating debris. Over time they had morphed into just the right configurations to keep themselves alive and attract their mates, some two thousand species that existed nowhere else on earth. I looked out of the window as we landed, catching my first view of the islands’ craggy black landscape, peppered with scrubby plants, looking about as hospitable as the surface of Uranus. This wasn’t St. Barts. It was a land of misfits, home of living things that didn’t really belong there.
If the animals living in the Galápagos could manage for centuries, surely I could suffer through ten days. I settled into my billet on the sailboat that would carry us from island to island. The first morning, I groaned with horror at the six a.m. wake-up knock. But I told myself that I had become, however improbably, a woman who owned a fanny pack with Velcro closures. It was time to strap it on. Soon I found myself scrambling over jagged lavascapes, my ankles wobbling as I struggled to find my balance and keep up with two other single women. We took each other’s pictures next to whatever oddball bird or reptile we ran across. There were three-hundred-pound tortoises; marine iguanas that were genuine leaping lizards, diving into the sea for food; and flightless cormorants, swimming birds whose wings had withered to useless stubs. Pairing off throughout history, mating couples had produced these freaky mutations. Some species, Klaus explained, like the albatross, were monogamous for life. What happens to the ones whose mates died early, I wondered? Where did they fit in?
Thanks to my dormant swimming expertise, I kept pace better in the water, where the multicolored fantasia on snorkeling excursions carried me far from such thoughts. I sloshed through the frigid sea to spy on penguins, sharks, specta
cular schools of colored fish, and, one day, two manta rays—six and eight feet across at least—gliding elegantly by. I don’t know which impressed me more, the beauty of their graceful progress or the fact that I was lapping with them at six thirty in the morning.
One day as we were hiking along some tidal pools, Klaus stopped to point out something really special, a fish called a four-eyed blenny, with quirky gills that processed air and fins that allowed it to pull itself up on the rocks. We gathered close, straining to follow Klaus’s pointing finger. I couldn’t make out the fish at first. It was tiny, Klaus said, and its mottled scales blended in with the crusty rocks. I tried again, and there it was, my soul mate: a genuine fish out of water.
“Hang in there, little guy,” I said.
By the last day, I had become so nimble in my high-fashion sneakers that the others took to calling me, only half kidding, Action Girl. In fact, they were still teasing me after our final snorkeling foray as our skiff skipped across the water on the way back to the mother ship. I looked toward the horizon and spotted a large school of fish leaping into the air a hundred yards or so away.
“What’s that, Klaus?” I shouted over the engine.
“Those are skipjacks,” he shouted back. “Swimming with skipjacks is the most incredible experience. Do you want to try it?”
“Yeah!” I didn’t even know what skipjacks were. I later learned they were a fast-moving fish, related to tuna, but just a couple of feet long. Waiting for no one, I flung myself off the boat.
What was I thinking? We were out in the deep, wide-open ocean. We had seen hammerhead sharks only minutes before. When I put my face down, I saw nothing but black. For a moment, I gasped and sputtered. All those drowning nightmares crowded my mind, pulling me down. I pushed them away. Something in me wanted this adventure. And something else: by now I felt safe with my group. I sensed the impact as they hit the water beside me.
I took off after those fish, tapping some lunatic strength to churn across the surface of the sea, punching into the choppy waves. I spotted some skipjacks up ahead, just a few of them at first, and then more, and then even more, and I was thinking, Damn, these fish are fast, but I’m as fast as they are.
Unaccountably, it was true. I was slicing through the water with preposterous ease, leaning into it with everything I had, feeling the rhythmic force of my breathing and the surging, unexpected power of my arms and legs, the pure euphoria of acceleration. The water buoyed me up and carried me forward. Soon the shiny, silvery skipjacks were flashing all around me, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, tens of thousands for all I knew, yet they also moved as one, switching directions through some mystical telepathic connection, and I was right there with them, in a swirl of iridescent motion. I could have been arcing through the air with a flock of shimmering birds. I felt blessed to possess whatever it took—my old swimming skill, my aqua-dynamic physique, or maybe a fear-juiced shot of adrenaline—to be alive to that wonder.
Out of breath, I stopped and looked up, all alone in the deepest water I’d ever been in. I was astonished to see my friends scattered far behind. No one but me had caught up to the fish.
“Becky,” Klaus exclaimed when he reached me at last with the boat. “You are an incredibly strong swimmer.” He reached out a hand to pull me in.
“Trust me,” I said, as surprised as he was. “I’m not strong.”
“You are incredibly strong,” Klaus said again. I could swear he was looking behind me to see if I had an outboard motor attached. The others were equally agog.
“No, I’m not,” I insisted. Dripping all over, legs all wobbly, I pulled off my mask. I felt the rigid muscles in my face let loose into the biggest smile I’d put out there since Bernie died. “It’s this place. I seem to be well adapted to it.”
And that was how I took a trip to the Galápagos, Land of Misfits, to discover that I was stronger than I knew, that I could tackle something new, even in the wrong clothes, the wrong shoes, the wrong body. That I, too, could evolve. My newfound Action Girl persona, I understood, wouldn’t be much use back home amid the trials of work and loss. Most days I would still feel like that four-eyed blenny trying to drag myself by my flippers onto dry land. But like the strange, adaptable species of the Galapágos—birds that don’t fly, iguanas that swim, fish that walk—I had seen that I, a wife without a husband, could bring my own grab bag of strengths and weaknesses to an alien situation. And that I might not be the fittest, but I could survive. Maybe even thrive.
chapter
FOURTEEN
if only Bernie could have been there. We’d still be talking about it today. Anyone who has ever been married knows that among the many perks—companionship, affection, reliable dinner conversation—one of the least appreciated is a well-curated stock of memories, the ability to turn to a longtime partner and say, “Remember the time …” I hadn’t given much thought to this when Bernie first died, but gradually I realized that now there was no one there to fill in the blanks. I had stored up a lifetime of adult memories that nobody remembered now but me. Without the sharing, the memories were slipping away. What was the point of attending that avant-garde production of Coriolanus in the rain if Bernie and I couldn’t laugh about it later?
That was part of my reasoning in forming our widows’ group. It wasn’t enough that we widows get out there and take on a husbandless new world. We needed to take it on with new companions, making not only new memories but new friends to share them with.
This was on my mind at the spa when I met up with the group at the Gotta Hoop group fitness class, a hazing ritual masked as play that involved a lot of hip-swiveling with heavy fluorescent hula hoops. I expected to be left in the dust from the get-go. In the time since that trip to the Galápagos, I had engaged in a somewhat higher level of daily activity, but I still associated the term group fitness with the terrors of fraternity hell week.
In a carpeted exercise room with a view looking onto a lake, the instructor revved up some too-cute remixes of Beatles songs. Remembering my mission for the weekend—openness to new experiences—I planted a hoop around the midsection of my drawstring pants and started to spin. The damn thing banged against my pelvic bones, clattered down my legs, and hit the floor with a thwack. I tried again: same result. And again. No amount of pop music could mask what was going on here: I had just been defeated by something I could do when I was ten.
I sneaked a look at Denise. Stripped down to form-fitting spandex that put her midriff on display, she seemed most likely to occupy the top of the food chain here, but she fared no better than I did. Most of the others, managing a little more seductive hip action in the latest clingy gymwear, kept their hoops up for half a minute or so at best. “I Should Have Known Better” taunted us over peals of embarrassed giggling.
Then my eye caught a blaze of billowing motion over by the window. It was Marcia, looking even more stolid than usual, dressed in black sweatpants and a square gray T-shirt with the New York Giants logo. She had on her best game face, too, and had adopted the stance of a longboard surfer riding a perfect wave, legs planted firmly apart, arms up, elbows out. But she was rotating that hoop with the reliability of a metronome.
“Get ’em, Marcia!” I called out. The others hooted their appreciation.
Marcia’s face registered the compliment, one corner of her mouth twisting ever so slightly to the side, but she didn’t break stride. She kept chugging around the room, forward, backward, and sideways, literally twirling circles around the rest of us. The only change I noted was that sideways skewing of her mouth. She fought to keep her lips in the straight line that rarely varied for her, but this was a look of scrupulously suppressed glee, the kind I’d seen before only when she talked about crushing a rival in a business deal. It was a sight to remember, worth every bruise on my pelvis and knees.
Tighter abs and silkier flesh aside, it was everything I’d hoped for from our weekend at the spa, in fact, from any of our gatherings—a new experience, and a share
d memory. Marcia had just sealed one of those moments for us. After the weekend at the spa, all we’d ever need to say was, “Remember Marcia and the hula hoop?” and we’d be back in the moment, together, relishing her triumph over gravity.
I HEARD THEM before I saw them. And that’s saying something, since the ladies clustered around a crater-shaped fire pit out by the lake, faces like carnival masks lit by leaping flames. But there was so much hilarity in the air that I knew as I approached it could only be our group. The day had been balmy, unseasonably warm for a first weekend in May, and the fire took just enough raw chill from the evening air. Marcia had brought wine from home, the primo vintage stuff, so we could conduct a formal tasting after our low-fat, low-salt, low-expectations spa dinner.
Tara’s voice carried mellifluously through the tamarack trees and out across the glassy water. “What does LMAO mean?” she asked, peering at an iPhone buried in her fist.
“Laugh my ass off,” Lesley was quick to reply. “When Craig and I met, we did flirty texting all the time,” she said with a wicked spin. “Or sexting, as we called it.”
“What do I answer?” Tara looked panicked but thrilled, too. Dawn huddled with her to compose a response.