“No,” he freely admits. “I’m completely misunderstood, I’m sure. Et, vous n’êtes pas drôle non plus.”
“We’re very busy now. Okay?”
Well, it’s more than okay, having found a home and roommate nearly two hours before lunch. What’s to gain by focusing on her humorless disposition?
Nothing.
So he says merci, bon, and walks to the curb, uplifted by personal success, such as it is, having weathered her scorn and repressed his one-up impulse. Little Dog, at his heels, is also pleased that the new pack will now head out on its next adventure. Ravid stoops to explain the plan, picking him up and carrying him back in. Monique takes the handoff to a kennel behind her. Little Dog howls on Ravid’s second exit.
So Ravid goes back in to make sure his tail isn’t caught in the door and says maybe it will be better for now if he walks with the dog. On the way he can explain the ground rules. Monique huffs, handing the dog back along with a leash. “I think he has explained to you already.”
It’s only four miles to gather things and check out. On the way is a quaint family business gearing up for lunch in the family fare lined with folding banquet tables on a gravel floor, all under a thatched roof supported by log pillars. Camp stoves and serving bins are coming to life with an aromatic array. In back are more folding tables and matching chairs. A dog on a leash is tolerated, and Ravid is surprised by the dog’s manners. He sits. He waits. He stares as if starving, but he doesn’t beg. He accepts bites of this and that with soft jaws, lipping each morsel into the choppers. “Where did you learn this?”
Packing is quick, checking out cheerful, and the four miles back is much faster, after waiting an hour for a flatbed truck to pull over and let them climb on with their stuff.
The new room is small, not exactly primitive like the fare at lunch, or fundamental like Vincent’s small room, but similar to both. Twelve by fourteen gives them room to spread out. The small counter on one side has a hot plate and a sink. Beside the sink is a small refrigerator. An electrical outlet converter facilitates the use of an American plug, which really only eliminates one pole, effectively changing 220 to 110 by using the ground as a neutral, as he recollects.
A moment of truth comes when turning on the laptop, and yes, we have liftoff, meaning that artistic endeavors can now begin with the benefit of software.
A small market a quarter mile up serves well for beer, bread, cheese, sardines, crackers, mustard and eggs, which might sound like an odd menu but in fact works very well with a few légumes added daily — steamed to taste, spritzed with olive oil and a bit of pepper, green or red, and perhaps some salt — et un peu de poivre, vert ou rouge, et peut-être du sel. And a bit of sliced onion — oignon, which is easy to remember but harder to use in a sentence. Still and all, it’s not so bad for a relative newcomer, along with a head of chou-fleur. The bigger market is back down the four miles plus another two, which trip occurs once a week in Monique’s car, with Ravid and Little Dog riding shotgun.
And so our story ends, insofar as any story ends. Even a passing from the flesh is often no more than another a milestone, with the narrative meandering from there on each retelling as the values, morals, drama and consequence ferment and develop.
Ravid Rockulz’s story of transition, transmutation and life in a new land ends happily ever after with a routine. It’s a smooth routine that will support a life of artistic pursuit. Therein the man is fulfilled in his fervent hopes.
No routine is entirely free of problems, however, starting with Little Dog’s separation anxiety when first parted from his one and only. The ear piercing symptoms are quickly resolved when Ravid returns like he did that first time, perhaps supporting the bad behavior, but this time is different; this time the bond is made stronger.
He sets Little Dog on his lap and explains that he, Ravid, will now go to work, to dive with the tourists and little fishes in order to make money to buy dog food and sardines, which isn’t what nature intended but, alas. He uses his hands and whatever is available to assist in the charade, holding up a ballpoint pen and pointing to himself, using a paper cup for a boat, from which the ball point pen will jump off and dive down and so on, sucking his cheeks in and opening his lips intermittently to represent a fish swimming past.
Little Dog may glean meaning at some level, though clarity remains conjectural. He attempts a tongue thrust as if to affirm that all’s well. Ravid nods and says yes, making them even on the comprehension score. Ravid promises to return in no time. Then they’ll have a grand reunion and engage in playful behaviors. In the meantime, Little Dog can wait quietly in the room, or he can hang out in the yard with a few other dogs.
Little Dog barks once and heads out to the yard.
Other problems come and go like sunrise, sunset. Like Hereata and her needs, which seem reasonable and manageable, if he can spare a few nights a week with adequate energy to appreciate her generosity — and a bit more energy for lively dialogue on world events, changes in the neighborhood and, later in the evening, cuddling with soft murmurs on her game offer for another go. These needs and solutions also find an equilibrium that is, as in any human interaction, more balanced on some days than on others.
Hereata spends more time before the mirror, seeing what all people see sooner or later, that gravity is gaining. She sees as well how to slow the process or mask the symptoms. Her concern is based partly in vanity but mostly in maintenance, in her belief that sexuality must be renewed constantly to keep her man true. She feels up to the task.
Which leaves Ravid to day in, day out, a familiar routine enviable to any man, with its tropical context of warmth, beauty and love abounding from many sources, be they human, dog, flower, reef, forest, mountain — anywhere the eyes might light, including Hereata, who is consistently good in the kitchen and keeps enough cold beer on hand to render a ravishingly beautiful woman in the waning hours.
Ravid knows the regimen and feels a sense of servitude, not begrudgingly but in reciprocation for kindness received. Is this love? Well, yes it is, though this love is different than romance.
Does that make it more like marriage, where romance fades?
Ravid thinks it does. He thinks it is. And it’s good — a compromise for a young man’s spirit, with its constraint on his anarchy and lust for all things and its calming effects too. Hereata lets freedom ring in her boudoir.
But isn’t that predictable and, pardon me, bourgeois?
Well, yes, it’s that too. But what if it is? What would they be, fuck buddies?
That’s such a crude, mean-spirited term, but yes, they are very dear friends who have dinner and sex together a few times each week. Which isn’t to say that things are great or terrible or even bad or good, but some of each all the time, like life. So who needs to say anything?
Meanwhile, immersion in the natural element is a love affair reawakened with an old mistress who loves Ravid Rockulz, whether she’s here, Hawaii or Eilat — or any blue-water tropics. He feels purpose and longing as he has for years, but things are different now, with pictures. These days are focused on something measurable, lasting and reflective. These days are gratifying and lucrative, with enough money to feel discretionary now and then regarding a restaurant or gadget. These days are free of pressure — traffic pressure, development pressure, social, cultural and economic pressure — all the pressures that blew the lid off the pressure cooker. These days are beyond. This time is tropical in the traditional sense. These are the legacy days.
Ever mindful of the difficult and abrupt transition from his former home to French Polynesia, he focuses on what he loves, what he feels, what may be his best chance for purpose. Never mind the rough passage from there to here — arrival feels complete and could have taken far longer with more reasonable deliberation and method. As it is, he’s home, grounded, feeling good, surrounded by family and making his pilgrimage.
Well, any man can bog down in imagery and lofty language. Better to keep things light — to
visit the home reef with no expectation but the view God grants daily to a reef devotee.
Through repetition, style emerges, whether it’s repetition of a tennis backhand, a syntactical pattern, the opening slice of an appendectomy, a riff at four beats to the measure or a particular mode of seeing fish. Any marine photographer learns quickly that fish shots from above or behind are boring. Big deal; you dove on some fish and then scared a few.
Face shots dominate Ravid’s endeavor through the first period of his development, till he realizes that most fish — butterflies, damsels and angels — convey mood and attitude, but front and center shots look too similar — and too skinny...
What is she doing right now, this very minute?
Never mind. No — I don’t mean that. I do mind.
So a man settles into home, spreading roots, enduring the shock of transplant and trying to sense its dissipation in new life, new hope. All who wander are not lost, except maybe for brief moments of recollection and regret.
Among the novelties acquired on arrival is a postcard showing a naked woman with exquisite facial features, huge perfect melons, a flat stomach, a small waist and hip curvature with its own gravitational field. He stared like a tourist but then laughed like a man who knows better. “This woman doesn’t exist,” he told the clerk, a twenty-something expert on postcard women. The clerk assured that these women do exist in Brazil, not Tahiti. “Brazil? Why Brazil?” With a slow nod to better rub the bumps on his face, the young man scoffed that Tahiti women could never look like this.
Ravid wonders if Brazil has decent reefs and laughs again at the foibles of men. Actually, Minna and Cosima and Hereata all have breasts as nice as these. Ah, well; and so he writes on the message side:
Ia Orana Skinny,
How are you? I am doing fine. I found a nice place to live. You can write to me at Le Chien de Bonne Chance, BP 1121, Maharepa, Moorea, Polynésie française.
Please let me know how you are doing at Gene’s. Okay?
Yours,
Ravid
He’s hardly had time to ask around about an attorney or the requirements for divorce or annulment, but he will. In the meantime, she can forward his mail — or the legal documents she may already have in process. Wouldn’t that be a relief? Besides, he wants news of Skinny’s well being.
Okay, where was I? Too skinny, though not so much for a fish because a fish is wafer thin in order to achieve camouflage, minimizing the front view. Nature’s devices are often dynamic, but the wafer thin view misses the flourish. A more dynamic shot would entertain on several levels, recognizing the viewer as an admirer and not a predator.
Two eyes straddling a snout and pectoral fins fluttering daintily as petticoats make for a lovely shot. But something is lost — the obvious angle forfeits the astounding color and patterns. A side shot might accompany a unique facial shot for identification, but that would be more clinical or mechanical than artistic, more mug shots than portraits.
The breakthrough is simply conceived but remains difficult. Many fish approach a diver with a camera. Some peer into the lens. While the face shot seems obvious and available, a miniscule percentage of divers get these shots. Ravid gets them sporadically till he gets them regularly, till he wants more, seeing through thousands of shots what else is obvious. Most fish approach the lens and sense something — a scent, a hazard, a temptation or arousal — that causes a sudden turn. Most photographers seek the moment before the turn.
But in turning, the fish bends toward the lens or away with emotion — in fear or puzzlement. Is that not the moment in which a fish changes his mind? The pose is not head-on and not a right angle. Rather the optimal shot is oblique, a forty-five-degree angle showing one or both eyes and the snout, pecs, shape and coloration as well. The bonus, available sometimes, is the dorsal flair, erect spines spanned by translucent membrane. Just so, Ravid finds his signature shot, providing clarity, composition and drama in a pattern that would be hard to duplicate.
He has a theory about the lateral line that runs along each side of a fish from gill plates to caudal peduncle, or tail stalk. The lateral line more or less parallels the dorsal contour and is charged with sensors, often evident in faint, shimmering effusions of low voltage light. But doesn’t it make sense that this line, the ostensible offshoot of the fish’s “mind,” would charge the dorsal spines to stand erect at moments of heightened instinct?
He asks the question of his following, who agrees, presumably, with a whine or a bark.
The turning-point phase takes months to develop, but stays fresh on unique personalities in the reef community. Some are shy, others gregarious, defensive, amorous, curious, hungry or natural hambones sensing discovery at last. Ravid captures their essence, their panache, nuance and charm. They show emotion, appetite and mood, which each successful shot secures for art. Then comes amazing good luck, with two subspecies posing in the same frame, or a matched pair, or a symbiotic duo in a two-shot mug. Ravid follows a puffer and coronet team for so many days they accept the idea of a trio. He doubts his contribution till his teammates scoot to his far side at the approach of a big grouper.
A thousand camera dives in Hawaii and Tahiti lead to the next phase: vision. Composition and attitude have remained consistent since he framed a jack and a moray on a tourist’s shoulder with the tourist’s camera and thought it casual, not remarkable.
So he reclaims this casual approach. Great composition can’t be called up or stalked. It’s a gift from Neptune or Mano or whoever is down there in the sibilant depths. So he waits for magic to happen. He contemplates the fine line between skip breathing and maximum efficiency. He sings into his regulator the old tune about the mountain that was before it wasn’t, and then it was. The song won’t go away, but that’s okay; it underscores the effort of not trying to get it, of letting it come. But that can’t be right. So he strives anew to stop striving, which would be a laugh, but he’s not laughing.
The paradox finally eases upon the realization that repetitive failure may in fact achieve the desired result — now that’s a laugh out loud — just look at the smashing success he’s been. Wasting a few thousand shots isn’t the waste it used to be. Come on, digital. No film. No processing. What are time and effort worth? How can an artist know what to do without mastering what not to do? It’s like less being more, or the mountain’s non-presence, or something equally esoteric, which doesn’t even matter with the mind engaged and distracted as art oozes through the birth canal. Pardon my mix of fetal mountains and failures reborn, but we may have lift off!
So comes the second verse, in which the butterfly emerges...
Shots of Moorish idols head-on, as well as in the Ravid frontal-at-forty-five mode, show exhilarating clarity, beauty and drama, highlighting the spectacular details of the Bette Davis eyes, the exquisite lashes and the pouting lips.
These shots should not be taken for granted or viewed with complacency; been there, done that. Early efforts must be valued for their lessons. But he senses the rabbit hole, in which down is up, and a mental maze that might well confuse a weaker person. Maybe this is good, a breakthrough to where few have captured an image.
Yet he fails to tap the mother lode. The tedium of tending tourists takes over. He favors an idle idol or a cheeky wrasse, leaving the tourists to explore on their own.
Moeava forwards the complaints, and no tips.
Ravid shrugs. Frogs don’t tip, and people who are led by the hand will never figure anything out for themselves.
But tourists not led will get lost, either briefly or forever.
Ravid does want to be a good dive leader but lapses again on the occasion of a random shot from the hip, a shot that opens his eyes, mind, and heart to yet new levels of potential and realization. It’s a two-shot of Moorish idols, one an ohua, recently born, not even an inch long, with a short, blunt snout and a dorsal stub instead of a streamer, all rounded and baby-faced. It can’t perform the forty-five frontal — too small to bend, not even
aware of the option. But it does gaze at its own rare innocence in the reflection in the port glass as it hovers in the concave body of an adult idol curving toward the lens with motherly suspicion, one eyebrow raised...
Oh, yes!
Do Moorish idols have live birth or egg spawn? Do idle idol fry get mothered or drift as micro-plankton? And what are the odds of an ohua idol posing in the curvature of a seemingly protective adult actually being a mother and baby relationship? Can we tell if the adult is female? But these questions lead nowhere really, except to the greatest question: Who cares? Just look!
Here is the grail, not at the end of the journey but the beginning! Here is the destiny and calling of Ravid Rockulz, marine photographer — here is the family portrait only dreamed of by the upper crust of some species; here is Mrs. Idol and her legacy, recorded for posterity, for matting and framing and spotlighting in any gallery.
Yes, Mother, this is what I do, what I was meant to do, what you can tell anyone who needs to know.
And in case anyone else needs to know what is really none of their business, the fact is: Ravid Rockulz may now be among the top reef artists in the world — the whole wide world, that is. So allocating hardly two thousand dollars for a wide format printer with massive ink cartridges — eight of them for extraordinary color reproduction in 17 x whatever suits your fancy is, like all good things, only natural. Anybody might characterize this expenditure as lavish or worse, foolish, as a major segment of his life savings spent on a...a what...a toy? Well, anybody is free to think or say anything. Just be sure you remember what you said when fame and fortune come raining down in torrents, along with the...
Stop. Forget that I said that. It’s a picture. Just a picture. Nothing more.
In fact the expenditure does present great doubts, insofar as it postpones a rebreather. But a rebreather runs four times that amount, and it will be best to begin now, printing the work. Besides that, while a rebreather will allow far greater depth — two fifty, two eighty safely — the current phase is focused on the shallows, say twenty or thirty feet, where sunbeams still dance in a chorus line.
Flame Angels Page 36