We Live On Borrowed Time

“I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

Oh, Jimmy Buffet. Now there’s a guy who is living it right. Have you seen him lately? 68, perfectly tan, white hair, crinkly smile lines around his eyes, still silly, witty and all smiles. He’s sold millions of records, has had five books on the best seller list, has his own sail boat, two sea planes including a 1954 Grumman Albatross called “The Hemisphere Dancer“, a jet, and his own restaurant line which sell the largest margaritas on the planet. Awesome.

This week there’s been an underlying theme around me. Two friends of mine have been shocked by the ending of a life close to them. Unexpectedly, people who are close to us can just be gone. Similarly, this week we had a huge rainstorm here in Hawaii, the tail end of a hurricane. I spoke with an Indian family during the rainy day about going diving. Their little girls had made a connection with me and wanted to go out but it was my Friday and I wouldn’t be able to take them before they checked out and left Hawaii. We discussed the options of them diving another day with another guide, and their mother said, “Why not today? I know it’s raining and you said you cancelled your morning dive because conditions were not good out there. Would you go look again, please, just for us? I was thinking, why wait? The girls really like you and they trust you and it just seems like we should do this now. Make it happen.”

So, I went out and although the sky was dark and ominous and the wind was picking up, the fish didn’t know the difference and the water had cleared up some since that morning. Conditions were not perfect and still, the girls went from terrified of the ocean to giggling underwater. We had a gorgeous dive at the end of which my face hurt from smiling so much. The mother was so grateful that her girls could have a positive experience in the ocean before they left. And I pointed out that what she had said that inspired me to just get out there and do it was a good metaphor for life as well. It may not seem like the perfect time, the perfect conditions for what you want to happen but you’ve got to just do it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Life is right now. We should live fully now. The more you put the things you want off, the greater chance they have of never happening. Why wait? Just make it happen. Like Jimmy says, don’t try to live later when you’re dead tired. Live now.

Thinking about death ultimately leads me full circle to think about life. There’s a theory out there about reincarnation that talks bout how we must live every side of existence before our time on the planet is through. That we have to live as the child and as the old man, how we have to know the story of the fisherman and the fish by living them both. Rather or not you believe in reincarnation, its still possible to see the wisdom in this: To see all sides of life as not right or wrong, just as an aspect, a facet of the glittering spark of consciousness. That spark is aglow for different lengths of time for each of us. Jimmy referred to it as living on “borrowed time.” Which the dictionary tells us is a period of uncertainty during which the inevitable consequences of a current situation are postponed or avoided. The inevitable being death, or the inevitable being life? You will live but how? To what degree? There are so many different ways to die, and amongst those, there are so many different ways to live.

What would you do if you knew you has an expiration date coming up? How would you live differently? There are so many ways, to appreciate more and take less for granted, reach out to the people who have improved your journey, who have inspired you and let them know. Spend more quality time with your favorite person. Take more time to breathe in the beauty around you. Wear more comfortable clothing. Watch more sunsets. Feel the wind. Taste the sea. Get lost on purpose. Wander without an agenda just to enjoy where you are. Pet more dogs. Smile at strangers. Put your energy into things that reciprocate - watch less TV. Worry less about limits, eat more cookies. Plant more flowers. Buy yourself flowers. Don’t just listen to the music, get up and dance.

 

Take more risks. Stop putting off what you want and just commit - make it happen. Try those incredible things you’ve always wanted to do but never allowed yourself. It doesn’t have to be skydiving, it is your unique life after all. It could be just trying that odd flavor of ice cream or strange plate on the menu you can’t pronounce.

As many endings as there are, there are also beginnings. Life is full of firsts. Get out of the passenger seat and take the wheel, take charge of the direction of your life. Stop reading your story as written by fate and start writing it. Write the book. Buy the plane. Live on the sailboat for a while. Or just eat more cookies. Whatever it is, realize this won’t all be here forever. Make the most of your borrowed time.

“Now we may have a year, or we may have a lifetime,
No one can be certain what the future will allow,

We live on borrowed time
Yesterday is past, tomorrow seems a million miles away
But I promise you that I'm gonna make love last
By living every moment, every hour, every day.” -Barry Manilow
 

Doppelgangers of Our Previous Selves

Life is a grand adventure. To share it with someone you love is truly a treasure. Along the way of living and learning and morphing, we become different people. The paths we choose change us internally, and sometimes that change blooms externally as well.
Many people in our lives are close to us situationaly - we were once in the same place at the same time and that gave us common ground for a friendship. Others match up on many levels beyond the here and now and are lifelong friends. And yet, we are all on different lines on the map, moving through our lives, making choices that change us. Sometimes the lines take us to the other side of the globe and we never come back to the same place, or when we do it’s a different place because we’ve changed.



One of the biggest and hardest lessons for me this year was that you can’t always take your friends with you. After all, the great constant in life is change. When you live a dynamic life, such as I do, you often change much more rapidly than others you are connected with. It’s not something you can stop. I’ve actually felt it before, thousands of miles from home, under a foreign sky, much closer to the sun on a high elevation trail in India, realizing that I was expanding. That the journey was shaping me, and I knew in that moment I would never be able to return home and fit into the same box again. Not that people are boxes, but relationships and friendships are in a way. Some are based only on the things you have in common at that point in time. As time moves on and you no longer have the day to day in common, when you meet again, you are just two people. Respect may still be there, but the bond has been erased, and the connection has no spark.

Returning to Bend, after living on so many different islands, after becoming a teacher, after having lives in my hands every day, after undergoing such sharp experiences that pierced my heart and it grew back in a different shape, I was grateful to see my friends again. Some were comfortable and sweet and immediately clicked as we laughed together, still finding the same things funny, still able to understand one another mutually. And yet, others lacked that spark. Nothing ignited and the connection starved for something to feed on. We were just two people with a mutual past, and the unconditional respect only shone on my side. Boy, that was hard. But I know, you can’t force it. If someone you love can no longer accept who you’ve morphed into and the choices you’ve made, that’s heartbreaking but it is also part of the journey. Just as I can’t stop expanding because I love someone, they can’t stop judging when who I am has changed.

Overall, it makes me so incredibly grateful that I have the lifelong friends I do, and that Tim and I continue to grow together rather than apart. When Tim and I started dating five years ago, we were very different versions of ourselves than we are now.

 

 



We even physically look different. He looks younger and more handsome, whereas I look increasingly like my Aunt Mildred. Just kidding. My hair is a couple feet longer, and we’ve both lost over 20 pounds. We have new hobbies. We have new priorities. We are doppelgangers of the people we were when we first met 15 years ago. I am no longer Hippie Sara, he is no longer Salesman Tim. I don’t like my eggs the same way any more. But he adapts to that and makes them the way I like them now, rather than trying to get me to eat them the same way I always have. I was a barista, he was a chef. Then he was a roast master and I was a Wholesale Manager. Then we were students together on an island in Indonesia and emerged as dive instructors!

 

 

 

 



While living in Borneo, it seemed that everything about our daily life was different. Instead of making people’s day better through a delicious latte and warm smile, I was giving people a life skill and shaping them into responsible, safe divers. Instead of parking on the side of Bond Street and walking through Drake Park at 1:00 in the afternoon to a coffeehouse, I was suddenly getting up at 6am and catching a boat off a dock in Borneo to commute into a tiny island. I no longer passed people walking their dogs by the river, I passed Muslim women covered from head to toe and men with baskets of fresh fish. My work attire changed from a black shirt and khaki skirt to a swim suit and fins. Life could not be more different than it was. But I was living that reality with my best friend, so while reality changed, important connections remained strong and unaltered.

My mother always used to say that true love was not in looking at each other, but looking forward in the same direction. I guess she was right. This grand dream we have built wouldn't work with just anyone. I have learned that if a relationship is to last, it's important to want the same things, to have the same dreams, the same future together. Our reality has completely shifted but our love has not. We have both grown so much and our priorities have changed but the relationship is still a priority. I’ve always had the unconditional love within me, but rarely been this fortunate to have it in a relationship too.

Tim and I have always communicated clearly so we understand where the other is at internally, and that way, growth never comes as a surprise. We’ve now gone from friends and surf partners to travel buddies.  We learned to Stand Up Paddleboard together on wobbly legs, and then mastered the sport and built and designed our own 10 foot boards. We've been paddle buddies, flying partners, dive buddies, fellow students, supportive co-instructors, business partners and life partners.

So while you can’t always take your friends with you, if you are really lucky, you can take your partner with you. Happy five years, baby.
 

 



2015 Lessons From Being Fully Alive

So. Are you just living or are you alive? This year of being truly alive, I have learned many things. The lessons are incorporated in, like freckles, I wear the lessons naturally and they blend in to who I am. But I find writing them down helps me reflect on where I’ve been and how I got to be who I am. For me, life is about experiences, about connections and about learning. The characters I admire most in movies and books are those that undergo internal growth and are different from who they were in the beginning of the story. Those are the dynamic ones, the memorable ones, different from the dreaming parts of the population who go through their days asleep, every day like the next, every year blending into another, not reaching out to life, no interaction with the world, no new freckles.

Here is my list, this year of being alive, of being 31, of living in Borneo, in Thailand, moving from the Kingdom of Cambodia to the Kingdom of Hawaii. (Life is an adventure, after all!)



I learned something big about being memorable. You have to interact to be remembered.

I learned how to read waves - and when not to go in. The ocean amazes me with how it can change so quickly. Hour to hour it is different, changed by wind, waves, current, rain, light. It can be pure and crystal clear one day, and the next you can see only a few feet in front of your face.  It can be glassy and calm in the morning and have four foot waves in the afternoon. I took these shots from my favorite tree in different conditions to illustrate. I'm learning what its colors mean, what its surface has to tell me. A dark line on the horizon is rain coming. My eyes can now tell which way the current is moving and how fast my divers will too. I can see without getting in, just how clear the water is and if its worth going out. The ocean is different every day and every hour.

 

I have learned that as The Guide I have to stand firmly in my own decisions about the ocean’s conditions. We don’t go if I say it’s no good, not safe, and if the water conditions don‘t match well with my divers abilities. I don’t give the guests the power to choose - as the most experienced in the group, I make the choice. I have learned to be okay with that.
How to read people more effectively. As a guide when I meet my new divers, I am assessing them. Watching closely to see who is comfortable, who is nervous, who I will need to be closest to underwater. I am watching to recognize an issue and resolve it before it becomes a problem. My new job as a different type of dive instructor - from PADI to SNUBA, is more about being safe and having fun. I tell people its just us going out to play in the sea. In order to have fun, you have to be comfortable. In many ways, I’m now in the business of keeping people comfortable in the big blue unknown, in the business of having fun, of doing handstands on the bottom of the ocean, of taking underwater photos, of making memories, of introducing people to how much fun the ocean can be if they just relax and see it through my eyes.

 

A very dear little five year old with freckles that match mine taught me that when I introduce a child to the ocean and it becomes a magical playground, there is a crossover - and the ocean and I become synonomous - they love one, they love them both.

I learned how to read kids - how to know when they need something to make the big picture not so big.  I have to catch it quickly. If they get to a place where the ocean is just too big, they will retreat internally and then they’re done. Time to go back in the beach, even if it has only been two minutes. When they’re done, they’re done. But if I can catch it quick enough and give them a piece of the little picture to draw them out of the ever expanding big picture, then the ocean is still at arm’s length, intractable. Not huge and scary. Sometimes this means handing the child my camera, or a fish ID card we can use to find the names of the fish we meet. Something they can hold. Because you can’t hold the sea, it holds you.  And some kids, if they focus on that too much can become wiped out by it. Life is that way, you have to stay present. Hold on to something that keeps you in the moment or the grandness of infinity and unknown could overwhelm you.

I have learned that everything worth doing is going to have some less than desirable days. It is not a reason to quit. It is a reason to learn and keep going.

It is okay to believe in mermaids. 8 year old Chloe believes I am one. She asked, “Does your tail disappear in the daylight and you swim in the ocean all night long?”

About public transportation - we went 1.5 years without a car - It was freeing not to have one, and strangely freeing to have one as well. Without one, you have to interact more with society, walking on roads, waiting at bus stops, asking acquaintances for a ride. With one, I was shocked at how it really only takes 30 minutes to go to the grocery store for something and not four hours (walking to, waiting for, catching, switching, waiting for, and walking from the bus).

Wholeness. My, how life is different when you can truly wrap your mind and heart around being whole. That who you are is enough. this year I really got that I no longer need some external missing part in order to be happy, to be successful, to be loved, to be accepted. By just being who you are, all that falls into place. Living completely whole is Huge, and yet hard to describe. Only those who have learned the lesson will understand you, the others will just hear you.

How to really excel at sales - and have it not be awkward: believe in what you do, be passionate about what you do and make a personal connection with people. I do that with everyone. Not everyone goes diving with me, but the ones that do go because they relate to me, they see how I am with their kids - never letting them out of my sight.

 



The fidgety kid not listening just needs to be included. Reeling them back in is as easy as saying,“Tommy, I need your help. Come stand up here by me while I lead the class. Come be my assistant. Hold my mask. Make sure everyone understands the points I am presenting, okay?”

A reoccurring lesson this year: You can’t always take your friends with you.

Hardest lesson of the year: Just because you accept someone 100 percent and love them unconditionally, doesn’t mean they will be able to accept you too. And, if someone accepted you before, that isn’t set in stone. People change. And when we grow, sometimes we grow apart.
Even people you love will judge you if you go against something they are passionate about. You can take that personally or just continue loving them. Even if they chose to take the whole thing publicly, on Facebook. hahaha

Some people stay in the same mindset and you grow out of that and no longer fit in.

Vending machines. Hippos. Falling coconuts. New Yorkers. What do these things have in common? Each of them kill more people each year than sharks do. Then why aren’t people wildly afraid of vending machines? Media. Simple as that. I personally stopped subscribing to media as truth years ago. Much to a couple of friends’ dismay. J It’s true, you are ten times more likely to be bitten by someone in New York City than you are a shark. As you can imagine, in my line of work, I meet many who are deathly afraid of sharks. I have learned different ways of talking them down from the ledge and 20 feet under the surface to do handstands with me.

Leaps are good things - even giant ones - if you can trust you will make the other side, you will be okay. As with any change, there's always the possibility that it will be better than it was, better than okay, it'll be awesome!

Less push, More flow. Tim and I started our own business this year working in the ocean as independent contractors. When coming up with a business name, I suggested we manifest. What did we want to draw to us through the business - how could be incorporate that in the name so it would be in writing? We made a great list that included things like “Eagle Rays and Sunny Days, LLC” and chose Living In The Flow, LLC. You know the feeling of being in the flow? When things just go well naturally, what you want just happens and comes together without too much effort, when life keeps telling you that you’re in the right place at the right time. The opposite would be struggle, pushing for things to happen, trying to get around roadblocks and setbacks, putting in a lot of effort and energy to make something happen that keeps falling apart. Are you swimming upstream or going with the flow? I am still trying to be present and aware enough to recognize when I am not on the flow and when I am. This is paying attention on a whole new level. Tim and I made a huge leap from Bangkok, Thailand to Maui, Hawaii with no guarantee that things would work out. But we had faith and it felt right. Upon arriving here, we made strong connections and things just lined up and turned out awesome. It was everything we wanted and more because we were going with the flow. And now we’re living in Maui, doing our dream job and being paid really well for it - living in the flow.

I got married again this year. Before you freak out, let me tell you, it was to the same man! But not necessarily. We change. We are not the same two who started dating five years ago after ten years of friendship.

We are not even the same two who kissed in Vietnam in a boat lit with candlelight last year. We change and evolve but no matter how we change, we can still be ourselves together. Our love grows with us. This is something epically good and I feel like the luckiest girl, still.

You can hide from life, avoid opportunity that is all around you, live in fear. People do this in odd ways. Like those that hide from the sun, cover up over every inch of their bodies, wear 110 sunscreen, and run from the car to the shade of the awning of the grocery store. Don’t get me wrong, Moms out there that are reading this. Yes, I am aware of what too much sun can do to you. I wear sunscreen and a rash guard, but I don’t hide inside from the warm kiss and glow. Freckles are a good thing. I have some from paddle boarding this year with humpback whales. I have some from the morning in the outrigger canoe when I got to swim with and sing to a baby humpback whale. I have some freckles from the sunset walks with my husband counting sea turtles, I have some from sitting on a dock out over the Celebes sea teaching a class of students from China, Spain and Ireland. I have freckles from cartwheels in a swimsuit on a tiny island a mile from the Philippines. I have some from fish I.D. class with two five year old twins. I’ve been through a lot of sun block this year, but I haven’t hid from fun in the sun. I have the sun kisses to prove it. Each is an experience, something I could have chose not to do, or could have let fear hold me back from, but that made my life more interesting, more dynamic. (This whole sun thing is a metaphor, in case you haven’t caught on to that yet.) The sun is opportunity, around us most of our lives, and yet the fears we collect hold us back from interacting with life and receiving opportunities.

 
We believe ourselves into things. You are not alone, unless you believe you are and in doing so alienate yourself. This goes back to my statement about wholeness. I have learned that I never really needed someone, or some thing, or some other circumstance to be successful or be loved or be whole. I just had to believe I was and therefore realize I was already.

This year, I feel found. While moving the rest of our household goods to Maui, I sorted through boxes and boxes of photos. I reflected on how I was a very sad teenager, a rather lost twenty-something. And how, now, more than ever, I feel found. I know myself, I know I am enough. I know what I want, I am where I want to be, living and designing the life I want to lead. I have roots and wings, and yes, freckles, lots of freckles.

 

 



Big Dreams Come True - A Maui Whale Encounter

One thing I have learned about dreams is you have to keep them alive by constantly putting out there what you want. Sure, its fun to make a birthday wish when you blow out the candle, but it's a more powerful wish if you tell others what you want out loud.  That's the trick to manifesting - stating clearly what you want - and the more times the better.  That's why I'm always inviting whales to show up when I'm diving. My divers ask if we will see them and I always say it's possible!

March is high season on Maui for Humpback whales to the point that you can look out at the ocean and within a minute, spot a whale somewhere on the horizon.  And on every single dive I do in the ocean I can hear them singing. It never gets old. I'm always mesmorized by the song.  Of course, I want more. I want to see whales underwater. I've said that statement every day to literally hundreds of people. And the whales get closer and closer.

I recently went out paddling with the Maui Outrigger Paddle Club - you know, those long Hawaiian boats that seat six or seven people with the little outrigger on the side? I see the outrigger paddlers every morning because we share the same put-in for the ocean.  And last week they invited, "Smiley Snuba Sara" to go with them.  Such a beautiful opportunity.

It was amazing. A wonderful workout - as we all had our wooden Kialoa paddles and would paddle fifteen strokes on one side and then switch...for an hour and a half...or about five miles.  My boat had a family from Wisconsin sandwiched between two professional paddlers, Cynthia in front and Kapuna in back. The man behind me had trouble picking up the stroke at first and would splash sea water over my back when he switched sides with the paddle. I immediately gave him a hard time, pretending to be prissy, uptight and upset. "Peter," I'd say, "You know I'm not out here in the ocean to get wet!" or "Seriously Peter, get with the program." Soon we were all laughing and taking bets as to where we'd have to leave Peter if he splashed me one more time.

We got quite close to several pods of whales as they came up to breathe or breached with a full jump out of the water, or descended head first, their black and while tails silently slipping into the sea.  It was an amazing day for it, as there was no wind and the water was like melted glass - like a huge deep lake rather than an ocean of wonders. As we waited for the whales to re-surface to breathe, I marveled at the outrigger's reflection in the soft surface.



We were following are Humpback whales — Megaptera novaeangliae — which translates to "great white wings of New England." They are among the biggest animals on Earth, measuring between 39 and 52 feet in length and weighing 45 tons; and are are easily recognized by their humped dorsal fin and long pectoral fins, which can reach up to one-third their body length, (earning their wings name) - the longest appendages in the animal kingdom.  The whales seemed to tolerate us, not leaving immediately, and because I knew the Humpbacks use Maui for their nursery this time of year, I was worried we'd disturb the mothers here with their babies.

 

Cynthia explained a little. Humpback whales can swim at 15 miles per hour. At top speed, our outrigger craft can travel 6. They know where we are - they can hear us coming from miles away. If they wanted to, they could dive over a hundred feet down and vanish, but they don’t. It they wanted to, they could jump and crack our boat in half, but they don’t. Instead, these mothers patiently let us approach and look, making all this noise, only moving away at slow speeds, only diving for a moment or two, instead of twenty. We approached a mother, her calf and their male escort. We could see their black backs arching out of the water and hear them breathing as water shot out their blow holes. 

 The baby did a little spy hop - kicking his head up out of the water to see us better.

“Oh he’s so tiny!” I exclaimed.

“Sure. Tiny.” Cynthia said. “They weigh a ton a birth and then gain one hundred pounds a day during their stay here.”

“Oh, she’s approaching.” Kapuna said. “There. Under the outrigger. Oh.” Soon we could see a massive head in the deep blue water below us. She moved with just her huge white pectoral fins, not her tail, so she could inch up beside the boat, beneath the outrigger, and then turned so her eye could see us better. I looked down as she looked up and our eyes met. “Hello there.” I said outloud. “Good morning, Momma.” Her baby was tucked under her fin, and he swam up to balance on her nose. The water was crystal clear and in the absence of wind, we could clearly see the curves and features of her chin, the barnacles around her eye, the nobs on the ridges of her front fins.

“Oh. She’s coming up. Okay team, lean to the left and hold on!” Kapuna warned. The mother whale rose closer to the surface until there were just inches between us, and then with one swoosh of her tail, glided forward to the front of the boat.

“Baby on the nose.” Cynthia said. And sure enough, it was the baby we saw rise out of the water first. He immediately took a breath. The water boiled and up came his mother, very aware of the boat. It amazes me how something so large can have such incredible body awareness and grace. You would think whales bump into boats and paddle boards all the time. They don’t.

I asked - “Do you mind if I go in?” It wasn’t premeditated. It just came out of my mouth. I hadn’t joined the outrigger paddling expedition with the expectation of being able to swim with whales. It's just that there we were, and there they were and I had wanted for so long to see them underwater, in their element.

“You mean like out of the boat?”

“Yes.”

Kapuna looked thoughtful. “Uh…no. With the male escort here, the last thing we want to do is make him angry.”

“Oh. Good point.”

“Maybe later tho.”

“If you do go in,” Cynthia told me, “Just hold on to the boat. It’s illegal to swim with whales in Maui. But it’s okay if you are still attached to your craft.” Something in her tone told me that tourists don’t often want to go in with the whales.

Our pod of whales arched up and then dove head first, slowly showing their tails as they descended. The water became glassy and quiet once more. “On the outside.” Kapuna pointed, spotting a new pod of whales surfacing.”Let‘s go, team.” We picked up our paddles and approached.

“Looks like you are gonna get your chance, Miss Sara.” Kapuna said behind me, “Get ready.” My heart lept.

We paddled in sync, approaching the whale. It didn’t leave, but let us come up. We turned to the side so we were just 20 feet from it, and Kapuna said, “Okay, now.” Now or never, right? There was a mask at my feet, so I stood up and stepped in and sank into the deep blue. I could hear them immediately and there they were hovering below me. Three whales. One was just a tiny baby, nestled up next to its mother. They were facing away from me and I could see the white line that runs down their back bone and the white rim around their tails. I could see the barnacles on their heads. I came up for air, gasping “Oh my God!” and immediately sank back down, pushing under the weight of the smooth base of the canoe to hold myself down. The baby sang out a high pitched, “Boop!” sound. Playfully, I mimicked the sound, trying not to blow bubbles, just make the echo in my mouth. “Boop boop.” he said back. “Boop boop” I said in the same high pitch. They weren’t swimming away, they were just hovering there and I marveled at how massive these whales were. I really had no idea before this. I’ve never seen any living thing that size. They were longer than our boat, and it was evident they weighted tons, and yet they seemed completely relaxed. I could hear the people talking on the boat above me. I could hear other whales singing in the distance. “Boop!” I said to the baby once more. “Boop!” he called as they slowly moved their tails and became mere shadows fading into the distance, blending into blue.

Back on the surface, I kicked hard and pulled myself over the rim of the boat, careful not to rock things. Dripping wet and giggling, I pulled off the mask and glared at Peter. “Hey. You got me all wet!” I blamed. He laughed.

“Nice dive, Smiles. Now back to shore.” Kapuna said. “Back to work.”

As the paddlers picked up a racing speed, I tried my best to keep up. Fueled by adrenaline of having a close encounter with such magnificently huge mammals, I was able to match Cynthia’s speed, but only for a few moments. (Whereas, she’s capable of paddling like that for hours.)

Can you guess which one's me?



Three miles later, stepping back on land felt odd as we backed the outrigger on to the beach. I wanted to go back out. I wanted to go for a long swim. I wanted to stand and just watch the ocean, breathing it in, watching it change with the light, with the wind. It is home to me now, more home than our tiny one bedroom studio will ever be. And today I got to meet the seasonal neighbors I’ve wanted to see for so long in their element, in our element.

Closing my eyes, I can still see the white rims of their tails blending into the blue.

Photo Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

Bright Bright Lights - an Experiment in Being Memorable

Tim and I watched an excellent episode of Fringe this weekend that got me thinking about what it means to be unforgettable. The man in custody was saying, “ There are these people you come across. These bright, bright lights. They drift across life, effortlessly. Unforgettable. I'm not one of them.” He went on to say he knew he wasn’t one because he was easily forgotten when he left his loved ones. He regretted not being a bright light and yet seemed unaware that he still had so much life to live, so much time to become one, if he chose to.

There’s a difference between being memorable and being needed. Its easy to confuse the two. Some people feel that they are only important in the lives of those around them if they feel needed. They teach their loved ones to be dependant up on them. So if they disappeared, yes, there would be a void and they would be missed. (Until their loved ones found someone else to do those same things for them.) It is different to be missed because you brought something to the world. Not that you pointed out a void you could fill, a problem you could solve or a hunger you could feed. But to be such a bright light that you bring others up - raising their vibration a notch. It’s as simple as making eye contact and smiling at people. Treating others kindly. Practicing random acts of kindness. Being jovial with others and making them laugh. Laughing in turn at their jokes. Feel good from within and others will feel good around you. Not everyone is born glowing. It’s a choice to do all these things, a choice to be a bright light.
  

But the point is, it’s a matter of free will. There are many different versions of yourself waiting out there as possibilities. Unaware versions, exciting versions, tired versions, enthusiastic versions. It is what we choose to be that we show up as.

We constantly form our personality by choices. Your character is the hero of your story - you are writing both your personality and your story by your design and habits.

I have been meditating on the idea of choosing to be memorable, being bright light. I decided to act upon it and do a little experiment. To be memorable, you can’t just float through on autopilot, going through the motions of life. You do have to be awake, interacting with the world to do so. And it's funny, just carrying the idea with me, greeting everyone who passed my path with a smile and a happy greeting, was recognized. I passed a guest at the hotel on Tuesday and he said, “Do you realize you are always smiling?” The idea in action.

I treated everyone in this manner - not just my close circle, but strangers as well. On the bus, I noticed that the driver called out the names of the stops and then people would pull a cord to signify they’d like him to stop there. A little light kept illuminating saying, “Stop Requested.” In this way, the passengers could remain asleep and not need to interact directly with the driver. I felt bad for the guy up there saying the stops over and over, just talking to himself all day. So when he called out my stop, instead of pulling the cord and letting machinery speak for me, I called back, “Yes, please!” Days of this pattern went by, and at the end of the week, as I got off the bus and wished the driver well, he let me know that he would hear me say “yes please” at my bus stop every hour, even if I wasn’t on the bus. And that it made his heart smile every time he could physically hear me say it. Amazing how two little words like that, interacting instead of being passive, can give someone something to look forward to. The experiment didn’t take long to show that after I made the choice, I became memorable - a bright light.

So after a week, I’ve stuck with it. The sales representative at the beach activity hut I pass several times a day at my hotel has taken to calling me “Smiles.” So here are some tips Smiles has learned about being memorable: It’s a choice. Sure it takes some extra energy on your part, but I’ve found that energy comes right back to you. A gracious person is a bright light. Someone who makes eye contact and smiles but also listens to others - shows them respect and makes time to hear what they have to say. Don’t multi task when others are talking - hold eye contact instead of texting. There will be time to text later. You always have time because you own the time in which you live. Make time for yourself so you can recharge and glow and then make time for others so they leave your company glowing also. As I’ve said before, be a bright light by being jovial with others and making them laugh. Laugh in turn at their jokes. Feel good from within and others will feel good around you. This is where a reputation is born from, and that lingers long after you have left. As Maya Angelou said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
 

Quinn - The Little Mermaid

This is Quinn. She's 5 years old, and while not the youngest girl I have taken out diving, she certainly is special. I had the opportunity to be the person who took Quinn into the ocean for her very first time. She'd never been snorkeling or swimming in it, and suddenly she was going diving with me.  Okay, not diving in the traditional sense - I run the Snuba program at the Honua Kai hotel and with kids ages 4-7, we give them a little life vest with the regulator built in so although they are breathing like a scuba diver, they primarily stay at the surface. That is, unless they really work hard to dive down overcompensating the flotation of the vest, as Quinn spent the majority of her time doing. Why would a five year old want to dive deep in the ocean? Usually kids are 8 before they want to swim beneath the surface. But Quinn isn't your typical kiddo... she's also a mermaid. 

When we first met to get geared up for Quinn's Snuba dive, I told Quinn we looked like we belonged to the same club - with freckles and hair in braids.  Quinn's mother shared with me how nervous she was about her daughter going into the ocean.  "I'm primarily a pool person." She said. "And her father is an ocean person."  

"Ah, so we have yet to see what type of person Quinn is - pool or ocean, right?" I asked. I then assured her that I would be watching her daughter the entire time, and listed my qualifications in rescue diving and teaching to reassure her. "Oh, she's excited, I'm more nervous than she is! I have no desire to go out in the ocean, but you don't get turtles in the pool. Will you see turtles?" 

"We will have our turtle-ray vision switched on." I said, winking at Quinn. 

"Maybe we'll see dolphins." Quinn said. "maybe we'll see whales."

"I've always wanted to see those underwater." I told her. "I keep inviting them. Maybe today is our day." Much to Quinn's mother's amazement, it was.

We got geared up and I let Quinn pick which palm tree shadow would be our classroom. She chose one and we sat in the grass and I explained Snuba in five year old terminology - how Snuba is just meant to be a fun thing, so we wouldn't take ourselves too seriously, and other important things like how fish and turtles are friends, but not the type of friends we hold hands with.  

Then we went to the beach and Quinn rode the raft out past the break zone and hopped off into the water.  She was holing my fish ID card, where she had picked out a favorite fish we would look for.  Pretty soon I got to call her over - "Quinn, I see your fish! Come look!" We chased the poor Ornate Butterfly fish around for several minutes and the Quinn began to try to dive deeper to see it better.  She gave it a very valiant effort.  Her father just shook his head, laughing. "I've never seen her try so hard at anything." he said. 

"How wonderful is it that she is having so much fun she wants to interact further?" I said. "For most kids her age, just to be out here is huge. Quinn wants a deeper experience." 

Then I heard a strange sound. Like someone clapping slowly. Like thunder, but on a perfect blue sky day. I looked up and around. People on the beach were cheering. I looked back out to sea and a giant whale rose all the way up out of the water, twisted and fell heavy against the surface, creating a huge splash. 

"Quinn! Whales!" It took some serious persistence just to get Quinn to put her head up out of the water. When she did, I held her up so she could see two male whales jumping and tail slapping in competition for a female's attention.

"I've been on whale watching boats and never go this close!" exclaimed her father. The whales were about 50 yards from us.

"Let's go over there!" Quinn said, pointing excitedly at the whales.

"Um..." I hesitated, loving her spunk, but knowing two male humpbacks competing were not something to get close to. "It's not..." I had to be careful with word choice here. You can't tell a child who is in the ocean 'it's not safe.' 

"It's not polite to go any closer than we are. And besides, I don't think we have enough air left in our tank to swim over there and clear back to the beach." I told her. She accepted that and went back to chasing her Moorish Idol.      

On the way back in, Quinn didn't want to ride on the safe platform of the raft. She wanted to body surf the waves up to the beach.  I shouldn't have been surprised. Once on the beach, she asked if we could stay and just swim in the sea without the regulators. What a wonderful compliment - she had so much fun during her hour and fifteen minute dive (most dives with kids last 35 minutes) that she wanted to stay and play.  I looked at her father and smiled.  "I guess that settles it.  You have an ocean girl."

Most Snuba dives end there. I was very happy to see Quinn later when I was at the pool doing my daily demonstration.  She had come to do Snuba some more, obviously hooked.  But when it was time to give other kids the mask and regulator, after going one turn around the pool, Quinn declared, "I want to stay with you." So she did. She stayed by my side and by the raft, helping me check the air and telling newbies the rules - "Breath through your mouth. Be happy. And never hold your breath."

At one point, her pool mother came over and yelled at her - "Quinn! Leave Sara alone! She has to work! Get away from the raft!" Exasperated, her mother gave me a pleading look and said, "Sorry!" 

"No reason for sorrow." I told her, and then continued, "Are you kidding?  We've obviously made a connection.  I see this as a really good thing. She's fine here with me. She's helping."

Quinn grinned up at her mother, who just shook her head.  Her mother didn't get it. She didn't have to. We both understood and that was all that mattered.  

After the line of children waiting to try Snuba died down, Quinn wanted to go again. There was no one to go with her, so she went alone, in her mermaid tail, happily staying along the bottom of the pool out to the deep end.  As I watched her, I had an idea. I strapped on a regulator and a mask, hooked up to the tank and slipped under the water.  I swam up to surprise her in the deep end. Quinn's eyes got big in her mask and she waved wildly and then held out both hands to greet me. And then she invited me to play a game of collecting tiny blue tiles loose on the  bottom.

  

When we came up, Quinn's mother had a surprise for us. "Quinn, you get to go out with Sara again on her 1;00 dive."
"If you don't mind, I won't come on this one." her father said. "I don't think I am really needed out there."
Quinn was bouncing up and down.  Looking at her, I had the quiet realization that she hadn't just fallen in love with the ocean.  For Quinn, the sea and I were inseparable. You love one, you love both.

It was a good dive, different from the first. We had a strong current that pushed us down the beach, so when we came out of the water, we had to walk back a few minutes to the hotel in the waves. I looked back to see Quinn walking in my footsteps.

I smiled to myself later, thinking of our connection as I was alone on the beach dismantling the gear and gathering the rafts.  An elderly gentleman came up to me and said, "I saw you out there. It seems to me such a wonderful thing that you get to share that with your daughter.  How amazing for her to be able to go diving in the sea with you at such an early age!"

I grinned at him, nodding in agreement, and he continued, changing to a serious, mock-warning tone, "I think you have a future scuba diver on your hands there. Your daughter is going to grow up to be a fine scuba diver." 

I laughed, and although we were talking about two very different little girls, the statement was the same.  "You're absolutely right." I said. "She sure is."

I Saved The Life of the Devil and Now I Can't Stay In Malaysia

Daily I get asked why I chose to move from Borneo, Malaysia to Maui, Hawaii. I list a couple creature comforts, and try to explain how the differences there made daily life uncomfortable, but seldom do people understand.  And that always makes me think about a little Ritz and this piece from June.  It's a story that deserves to be told, before I move on too far and post multiple lessons and stories taking place back in the states. It's different from my usual stuff, and it's a long one. (Can't say I didn't warn ya, Peg!)

 

*

June 1st, 2014





I saved the life of the devil last night. It was an innocent enough gesture at first. I wasn’t really aware of what I was getting into and then things started to escalate. And now I find myself walking down the street searching for a body, praying I won’t see one.

Our diving boat pulled up at the Semporna jetty (Borneo, Malaysia) and I thanked the customers for spending their day diving with us, then loaded my arms and back with their gear, preparing to carry it to the dive shop. Both hands full of BCDs and Regulators, I climbed the steps and exited the harbor. I looked down and instinctively cried out - “Oh, baby!” in sympathy. In a large crack in the walkway was a tiny body curled up, holding still, hiding. It was a young puppy, no bigger than my palm. I kept walking, but the image wouldn’t leave my mind. I thought it over as I rinsed and hung up gear in the shop. There was no way we could have a dog. Tim and I are only going to stay in Malaysia another 3 months, and we live in a bedroom above the dive shop, and we have absolutely no free time to spend with a pet. I don’t really want a pet - its just that the pitiful image struck me hard. Dogs are hated here. Several nights I have heard them cry out as bands of men beat them in the dark. Many times while crossing the street I have seen cars swerve towards dogs purposely trying to hit them. And the times I have approached a dog with bread, hoping to temporarily ease the gnawing ache of exposed ribs, the dog thought I was trying to hurt it and wouldn‘t come near, acting as though the food I threw closer to him was a rock aimed to harm.

This tiny puppy really stood no chance as soon as it was discovered. So I decided, I would go back but guard myself to not get attached, not take it home, just sit with it for a moment and give it some love - something contrary to the rest of its existence. I went home to drop off my backpack, briefly told Tim what I had seen, grabbed some Ritz crackers and walked back out to try to get there before a local did. Tim, being the soft hearted man he is, came with me. We sat on the grimy walkway, and talked gently and soothingly to the puppy cuddled between plastic bags and discarded rotten fruit. It didn’t look up, didn’t move when we gently petted it. It did show a little interest in the Ritz cracker I brought, but could only get down one bite before resting its head back around a curled tail. I understood that it only had a matter of minutes to live as I looked up at a group of contractors staring at us as they exited the jetty. They wouldn’t move in and harm it while we were sitting there, but they would wait.

Tim left me with the little one and went into the office to ask if any of the staff there could adopt a puppy. They could not. Its not the same as other countries where you can just adopt a shop dog and everyone takes turns taking care of it. There is so much more danger here - people kill dogs on sight if they are able. They urged us to leave it, saying they had buried too many puppies that employees had adopted over the years.

We looked at the contractors with their cold eyes and back and the little one. My intention had been just to give it some love before it met its sure and soon end. But we found we couldn’t just leave it, so Tim and I brought it back and put it in a box outside the door with some food and water.

When our roommate Berta found out about this, she went into veterinarian mode - sanitizing and cleansing the puppy’s wounds and wrapping them gingerly in gauze while I held it still. Either out of sheer exhaustion or inability, the puppy - who we named Ritz never made a sound.

Later that night, we awoke to it crying. Which left Berta and myself out at 1:30 AM on the porch in our pajamas with the great debate. If we let our little dog out in the world, it stood only a fraction of a chance of surviving. However, it wasn’t fair to the rest of the roommates to have a crying dog keep them up at night when we weren‘t allowed to keep a dog in the first place. So I took the box downstairs, opened it and left quickly when I saw a group of men in the shadows on the jetty watching me.

I didn’t expect to see it in the morning, and was trying to dim my hope for it’s survival so I wouldn’t be hurt to see it’s body abused and empty later on. Wrestling with the nightmares, I tried to be okay with the fact that I had given it a good meal, some love and tenderness and from now on, it had to be responsible for its own fate.

But bright and early, there was little Ritz, waiting for us at the base of the stairs, trying to follow us across the road to breakfast. When our co-workers met at 7:30 to load boats, I was touched by how many of them bent down to pet the puppy or played with it for a few moments -that is- the Western employees. The local employees, not so much. Ritz was doing the typical puppy trick of chasing toes and biting shoes and she bit the wrong one. When she clambered up the four inch stair and started playing with Nasi’s shoes, he jumped and yelped and then kicked her away. We were all shocked.

“Nasi,” I said, “She is just a baby. You have to be gentle with her.”

“I don’t’ have to be anything with her, Goddamit.” He said.

Nick piped up, “But she is just a puppy. How could you be so rough with a face like that?”

“It is the Devil! It is unclean. You see a problem with the way I treat it but tomorrow you will not have that problem because I will throw it out. In the ocean.”

“Nasi, please.” I said, reeling, unwilling to believe he would kill the puppy, shocked to hear it as a suggestion from him. “See how the people here respond to it, love it. You don’t like dogs, I know, but you do like these people, and these people love you. It would really hurt them if you threw it into the sea.”

He scoffed and walked away, motioning that the conversation was over. The rest of the day I tried to wrap my mind around Nasi wanting to kill the puppy. I knew him to be a fun loving, kind person. But he was a fun loving kind Muslim person whose local Malaysian culture insists that dogs are the Devil incarnated. Therefore, they must destroy all dogs on sight of them. How could I respect his culture and also preserve a life?

During breakfast, I watched Ritz waiting for us on the other side of the road - extending her four inches of height to try to see us in the restaurant windows. A man on a motorcycle saw her too and swerved over to the side of the road. I thought maybe he was veering to park. No, he kicked the puppy with his boot. She yelped and disappeared underneath a car and he kept driving. And so it begins, I thought.

When we returned home from work that day, there was no little friend waiting at the base of our stairs. The box had been thrown away. I was the one who had to tell Berta, and saw a door close in her eyes. “Oh.” she said simply and looked away, growing cold. And now some bit of hope in me looks for a tiny wagging tail, wanting to know she is okay, while the realist in me tries to divert my eyes up from the ground, up from the sea on the sides of the dock so I won’t see the body. As much as I have closed down to get used to living in a Muslim country, I still I don’t think I could bear to see her floating lifeless, or worse, in pieces.

As Tim avoided Nasi with a new found certainty, I still tried to understand, not willing to ask if it had been him.

Up until now, I have thought of myself as an open person. I never thought I would say that living in another culture was so hard. I always thought I could respect the foreign culture that I was in. I used to talk about how much fun it was to experience new cultures. I have never run into this. I guess the differences are more in your face when it's life or death. When you go out of your way to rescue something, something that in your culture is adored, and here others are going out of their way to hurt it, trying to kill it. It's interesting how one little life form can change our entire view of a country. How to sum that up? I saved the Devil and now I am having a hard time staying in Malaysia.

*

On my next boat ride out, I sat next to Ash from the dive shop office and asked her, “You have lived here 6 years, how do you understand the local culture when it goes so harshly against your own morals? Like the dead manta ray the villagers paraded through town. I love those creatures so much that it hurts my heart to see people celebrating their death. I am trying to find peace around that. Is it because these people live in so much poverty that that manta is enough food to keep a community fed when shared? Or is it because they see mantas as an evil creature of the sea who has been defeated?”

“I think it is more about the food.” Ash said, “They don’t eat the manta but sell its fins for the shark fin soup. The money from that will feed their family for an entire week. To be able to relax and not need to worry intensely about having enough food for that long is reason to celebrate. But no, I am still not used to seeing them paraded through the streets dead. By the way, Nasi didn’t kill your puppy. I have heard Tim thinks he did, but he didn’t.”

My heart jumped, I was still trying not to ask then who did? Its best not to ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.

“Some kids surrounded your puppy, giving it a hard time. We have seen them hurt too many animals. It kept trying to come in to the office. Trusting humans here is deadly for dogs. So Dave drove it outside the city and dropped it off in an area it might have a chance.”

That’s why you see Jon clean the office with a face mask on. The last time he breathed in just one of Ewok’s hairs, he had to go though an intensive internal and external cleansing process. I guess what the doctors do for cleansing here is very painful and makes you weak and sick. Muslims see dogs as so dirty that anytime someone touches a dog, they have to go to a doctor and be cleansed.”

“Oh I didn’t understand that part.” No wonder Nasi was upset and frustrated the puppy had touched him.

“Part of living here is becoming open enough to see their side. It would be easy to just get angry and say they are wrong. It is a lot harder to try to understand things culturally from their point of view.”

So where does that leave me? Can I understand beating an innocent puppy that has no defense to death, or going out of your way to drown one? Can I possibly wrap my mind around a trauma like that for something I care about and get far enough removed to see their reasoning why? It sure is a new perspective - I’ve always said that travel expands your worldview. If I can get so far outside of the situation that I can see their belief that that puppy is the Devil/evil/disgustingly dirty and at the same time see my own morals, my own loving reaction to the same life form and not see either as right or wrong: Just what I would do and what they would do and why. I come back to how all I can control is what I would do. Then do my best and leave it at that. Oh, and get out of Malaysia as soon as possible.