Some People Never Learn
I still remember my carefree summer days enhanced
by individual freedom at a town beach; I swam where I wanted. Boys were
mystical, physical and adventurous back then because they were put out to play
by parents and not held captive indoors before a computer’s screen
attention-grabbing 3-D graphics.
Back then boys did their thing: collected scars, chipped teeth, split
lips and taught each other to spit and whistle. Girls did the meaningless things
that we never cared about. We wore no helmet. When you rode a bike near the
swamp that bordered the beach you heard wind and the cries of red winged black
birds.
We saw our world first from a rubber-wheeled horse and later heard a
car’s engine in resonating baseball cards empowered by clothespins to strum
wheel spokes. Our hair was cropped into a thick one-quarter inch mat.
There were no cylindrical buoys, ten feet offshore, with their
restrictive “No Swimming Beyond Buoy”
red letters to interfere with boys at play.
Most friends, especially Richard Ellison, were gripped by the sight of
sleek, glistening, forms arching above the waves and diving deep, only to
reappear far away. These visitors had no schoolbooks or a pocket burdened with
Pez dispensers, rabbit feet or jackknifes. We transformed ourselves into
porpoises leaving the world above to glide over wave-formed ridges of sand.
We brought glass soda bottles to the beach, played touch football, swam
with our dogs, flew kites, kicked sand and best of all, dove out to deeper water
to escape the watchful eyes of muscled lifeguards and vigilant mothers. It was a
different time; we were part of nature, not an armored observer fearing injury
on a bicycle or in a swim. Risk-taking was a teacher and offered big rewards to
small boys impressing bigger ones.
You wouldn’t think playing catch with a tennis ball on that sandbar
would change my core beliefs, but that is just where they began to unravel.
Looking back, my unshakable believe in an afterlife at the tender age of twelve,
has to be the biggest myth of childhood: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and gods
past and present with their vexed devotees pale in comparison.
Getting
back to beliefs, I wanted new ones to replace the ones I lost.
Several summers later, I stumbled upon Abraham Maslow’s work, A Theory of Human Motivation. If you were interested in the pieces
forming a person Abraham knew what they were.
His term, “self-actualization” implies the attainment of one's basic
physiological needs; having your own inner security, sharing love, belonging to
another and of course created self-esteem. Self-actualization
isn't possible if you're missing pieces.
There
were many reasons to dislike Richard Ellison. He was spoiled rotten, extremely
rude, got the biggest allowance on the block and was the person responsible for
my premature death. Yes, I said death, but don't call me a liar just yet. What
started out as the first day at the beach that summer ended up with my limp body
being squeezed amid a circle of curious spectators. My return from a reunion
with loved ones in the afterlife to the center of attention for a stunned throng
lasted just minutes yet it launched me on a lifelong search to find the pieces
that I left in a place separating the living from the dead.
2
If we set the clock back
fifteen minutes before my plunge into cool waters, you can join those curious
spectators whose faces will be stenciled into memory. This invitation isn’t
offered lightly, remember we are talking about my death, that's very personal.
The summer sky that day was a brilliant blue with scattered clouds that whisked
away in irregular shapes and then reformed in winds sending ripples fanning out
across Long Island Sound. I felt goose pimples rising on my small, tanned chest.
I was inside a boy then, but I lost him that day.
Playing
catch at the waterline on firm, wet sand made bouncers easier to catch and
frequently girls would be impressed. Richard’s mother was the only drawback
since she insisted in plopping her beach chair right in the middle of our
playing field. Something none of us appreciated was a mother insisting on being
a baseball coach and manager all rolled into one.
Richard
sulked as we began playing catch. He’d shaken his head on hearing, “Richie,
you’re not fielding like I told you—charge bunted balls.” Minutes later we
were up to our chins tiptoeing toward an underwater sandbar against my better
judgment. ‘What’s the matter, you a chicken?” Richard’s words were
broadcast to girls following our progress, so they mattered.
“Be careful, it’s dangerous on that sandbar.”
No kid wants to hear that from his mother in front of his friends, so
Richard decided he wasn't into having fun; he turned catching a tennis ball into
a contest. The speed of his throws picked up.
I'm certain that the idea in his twisted mind was to take me further and
further from the safety of the sandbar to deeper water and swift currents.
Why am I certain, because he didn't stay to watch the drama unfold and he
looked me in the eye only once afterwards and that was years later.
Two
could play this game, so I was busy speeding the ball on its way. Trust Richard
to complain. “Knock it off; you can't throw hard and in my direction at the
same time. The wet tennis ball whizzed past my ear toward Richard's freckled face. I remember
seeing it in slow motion headed right for the space between startled eyes. Those
eyes grew bigger but he didn’t flinch. Richard was raising one hand in front
of a face tightened in defiance. The ball stung his palm and bounced to his
lower lip. When he reached to pick the tennis ball up, I saw tears clouding his
eyes but he fought them back.
Richard changed tactics, he lofted the ball softly in my direction. I jumped up but it passed over outstretched fingertips to splash several feet from the sandbar. Glancing back I saw Richard poised to dive toward the shore. His face displayed a grin that hinted at bad intentions. I dug my feet into the sandy bottom with my toes piercing sand. This was going to be the best dolphin dive of my entire life. My hands were out in front and my palms pressed tightly together as I cut through the water.
The water was going from
cool to cold and I realized that winter currents had chiseled the sandbar
gliding beneath me exposing a collage of stones; it seemed as if the bottom had
lost truckloads of sand.
My legs drove my feet into
sharp mussels and seconds later, with adrenalin pumping, I felt the water break
over my head as I entered daylight’s warmth up to my chin. The beach was an
animated postcard rich in color and sound. The fading cry of a seagull trailed
off as I dropped back to the safety of my rock.
I sank feet-first into deeper, colder water watching the tennis ball grow smaller as it floated away. From a crouching position on that comforting launch pad I sprang to the sky and felt the first wave of panic as I dislodged that trusty rock. Intuition told me the rock would roll to deeper depths. Time slowed waiting for my head to poke through saltwater and enter daylight, then it suddenly sped up with welcoming light only inches above my fingertips.
I sank
slowly without the reassuring supply of air that usually accompanies a
descending porpoise.
Colors were vivid: blue
shades of water, gray and brown sand and differing hues of seaweed. I folded my
legs while my arms fanned the sea keeping me off the bottom. That one rock on
the sloping side of a vanishing sandbar had been my only ticket to sky and life.
The bottom was slanting away into deep water on my right.
In my mine’s eye I saw a
return to this world unfold. One
long dive would take me toward shore and from there I would break free of the
water’s grip and find light, warmth and oxygen. One more dive and I'd be in
shallow, warmer water near the sounds of splashing children and the chatter of
women in beach chairs. A sprint on hot sand would bring a white terrycloth
towel, a mother's smiling face and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich encased in
wax paper. The vision was so clear, I could taste it.
A determined left foot dug into mussels and my big toe felt a sharp stab of pain, but I didn’t care because I had confirmed intuition’s message, my rock had tumbled away. I might never again break the surface that was tantalizingly close or fill lungs with air. The only sound I heard was the drumming of a heart beating faster to spread what oxygen remained from useless limbs to a resourceful brain.
Worn-out legs
and arms were growing heavy; they floundered in a losing effort to keep me
afloat as a floor of rippled sand approached. My eyes felt like they were
being pushed out of my head in time to a drumming heart.
I was told to breathe by a
commanding brain, but I wouldn't do it. One gulp of salt water would initiate a
frantic struggle. Would I fight destiny only to settle to the bottom as an
unknown traveling to wherever we go when life ends? My heart was ready
to explode and so I did it, I took in a mouthful of salty, cold water and it
filled empty lungs. That first gulp tasted salty like all human fluids: blood,
sweat, tears and the liquid we all have known as a fetus. It gave no
nourishment, but strange as it seems, other almost comforting swallows followed.
There was no urge to fight
for life. Now this is the important part; I was resigned to my fate and was
eager to experience that unknown future. Where would I go? What or who would I
become? Settling on the bottom, I was aware of a stone worn smooth by waves.
This stone pressed into my shoulder. It was black and oval, yet I hadn’t seen
it.
My eyes were wide open
staring up at the banded layers of colored water. It was light going
through different temperatures or currents or maybe both. Far on the other side
was a blank, colorless sky. My world down there was peaceful and quiet. I no
longer heard my heart; there was an overwhelming silence.
3
Off to my left I saw a
large shadow spread along the bottom. It would soon cover me just like it had
the other objects populating sand. This
shadow was curling at the edges while growing darker. It wasn’t menacing,
it was fascinating. I wondered if this could be my first sighting of illusive
underwater clouds. The edge released a warming energy that spread from my toes
to the top of my head.
My next awareness was the
voice of my dead grandmother. "You settle down, Little Man. Get a good
night's rest." I had missed that voice and it resonated in soothing tones.
My head turned toward the voice expecting to see her, but not from that place.
The soothing blanket-like cloud had elongated into a bright, curved passageway.
Her face hung from the tubular wall of the luminous corridor as I lay peacefully
on the bottom.
I thought, I'm wide-awake,
can't I get up and walk closer to you? She
had heard me somehow and was telling me to walk toward her.
At the same time there appeared to be a movie screen spreading over the top of
the passageway. On this screen, I watched the smiling faces of everyone I loved:
two sisters, a mother, a father and those relatives who had died—even a
stranger.
This young man, who would
be named Will, appeared to be in his teens and he smiled while waving a set of
car keys. It would be five years until I had my first look at him in my mother's
arms, but in a passageway to the afterlife, I saw an unborn brother.
Totally at peace, I walked
over mussels and rocks on what felt like a delicate, luxurious carpet.
Years later I stopped in mid-sentence as I touched an Alpaca sweater.
Strangely, I had an overwhelming urge in a crowded men's store to remove loafers and
socks to stand on that sweater. By then I never expected to recapture that
underwater experience in any form, but I always tried.
As I walked towards my
grandmother, who stood near the end of the tunnel, I felt weightless with
contentment beyond description. Here is the strangest part; I reached out my
hand to grasp my grandmother's hand but that special reality ended as I touched
her. A chilling darkness unlike any I could attempt to express surrounded me.
My eyes opened to see the
sky, but were drawn to my mother's tears of joy. A hushed crowd gathered in a
tight circle around my shivering body. Life returned, but why had I come back? What's more, where did that animated passageway
lead and even better yet, do we travel inside it during our birth and back again
at life’s end?
Standing up and feeling the
painful cuts on my feet was the moment I started looking for missing pieces and
new beliefs, but I told you that. This adult now believes stars made some of the
chemicals that comprise living organisms. No man-conceived, instinct-inspired
and self-deluding myth caused this—it just happened. It’s been a very long
process from primitive bacterium to red, white, black, brown and yellow
two-legged beings that populate our planet.
Yesterday I returned to
that spot on Connecticut’s shore,. The summer sky was a dull gray with sullen
clouds that clung in chilly air above Long Island Sound. The place has
McMansions side-by-side on crowded streets behind the parking lots that have
replaced a nourishing swamp, the incubator for untold of generations of fish and
other wildlife including young boys.
My missing pieces are shared in billions of worlds that orbit countless suns within the solar systems of ever expanding galaxies. These solar furnaces are locked in their own never-ending cycle of cosmic birth and death. In the meantime I'm treading air and waiting for my return to that tunnel.
I’ve
looked very hard and never found the skinny kid I lost in that water, but
Richard resurfaced. He was in town to bury a grandson. You should have seen his
eyes; he was staring right through me after the car hit Oliver. My brother drove
it, but it wasn't his fault.
