Perception

It’s 8:30 a.m., but I’m already sweating as Jackson and I begin our walk to the small forest behind ASRI’s organic garden. Today’s mission is to plant 10 pitfall traps within this 100m stretch of land. I’m his field assistant for the morning, so I carry my backpack filled with stakes, plastic cups, and rain covers. At some point in the last few days I agreed to this, and at the moment I’m not sure why. But there’s a spring in my step because, if nothing else, this excursion means a few hours less of sitting hunched over my computer.

A leaking bottle of isopropyl alcohol drips on my hand as we trudge, and feels startlingly cool as it dries. Gibbons call from the nearby mountain, flies buzz around my ears, and the sun continues to rise. Monkeys leap from tree to tree overhead and we see swinging branches, but nothing else. Invisible in the leaves, they are a supernatural force moving high above us.

We reach the edge of the plot: a small creek filled with fallen trees, ferns, and grasses, and are about to find a way across and start our work when Jackson realizes he’s forgotten his compass. “I’ll stay here and enjoy the nature,” I say sarcastically as he leaves. But as his footfalls fade and I settle into my surroundings, I feel happier than I have in days.

Behind me an old wooden building crumbles slowly into the ground. In front, tall Acacia trees sway, silhouetted by the sun. I sit on a fallen log and pick up a thin, bouncy length of bamboo. It’s shaped like a fishing pole and I sit, amused, pretending to fish in the creek. Here in the shade, it’s almost cool. The sunlight is pale and silvery. Fat beads of dew cling to spider webs and leaves. And as I watch, quiet and still, my focus begins to shift. From the webs to the dew to the haze behind the trees, my perception becomes liquid and flows through the planes, alight and fresh and in motion. I poke a wide green leaf with my fishing pole and the beads of water dance, jiggling in place, and reflect sparkling light into the webs above. The shadow of the pole cuts the grass below into neon ribbons, shifting with the breeze. Metallic ants crawl over the vegetation at my feet. The translucent wings of flies flick in and out of sight. Two birds flush suddenly from nearby ferns, and the air is thick with the hum of life. 

I remember being small and searching for fairies. Knowing they weren’t real but wishing so fervently it almost hurt- convincing myself that maybe, maybe if I looked in the right places, or if I really paid attention, they would grace me with a sighting.

As I sit on my fallen log in the flickering morning light, I search again. And I see them now, flying around me, buzzing and singing and full of life. That glinting red dragonfly at the bottom of the creek, balanced lightly on a branch with its long, dainty wings. Those spiders catching the wind and flying on their webs, and the blue flies that land at my feet. They’re the same as they were and have always been, but are now the creatures I seek.

New Year

I’m balanced on a blue plastic kayak, pink from the sun and hot from the effort of paddling. The water is warm today. As I rock on the gentle waves, I look out at the sea, away from the beach, and I feel like I could be anywhere. The ocean is such a global thing, connecting me to the rest of the world. I rest my paddle on one knee and let my right hand drag in the sea. The high noon sun glints off of the water and it sparkles like I always hoped that it would. This is the ocean that I wished for in my Oklahoma childhood, far from any coast. This is what I imagined when I played in a pool, closing my eyes and becoming a mermaid. This blue water, sparkling and clear, reflecting the distant forested islands, undisturbed.

I’ve spent a lot of time near the sea lately, and somehow it fills me with nostalgia. I didn’t grow up on the water. The first time I saw the ocean was after my high school graduation. And yet, I’ve always felt close to it, called to it. Last week, we took a speedboat from our small town to a city further up the coast. As I watched the water flash by, I was filled with a distinct, heavy, and almost painful memory of innocence and hope somehow connected to this moment. Some time of my past when I hoped for summer, or dreamed in summer of who I would become in the school year to follow. Reading books and watching movies and wondering how life would be if I lived by the sea, if I lived somewhere else, if I went on a great adventure.

When I was younger I dreamed of travel and risk, so safe in my suburban home. I didn’t know the hardships and homesickness that would come with it. I see pictures of myself from just a year ago and I hardly recognize the girl on the screen. Our thoughts so different, our worries so distant from each other. A year ago I was newly engaged, working and living in Oklahoma, caring for my students and living out my days dreaming of faraway lands and wishing for a chance to explore. Now I live on the coast, surrounded by rainforest, caring for no-one but myself and my husband and wishing for home, missing the children who needed me there. The grass is always greener, it seems. I maintain the innocence and naivety I had as a child, thinking that as soon as I grew up life would somehow shape into an effortless bliss. I think now that this bliss may never come, or only in parts, and that to be alive is to be always at odds with yourself. I wish for peace and excitement simultaneously and feel no different than I did as a child. 

These moments—when I wish my same childhood wishes—are like time travel, so intensely surreal and connective that I cannot believe that I’ve aged. Instead of a woman on a kayak in the sea, I’m again just a girl in a pool. And as suddenly as I seem to have come to this point, the elasticity of time and memory throw me back again. Maybe this is what it feels like to be very old. I imagine my soul will never change, forever in flux between memory and reality. I can see myself ancient and wrinkled, feeling as I feel now that life has always been a series of the same moment of self realization. Why did I ever think differently?

I’ve dreamed of living by the sea as long as I can remember, writing stories and drawing pictures of mermaids and beaches. The water now feels like home, as much as anywhere ever has. Does all of humanity feel this way? Reliving the same ancestral memory? I imagine that we all dream the same, immersed in humanity and linked by a God and a collective history indifferent to our current beliefs. This God that I see in my family and friends, in the woman selling vegetables in the street, in the crying naked baby on the run. I see Him too in the sea and the forest and I know that these things are similarly sacred- universally made, held, and loved by the same Divine pair of hands.

My wish for this year is to honor my childhood hopefulness, to work for and become daily the person I promised myself I would be. And I hope that we all can live in the present and love each other and the world around us with an unbiased respect and reverence, full of innocence, hope, and awe.