DAILY I sat on craggy Maine rocks, washed in sea mist and seaweed smells. It was lovely to be at the shore, though it wasn’t my shore, nor familiar sea smells. I am a child of another ocean, of soft sandy beaches, rolling surf lines and Dolphins leaping through waves. Romantic as this rugged Atlantic sea is, I yearned for what I had grown up with, the wet-remembrances of a tiny Pacific island peninsula. Memories rose of the very wet summer of my 16th year, when I was part of the diving team, the swim team, body-surfed the big ones, and applied for the job of Sea Maid at Sea World. “Can you dive?” “Oh yes.” “Great. We just lost a girl, you’re in. We need you dressed in half an hour. Pick up a full tank, and shortie wet suit at supply. Let your hair hang free, and meet me above the California aquarium-theater. Do you know your fish?” I’m nodding ‘yes,’ as I slowly realize I’m not diving from a tower, but with a tank, and I really have no idea about fish other than grunion, jelly fish and the non-fish, lobster. But water is water and I know water. How hard can it be? I suit up and find the California tank. “Here you go. Sit on the ledge, wait for your cue, drop into the tank, swim back and forth, wave to the people, point out each fish as the sound track calls its name. Good luck.” I’m perched, ready in my short pink wet suit. A giant manta ray floats onto my lap. I stop breathing. No one told me the stinger had been removed, or that the ray loved to nestle on the girl’s laps as they waited. I may have been blond, but… Read more »
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