A removal of imminent danger.
A cut through the epidermis and dermis, but not fat or muscle.
The beginning of a waiting period.
It’s three dissolvable stitches underneath and one long continuous stitch up top to be removed at a later date.
A scar tissue tattoo.
An erasure of family heritage.
It’s not comfortable.
A shipwrecked boat sat tantalizing close. We eyed it from the beach, from the water, from the street, and over the course of a few lazy days, discussed the best way to get to it. An opportunity presented itself when T took the kids in for lunch, leaving L, N, and me to our own devices.
The beach stretched and curved and offered tons of space. Shells and deep grooves in the black sand from previous tides littered our path. We dragged our feet through the water using it as a natural source of air conditioning.
Ankle deep. Knee deep. Waist deep. “How good of a swimmer are you?” L and N asked me.
I shrugged. “I mean, I can swim, but I never took official proper lessons.”
At their questioning looks, I nodded and away we went.
N, who spends his work days on the water and who runs more often than not, quickly separated from us. L and I swam slow and steady. I alternated between a piss poor formed freestyle stroke, breast stroke, and elementary back stroke.
I kept my eyes trained on N, L, and the boat, but soon focused solely on L and N because the current wasn’t taking no for an answer and I didn’t want to see how far off course I was. Doubling down, I began the side stroke, repeating the movements in my head as I imagined what my camp counselors used to say.
I tumbled between the different swimming strokes, as varied and hurried as my breath.
A sharp lash stung my cheek. A jellyfish I thought and swam faster and a little away from where I was. Ugly but effective strokes. I began to make progress. Somewhat. It depended on your definition of progress.
L: I’m not going to be able to make it.
Me: You okay?
L: Yeah, but yeah, not making it to the ship.
Me: Okay, no problem. I’m happy to stop. Let’s go back.
We signaled to N who was nearly to the beached boat. The current was more ferocious now, but it was coming in, which we used that to our advantage. L and I checked in with each other using “okay?” “okay” and hand signals as we tried to conserve our breath. She was dragged behind some anchored boats while I and my camp memories sliced through the water aiming for a point higher up the beach.
It was an arbitrary point, but I held on tight to it. Side stroke all the way now. It was less strenuous and seemingly more effective. Summer campfire songs and the Wabansi lake and all those years I attend Camp Nyoda filtered through my mind. Just another day at summer camp, I thought.
A helicopter appeared above the beach where N was and circled in the general vicinity of L and me. The water flattened and pulsed around L, as I chanted to myself “don’t make any signs of distress. You’re not in distress. You’re fine.” I side stroked on.
The helicopter made one more pass and disappeared as suddenly as it appeared.
I licked my teeth. They tasted of salt.
A man walked out of a little cabin as L and I dragged ourselves onto the beach. We each formed a point of a strange triangle.
L and I met up and she confessed her terror and her plan to hang onto one of the anchored boats for rest. I apologized for not realizing her mental state, as I certainly would have angled closer to her for comfort, support, familiarity if I’d known how badly she needed it. I laughed at how weirdly calm I felt. I confessed I’d been channeling my childhood summer days spent at camp.
By then, N had searched the boat and began his way back to us. He walked up and out as far as the sand allowed and slipped into the water. L choked back more fear as we studied her husband’s strong, but fruitless movements, and I softly talked to her about square breathing.
In for four counts. Out for four counts. In for four counts. Out for four counts. Break. Repeat.
The sound of a motor boat starting up pulled our attention away from N. The boat reached N in 15 seconds and he deftly clamored in. Once on the beach, N briefly conferred with the man who had reached the beach when L and I had, and then he ran over to us.
L: You okay?
N: Oh yeah. I’m fine. I could have made it, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Miguel, the boat driver, said something about the current. And tiburóns.
L and me: What’s a tiburón?
N, our best Spanish speaker of the bunch, said: I think, sharks.
The calm facade I’d been cradling cracked and trickled down my body along with the salt water dripping off my bathing suit. I’d thought I’d come into contact with the only danger in that part of the sea – a jellyfish – but the realization we’d been swimming with sharks sent my adrenaline surging faster than the tide coming in.
We numbly began the trek back to the house. L and N had a quiet, sharp conversation while tiburóns swam in my head larger and louder and more real than they’d been while I was in the water.
L turned her ministrations to me as she took in my ashen face and mute voice. She repeated my earlier words about square breathing. In for four counts. Out for four counts. In for four counts. Out for four counts. Break. Repeat.
We were on dry land. Nothing here but the echo of our bad decision.
“It’s a small one. Smaller than the others, but it’s staying.”
These words filtered through my window as the repair guys measured and argued outside my office. Despite the fact their discussion was infinitely more interesting than the invoices I was paying, their words lingered because it’s something my parents might have overheard at the hospital 35 years ago.
I was a small one. (2lb 6oz) (3 months early). Smaller than the others (other children born at that time, my other siblings). But I was staying.
Windows and babies. Two things not normally paired together. Unless, I guess, you were at a hospital and peering at the babies in the nursery through a window. Or you were my parents (or any parents) and your newborn was in the NICU and you studied the babe within the plastic bubble cradle.
Or you had two men with salty language outside your day job window and eavesdropping lead your mind down this twisty path of memories both real and hearsay.
Airplane view: ships lining up to enter the canal. Waves lining up to crash ashore.
Driving over the Panama Canal in the golden sunlight.
Puffs of dust clearing to reveal boys playing futbol.
Carnival: Half-dressed women, musically inclined men, alcohol and water flowing freely.
Carnival: Fish scales and smoky meat and ceviche in plastic tupperware and shady spots out of the blasting sunshine and $1 beers.
Margaritas so strong you remember the night you stopped drinking them.
Sustained 25mph winds that make 78 degrees feel chilly. Warding off the chill with only a scarf wrapped around your shoulders.
Using your phone as a camera only. Thick, salty, wind blown hair.
Familiar faces making an unfamiliar setting recognizable.
Air dried hair. Sunscreen as foundation and bug spray as makeup. Sunglasses. Chapstick.
Getting more smiles than stink-eyes from 2yo V. Rooming with 4yo O. Reading Curious George 4x a day.
Learning life hacks; bathroom edition. Dumb questions and honest answers and genuine support in the face of a dirty task and laughter and success.
Measuring my steps not via FitBit but by high tide (100) and low tide (500).
Swimming adrenaline junkie style. Accidentally unleashing helicopter and motor boat rescue efforts.
Thoughts of Camp Nyoda swim lessons keeping you calm in the face of a crazy current.
Getting the chance to experience your friends living their new life.
No water, no electricity, but, a house full of problem solvers.
Beach day. Showering in the ocean. Bravely battling but ultimately losing the fight against the waves and seaweed.
Carnival: night edition. Fancy dresses, glittering head pieces, dancing in the street, drums, a yodel that sounds like a mountain goat’s mating call, shots of Seco, cold beer.
Sandy feet, sandy beds, sandy floors, sand dollars, beach living.
Homemade meals, dishes for 7 done in a tiny sink with limited water and even more limited drying rack space. Using my dishwashing powers for good.
Plantains. Fried. Grilled. With honey. With aioli.
Broken Spanish. Clear intentions. Communication achieved.
Roadside fruit stands with limited, but the freshest most delicious produce imaginable. Frozen pipa. Not there or not available in terms we recognized.
Drinks in the afternoon, in the evening, in the least-windy-corner of the patio.
Secrets shared, personality quirks explained, friendships deepening as quickly as the setting sun.
Kickball competitions with O, the broom being an important tool, sticker books, the human body as a jungle gym, I spy, V’s gymnastic movements.
Well water excursions, grocery store adventures, sharing bills.
Panama brand beer (not delicious), Soberana brand beer (delicious), Balboa brand beer (delicious), ecto cooler lime juice margaritas, gin&tonics not made with Bacardi, Seco with muddled oranges or grapefruit + pineapple juices, instant coffee.
Pushing your limits emotionally, physically, gastro-intestinely.
The hammock. The beloved orange hammock gently swinging in the wind. Cat naps.
Rising with the sun (thanks, V Bird) (thanks, O Man), throwing open all the windows and doors, brightening the house and doubling its size.
L and N absolutely killing it with their driving (N) and navigational (L) skills. Me, quiet in the backseat taking it all in, wishing I had 1/8th of either of those skills. Learning the Google Maps app trick.
Memories tucked into my pockets with seashells and grains of sand.
I thought it was the hammering that scared me because I didn’t want to scar a wall with 25 billion holes or cause a racket so loud as to disturb my neighbors. There was also the measuring/math needed. Blank walls were minimalist and I liked that my apartment wasn’t cluttered. Truth be told, I didn’t care/notice the blank walls.
Plus, there was the fact I didn’t plan to be here very long. *side eyes real estate market*
It was pointed out to me that maybe the temporary feeling of my apartment was infiltrating my heart. And besides, a few nail holes in the wall are an easy patch job. They are not the sign of a demon tenant. Maybe adding a few things to make the apartment feel like a home – my home – would keep the dark nighttime shadows away. (That and a vow to stop watching scary (for me) TV shows before bed.)
(The person who did the pointing out is a professional in case that wasn’t obvious by her spot on assessment of my ridiculous thought patterns.)
And so I youtubed “how to hang a picture.” The resulting video made it seem so easy. I read an article about gallery walls and arranging the smaller pictures within a larger pattern. “I’ve got this,” I thought and pulled out came the frames I wanted began arranging them on the floor. I drew a not-to-scale diagram on stationary left over from my first full time job. Memories old and new swirled as I jostled the pictures into a variety of placements.
Out came the flower powered tool kit my godmother gave me and I got even further down to work.
I measured each picture, then the entire arrangement. I glanced at the spot I intended to hang the pictures and it was growing in size, looming larger than it had when I started this project.
All forward momentum stalled.
My mom’s response to my SOS was advice was dolled out in texts too long to fit on one screen. She echoed the Lowe’s video, but I was now a body at rest. (Hello, Newton’s Laws. Thank you, High School Science Class.)
Then she said:
The idea of plotting out the exact layout on paper first, of putting pencil to paper, of writing a rough draft first, of making my mistakes on paper rather than the wall resonated with the oversized “play it safe” portion of my brain.
Of course I misjudged and bought just shy of enough poster board but was already back from the store and I had to scrounge up 6 blank notebook pages to tape around the edges and then the whole thing measured right but was way bigger than the area I’d laid the pictures on before but I kept the momentum and traced and eyeballed and measured again and vertigo and marked out the nail/picture hook spots on the poster board and taped the skeleton on the wall and shifted it left and stepped back and shifted it further left and stepped back and pulled the right side higher and stepped back and shrugged my shoulders.
The package of hooks open with a thump thump thump of my heart. The hammer sang.
There was a terror of adrenaline, a thrill in making a mark, a strangely cavalier taste in my mouth after all that planning.
Adjustments were made as reality replaced pencil marks. Two pictures needed multiple passes, and I bent a hook past the point of usability, and lost a nail, and discovered a colony of dust bunnies behind the couch, but overall, nothing tragic happened.
Nothing epic happened either.
I mean, come on, it’s clearly not perfect, but there’s satisfaction in the concreteness of what my hands can do. And now, the art created by others (mostly) for me has transformed into another art form. They’ve risen to a higher plane.
As have I knowing I’m capable of more than I thought.
Abigail Mumford 