Now & Then

With regard to writing, I’m having trouble transitioning, from “travel reporting” (where every day had activities—and photos—to report) back to every-day-life, where the things I might write about tend to be happening more in my head. I have a whole list of notes on my phone, things I’ve thought about that might be “seeds” for blog posts, but none of them have grabbed my imagination this morning. Apparently it’s difficult to “gear down”…

What I do find myself pondering this morning is Time. Time, and Memory, and the nature of “Now.” During our Hawai’i trip I made a point of trying to imprint Moments into my memory, wanting to be able to call them up later and enjoy them again. It’s one of the things I celebrate about Travel, that you get to add memories to your mental repertoire, and call them up after the trip itself is over.

Sometimes the “imprinting” happens with moments that might not seem particularly noteworthy, on the surface—moments that I wouldn’t necessarily have written about or told a story about, where nothing particular was happening… But even those “accidental” imprints carry their own notes of joy.

We’re driving south from Kona on the Mamalahoa highway, the Jeep’s air conditioner blowing against the sole of my one bare foot propped up on the dash. I’m dressed in the tank-top swimsuit I’ve been living in all week, and the Tshirt-fabric skirt I pull on until it’s water-time. I have my left hand on a bottle of chilled water, my right holding my new phone, which is giving us directions to our turn-off, and ready for a picture out the window. The road has climbed a little, just enough for my ears to pop once, and when there’s a gap in the trees I’m looking down at the coastline, the deep blues of ocean meeting the lush greens of land, with hints of the black lava showing through—all of it framed in the foreground by the greens of roadside trees and bushes whose names I don’t know. I had to learn the Hawai’ian and English and Latin names of every species that can be found here underwater, but I don’t know any trees besides bougainvillea and plumeria. The visor is flipped down—it’s early, and the low sun is in my eyes on some of the highway’s turns, and I’m squinting a little because my glasses (which “transition” into sunglasses when sunlight hits them) don’t do their thing inside the car. On the seat behind me is a bag from the ABC store, with all of our beach towels (still salty, but dried out by hanging around our condo overnight), and a small cooler with picnic sandwiches. In the far back is our rented scuba gear, and our own well-used fins, snorkels, masks (mine with vision correction). We’ve only rented one tank apiece, this time, but we’re both really good with air-use, and we’ll get a good two dives off the single tank. We’re going underwater today, and I’m jazzed.

See what I mean? That’s not a moment where anything particular was “happening,” and I did not set out deliberately to “store” that moment—but it’s a solidly imprinted memory nonetheless. I feel like I could label it and put it on a shelf.

In those moments when I was more deliberately taking a mental snapshot, I often found myself thinking about Time. I would think, “I’m here now,” and the now feels like something almost mysterious, when I’m actively forming a memory to KEEP the “now” in my mind. Maybe it’s because we usually aren’t thinking ahead to the future-memory of a present-moment, when we’re actually having the present moment. Usually we let memories form more organically, or at least with less deliberate intention than what I’m doing when I travel. I’m not usually so overtly paying attention to the now-versus-later dynamic of the passage of time. But then…

I’m hanging on to a plastic loop, about the thickness of a garden hose, one of a number of loops fastened around the edges of the surfboard-sized raft with marine-battery-operated lights shining bluely down into the dark water. The swell has been up along this shore all day, and the water is rough, so I’m being jerked around by my hand-hold, and I’ve taken to holding on with just one hand at a time, to give my shoulders a break from the yanking, one at a time. To my left is my husband, his face in the water with mask and snorkel, and to my right are an Indian father and his two teenage boys. All of us have been exclaiming through our snorkels as the manta rays below come swooping up toward us, scooping up the plankton drawn to our lights, and turning belly-up beneath us as they swan away. When they sweep across with their dorsal sides up, they’re barely visible—dark shapes in dark water, probably eight feet from tip-to-tip—but their bellies are white, standing out in our light beam with with individualized patterns of dark spots.When I lift my mask from the water, there is still a dark-orange shade of light to the sky, more light than I realized when my face was submerged, because the water is already so dark. My legs—each watcher’s legs—are floating on a pool noodle, to keep us laid out flat on the water without kicking or disturbing the surface, to create the best conditions for the mantas to feel comfortable approaching. The only fins in the group—I can see them at the edge of my vision—belong to Ehu, the crew member in the water at the end of our light-float, an extra-long pair of fins with the Hawai’ian flag on them. A manta swings upward toward us, its mouth wide open so we can see straight through its gills, looking almost like ribs of a skeleton. It bellies up and sweeps off to the side, surrounded by irridescent blue fish that are massing here for the same plankton-snacks the mantas are scooping up. I’m already cold, lying still on top of the water, and as excited as I am to see these giants in person, I’m also thinking that this is one where the memorywill be more comfortable. In memory, I’ll be able to “see” the mantas while being warm!

That was our first day in Hawai’i (or our first day’s evening, I should say), and there I was, already thinking about the now-ness of now. But it was with a very different flavor of feeling than our last time in the water, on our final day. The manta-snorkel was something I was thrilled to do, but not very comfortable during. Our final snorkel was something I didn’t want to end.

Jon is holding my left hand, and my right hand has the phone in its waterproof pouch, taking photos when I can get it to focus. (Photographically speaking, the pouch is not working nearly as well as the naked phone. I’m going to have to get an underwater case specific to the phone.) A tendril of hair is floating loose in front of my face, escaped from my hair clip. A moment ago, I let go of Jon’s hand and kicked below the surface 15 feet or so, trying to photograph a spotted moray eel that he pointed out, hiding in the lobe coral. I had trouble staying down, though—even with the weight I’ve recently lost, I’m too buoyant—I was kicking downward and unable to hold still enough to get a clear shot. Back on the surface, I blow air through my snorkel to clear the water out, and see a pair of darting Moorish Idols (“Your mom’s fish!” Jon exclaims through his snorkel). I don’t try to chase them for a photo. Right now I’d rather just SEE them, and remember seeing them, than frustrate myself with the unfocused camera. I’m here in the water now, paying attention to being in the water now—and all too soon it will be only memory. My hyper-awareness of it being the last underwater-Now is baked into the memory.

I spent most of the flight back to the mainland watching the display showing how many miles were behind us and how many ahead. Listening to an audiobook and watching the numbers change. And still aware of the “now-ness” of now. As in: now I’m looking forward to getting home and sleeping in my own bed! I was fully prepared for that flight to feel interminable, but somehow those mileage-numbers chugged, changing, right along, and then all the traveling-nowness was over.

I’m already thumbing through my memories like well-worn magazines, taking them down to look at them and stashing them back on the “shelf” of my memory. Glad that, even if I can’t still be there now, I at least had a “then” when I was.