Gaining Peace By Diving Deeper in the Mediterranean Sea
My take on “space” for Medium’s latest writing challenge
I have terrible claustrophobia. Catch me in the backseat of a tiny car, a shoebox-sized Manhattan apartment, or trapped under a blanket, and I am most likely doing rescue breaths. I even had to make a safe word with my boyfriend who enjoys jumping on me while I’m in bed because sometimes, I’m sure I’ll never be able to get out and a panic attack ensues.
I’m not sure where this fear originates, but it is definitely connected to my anxieties; our crumbling environment that will literally limit the usable space on earth, my fears about being forgotten as a writer and taking up zero space in anyone’s memory, or the very real concern that an earthquake will wipe out my apartment. All in all, I have no chill.
But this week, while floating in the salty, inky-blue water of the Mediterranean Sea, I learned something that’s made me re-consider my way of being.
When my boyfriend handed me goggles and a snorkel, my pulse quickened. We’d just arrived at Villasimius in Sardinia where his family has a white-clay cottage just off the shore. We had climbed down the jagged grey rocks to the thin strip of sand where the aquamarine water slashed against stone.
Let’s get in, he said, excited. He waded into the water, his muscled mid-section impervious to the frigid temperature. Beneath him crawled sludge-green seaweed with unidentifiable creatures serpentining along crusty rock formations. Black sea urchins hid in the slats of the seafloor, spiny and lethal.
I’ve always loved the sea. As a baby, my parents lulled me to sleep with the sound of ocean waves. As a kid, I spent endless summers boogie boarding, wave jumping, and holding tight to my cousins as my grandpa piloted our old pontoon boat a bit too fast. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to fear the sea. The warning of undertows that would scoop me away kept me near to the shore. The apparent pain from jellyfish stings transformed curiosity into nervousness. A documentary about tiger sharks was enough to keep me out of the water forever.
After spending seven months with barely any personal space in our Los Angeles apartment, we left the country…
