a whole bunch of other emotions

            Two-thousand-and-five was not a great year.  In my opinion, this is an understatement.  It’s like saying that Albert Einstein was kind of smart.

            I graduated from high school on a warm, clear summer day in June, accepting my diploma on the football field with my 185 classmates.  The world was my oyster, its fresh buttered flesh almost melting in my mouth.  I was free of high school and the small sheltered town where I grew up.  College was my next move and the possibilities after that were endless.  I was smart, I was driven; I could do anything I put my mind to.

            Shortly after graduation, my family relocated from northeastern Ohio to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.  My dad was offered a great job and quite frankly, we all needed a change.  But I wasn’t quite ready for that change just yet.  I felt more like an adult after I finished high school and I wanted to have some fun with my friends.  So I stayed behind for a month.  My friends and I didn’t do anything in particular, but it was one last hoorah, no matter how small it was.

            In August, my sister, older by four years, left for Panama “to make real differences in the lives of real people” with the Peace Corps.  To me, she had always seemed so sure of herself, independent and driven.  I admired her and wanted to follow her example.  I even joined the high school swim team for one stressful season because she had swam on the team when she was in high school.   She had gone to the University of Toronto for college, so I turned in an application, too.  We all wished her the best of luck with as much love as we could give her and drove home from the airport with tears in our eyes.

            Shortly after my sister left, my parents and I piled into the car and headed back north.  I was headed to the University of Pittsburgh.  I was excited and nervous and a whole bunch of other emotions that I didn’t know how to identify.  I remember the total chaos around the dorms—where to get your key, your ID card, information packets, and all.  People were wandering around like a bunch of hungry cats herded by some incompetent wrangler.  Then we stood in line, hot and sweaty with countless other hot, sweaty families, waiting for the elevators to take us up to my floor.

            I wandered into my room, small, cramped, pie-shaped.  My roommate was already getting settled in.  She was a year younger, having graduated high school early, and clearly thought a lot of herself.  Great.  This will be a blast.  But we smiled and chatted and made the best of the situation.  What else could we do?  We were all a bunch of kids being squeezed into dorms about to start what were the so-called, “best years of our lives.”

            A few days later, Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana.  I had no real friends at college; I had just started to meet everyone.  I mean, I had just gotten to college.  Any calls I placed to my parents couldn’t get through.  I didn’t know where they were, if they were okay, if they were alive.  News footage of the disaster bombarded me from every side—it was the only thing on the televisions around campus.  And my sister was in Panama.  I felt completely helpless.  Powerless.  Alone. 

the forest on the edge of the sea

             Standing on a beach, I’m surrounded by people sunning themselves, playing volleyball, throwing frizbees, and wading in the calm water.  The sun beats down on my light skin, but the wind keeps me from feeling it’s harshest rays.  Palm fronds sway back and forth, keeping time with the gentle swoosh of the small waves.  I close my eyes and take a breath, inhaling the salty sea air deep into my lungs, holding onto it for a moment before letting it go.

            I hear a cry of alarm and my eyes snap open, searching for the source of the yell.  I scan the beach to see what is wrong. The gentle waves have stopped and the water is quickly receding.  Rocks that were once submerged now show their sharp edges, threatening to cut open the sky.

            I can’t move as the realization hits me.  Oh no.  I try to swallow but I can’t.  A tsunami is coming.  Panic rises and I watch as beachgoers snatch up their belongings and begin to run inland.  They’re going the wrong way!  There is no higher ground where they are going!

            I go against the instinct telling me to put as much distance between the beach and myself as fast I can.  Instead, I run parallel to the ocean up a slope toward forest.  As the land rises, the terrain changes.  The sand starts to blend with soil until the ground is spongy and cool against my bare feet.  Small shrubs give way to tall evergreens, until I am running through the forest on the edge of the sea. 

            There are no sounds of life aside from my thumping heartbeat and gasps for air.  I stop and walk to the edge of the cliff, where I see bare roots that once clung to the soil before the water swept it away.  Water always wins that fight.

            I realize the water has stopped receding, and my breath catches.  The giant waves are racing toward the land like a cheetah about to capture its prey, or a bullet train exploding though the terminal at the end of the line.

            The water won’t reach me.  I am confident.  I am standing on a cliff towering over the ocean floor.  My stomach tightens as I think of all of the people trying to outrun the wave on flat ground.  Water always wins the fight.

            And it’s here. 

The waves smash against the cliff, and I take a step away from the edge.  I start running again, searching for even higher ground.  Just in case. 

The merciless waves continue to eat away at the cliff and I get the feeling that they are here for me.  The swells seem to reach up trying to grab my ankles and pull me into the roiling water.  I keep running toward higher and higher ground until I’m at the apex of the cliff.  I am defenseless against the threatening, swirling, powerful waves of water that keep rising and rising.  But this is as high as the ground gets.

I stumble as the ground gives away beneath me and I watch as the soil disappears into the hungry waters.  But the ground is longer packed soil, held together by tree roots.  It is dry sand, sifting slowly, then faster and faster down the cliff and into the sea.   As the sand falls, I slide off the cliff and am engulfed by the angry waves.

As the water spins and rolls me, I don’t know which way is up.  Gravity doesn’t exist in this wet new world.  I fight the water, pushing against it, trying to catch a breath of air.  It doesn’t work.  I relax my body, hoping that I will be brought to the surface.  That doesn’t work either and my lungs are telling me I need to take a breath.  My body cries out for oxygen and my mind goes dark.

A deep breath shocks me awake. I find myself in a tube of air; clear blue water spiraling around me.  I look right and I look left, trying to make sense of where I am.  I am in the heart of the tsunami—its life force, where all of its energy originates.  And it doesn’t seem to have an end, as it continues around the curve of the globe. 

While I am here, I know I am safe.  I close my eyes and breath in deeply, filling my lungs and my veins and my cells with precious oxygen before I’m forced back into the roiling waters.