“Actually, it’s just me. Solo vacation.”
“Great minds,” Walter says, tapping his temple.
“Do you always travel alone?”
“This is my first time traveling.”
“Like…to Mexico? Or to a resort?”
“No, no, I mean I spent my whole life living in the same small town and I had never been on an airplane before last week when I flew here.”
I let my jaw hang slack. “I have so many questions,” I say.
Walter chuckles, and it reminds me so much of my own grandfather that a pressure behind my eyes forms, threatening tears. He died a couple of years ago, and talking to Walter is making me realize that I’ve missed him maybe more than I realized.
“Well, I’ve got two hours, so ask away.”
“Actually…I have to confess, Walter. I…I missed the instructions the person on the boat gave us. Did they say anything that might…be important?”
“Well, she told us to do the stingray shuffle, you know, just sliding your feet along the sand. And she said to avoid their tails, but I think you and I knew that one already.” He winks again. “And she said to be gentle.”
“Can we tell the stingrays to be gentle with us?”
Walter throws his head back with a booming laugh, not seeming to care that people are staring. Someone rolls their eyes at him.
I want that kind of confidence.
Movement in the water catches my eye. A stingray glides toward us, its fins cutting through the water. It’s majestic, the way it floats to us and then right past us. Instinctually, I reach out to touch it, but miss it as it goes past.
“There’ll be another one, I’m sure,” says Walter, and as he’s finishing his sentence, another one comes toward us. This time I’m ready, hand out. I skim my fingers along its back, the slimy, silky texture of its diamond-shaped body sending the strangest sensation through me.
“Ooooh, it was so weird.” I snap my hand back and curl it against my chest. “Your turn.”
Walter doesn’t require any further prompting. The next time a stingray comes by, he bends, hand outstretched, and as it swims past, he does the same as I did, skimming the back of the animal with his fingertips.
The joy on his face is nearly unmatched. He smiles so big, the corners of his mouth practically touch his ears. He flushes, his cheeks pinked and eyes bright. He’s beaming. I think he’d glow in the dark if it were nighttime.
“That feels way different than what I expected,” he says, shouting like I’m much farther away than I am.
“Should we venture out a bit?” I ask, and Walter nods enthusiastically. We shuffle through the water—waist-deep for me, but hip-deep for Walter. We both giggle at how silly we look and feel shuffling along, and I’m glad for the company of my new acquaintance. It would have been fine to do this activity alone, but sharing this joy with someone else makes the experience ten times better. Maybe it’s not a husband, but maybe that’s just as well.
We make our way over to a pair of guides, a girl holding a bright blue bucket and a guy holding a stingray. The man has his two hands under the ray’s wings as if he’s holding a kid in place while they learn to swim. The stingray flutters its body, and tourists walk up to get the chance to pet the creature. Walter and I line up for a turn, both tickled by the experience. Before we walk away, the girl with the bucket gives us a squishy piece of squid to feed to a stingray.
Walter and I shuffle away from the new crowd forming around the guides and find a quieter spot to drop our squid pieces and attract some stingrays. They come floating toward us in search of the food, but instead of petting these ones, we justwatch them float by, although the temptation to touch each one is hard to ignore.
I steal glances at Walter, whose face is glowing with the kind of childlike joy you only get from experiencing something awe-inducing.
The first time I went to an art museum, I was with my parents and spent the entire time slack-jawed in awe. They’d picked up on my keen interest in art, and for my thirteenth birthday, we drove two hours to visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I knew better than to try to touch the art, but I wanted to touch everything. As if the only way I could really process the magic I was seeing with my eyes was to also see it with my hands.
I left the museum that day more sure than ever that I wanted to create art for the rest of my life. I wanted to contribute to the wonder that other people experience in this life. Teaching feels like that sometimes. Like if I can’t contribute to the magic, I can teach my students how to. Is there magic like that in graphic design?
Watching these alien sea creatures float by us feels like witnessing some kind of art piece come to life, and the only way to make it real is to see it with my hands, too. This kind of wonder doesn’t happen every day, and it reminds me of my long-buried desires to contribute to the world in that way. Most days, I feel like I’m surviving, just keeping my head above water and hoping I can catch a deep enough breath before another wave comes through.
There’s no awe or inspiration in survival.
When our time is up, Walter and I exchange disappointed looks. Although my fingers are pruning and I’m almost uncomfortably hot in the early afternoon sun, I could spend another two hours out here, witnessing the alchemy of the ocean and the life within it.
But I let the guides shepherd me to the boat, where everyone gets a towel as we load up. Walter sits next to me on the boat ride, which is too noisy for conversation with the roar of the engine and the splash of the waves, but as we board the bus, I’m eager to chat with my new friend.
