Learning to breathe in Aruba

Surviving my first dive trip in the Caribbean Sea

I have a problem with being present. My mind is constantly considering a thousand different scenarios or tasks I should be doing. Couple that with consistent dopamine hits from chihuahua videos, and it is hopeless for me to focus. 

My travel mantra has become “practice presence.” When I’m in a place, I want to be there, not planning another trip in a year’s time, not constantly worrying over logistics. I want to shut my brain up and pay attention. 

I’ve had this prayer of presence in my mind for months, even years, but I could never follow through. (And yes, I’ve experimented with yoga, walking meditation, and podcasts.) Try as I might, I could not stop my racing mind. Then, last year, I got an open water diving certification, and I was forced to relearn how to breathe. 

Diving is unlike anything I have experienced. Your entire understanding of the world changes. The way you perceive light, sound, and weight is different. You have whole atmospheres of pressure pressing on top of you. If you don’t breathe properly, your lung could burst, as our diving instructor happily demonstrated with a balloon. 

To survive these constant changes, you have to slow wayyy down and force yourself to breathe deeply. You must focus. Now is not the time to think about laundry and taxes. You need to not only survive this moment, you need to find some really cool fish. 

Diving has helped me center my thoughts, observe my surroundings, and find sheer delight in simply being alive. 

But, it didn’t start out that way. 

My first four dives were in a murky lake in the middle of nowhere, Texas. Visibility was nonexistent, I was surrounded by a gray-green cloud with the occasional catfish coming out of the ether, and I thought to myself this is what dying must feel like.

I would float off into the dark with water pressing around me and never think again. I’d count the minutes until we could finish each dive and when I resurfaced I had blood and mucus in my mask. 

I told myself if I made it through certification, I would try diving once in the sea, see some cool fish, and then probably never dive again. 

Exactly one year later, to the day, I was standing on a boat in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Aruba with my friend Koryn, my parents, and their neighbors, trying not to show how anxious I felt. I had forgotten everything from my certification classes. I didn’t even remember the difference between deflating and inflating my BCD. I forgot how much weight I needed. I couldn’t clear my mask. I barely knew how to breathe. 

Somehow, with the help of our divemaster, I got suited up and walked fin-first off the boat and into the translucent Caribbean Sea. Gripping my low-pressure inflator, I floated at the water’s surface while everyone got ready to descend. I had a feeling that I didn’t have enough weight in my weight belt and started to panic. While everyone drifted down beneath the waves, I was stuck at the surface. 

The divemaster could tell I was freaking out so he returned to help me descend slowly, reminding me to clear my ears as we went down. We joined the rest of the group at the bottom of the sea, and then I started to look around.

How to describe that first feeling of being underwater when you can view your surroundings clearly? I felt my breathing: long, slow, and luxurious. For once, I wasn’t focused on anything more than what was in front of me. I was surrounded by bursts of color and schools of flickering fish. I could hear my breath, feel the regulator in my mouth, as I moved underwater like some mythological sea nymph. 

We drifted slowly above the sea floor, trying to move our legs like frogs and not wave our arms too much. Buoyancy control is a skill I’m still mastering, but hovering above the coral, sea snakes, and tiny eels as they poked their head out of the sand… I was hooked. We passed porcupine fish, a stingray, and what may have been a hidden octopus as we swam around submerged shipwrecks from the Second World War. 

For one brief moment, when I was floating on one side of the wreck, and the sunlight was hitting the coral, I realized I was so lucky to be living. Not just alive, but breathing and existing in this space. There were better things to do in life, and I was experiencing them. The moment lasted all of two minutes, but it freed something inside me. I had more than survived this moment, I was thriving within it. 

Life was not only an experience to be endured, it was a gift to be marveled at. I was practicing presence, focused and meditative. I was also experiencing the world as a child, with wonder and enthusiasm.  

It wasn’t all euphoric bliss. I still did not have enough weight in my weight belt, and as I ran out of air, I started to float unwillingly to the surface. My dive buddy was also moving up and seemed unaware that I was next to her. We made it to the surface and then tried to descend to rejoin the others. Koryn was able to, but I still struggled due to my lack of weight. However, it didn’t matter too much as the dive was almost over, and although I missed the three-minute safety stop, I luckily didn’t have health issues as the wreck was not too deep. 

We all made it back on the boat in one piece, and I felt the heaviness of my wet equipment as I shuffled to my spot next to my second tank. Feeling tired but exhilarated, I realized my thoughts about never diving again had disappeared. 

I was now hooked on one of the most costly activities I could dream of, but I did not care. It was worth it to practice presence, to relearn how to breathe.