Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
—MILES DAVIS
“You free next Saturday to help me with a project?” Frank asks one lazy Tuesday evening.
Other than write at the UC Berkeley Field Station, walk to get a coco from Snack Rotui (pierced-open-before-your-eyes, chilled coconuts, just waiting for your straw to drink the delicious coconut water), or stream a movie, there isn’t much else to do on this quiet island. There’s zero nightlife, no coffeehouse in which to hang out and chat with people, and everyone’s in bed, the island pitch-dark by eight thirty each night. Of course I’m free.
“What do you have in mind?”
“There’s a film crew coming. A TV show out of Canada about stand-up paddleboarding.”
“Yeah?” I don’t quiet see where I fit in. I don’t know how to paddle-board and I know nothing about television production. I sure hope he’s not expecting me to make pizza for the crew.
The production company apparently wants to film some local paddling and will plug Frank’s ecotourism side business, Tahiti Expeditions.
“I need a touristy-looking person to paddle in the canoe.”
“And I’ve got the look, right?”
“Yup.”
The following Saturday we meet up with the crew. The cameraman, Zach, will film segments featuring two on-camera personalities, a pretty young blonde woman, Nikki Gregg, and Jimmy Blakeney, a tightly muscled slightly older guy. Both of them are Bic Stand-Up Paddleboard team members. (Bic, the lighter company, has made it big in the watersports realm.) Apparently, they’re minor celebrities in that world and are going to learn to paddle an outrigger canoe for their audience back home. Frank has arranged for his two adult stepsons, Tahiri and Tangaroa, to paddle as well. Tahiri will serve as the steersman, guiding the canoe and setting the paddling pace. Tahiri and Tangaroa know what they’re doing, and the TV folk at least have a basic understanding of paddling.
Me, not so much.
The sport of va’a, as it’s called here, is huge. Kids learn to paddle from young ages and compete through their school careers. When local elementary school children were invited last month to an event at the Berkeley Field Station, I marveled when the local kids didn’t arrive by car or bus or foot. Rather, a flotilla of outrigger canoes came through the early-morning mists, appearing as if by magic, with singing and music played on Tahitian guitars. Paddling is one of the primary venues for young men and women to set themselves apart from their peers. The larger seagoing canoes still traverse the Pacific across countless miles, from Hawaii, or to Easter Island.
Va’a is completely ingrained in the culture. Originated by the Austronesian peoples of the islands of Southeast Asia for sea travel, outrigger canoes were used for the original migrations of the Austronesians eastward to Polynesia and New Zealand and west across the Indian Ocean as far as Madagascar. In other words, outrigger canoe is how the people of Polynesia came to be the people of Polynesia, the method of transport used to settle these islands. The history is rich and the respect the sport garners is well deserved.
We will be paddling a six-person canoe. Tahiri gives us instructions on how to hold our paddles (which I have been positioning wrong until this moment), and we climb in. The TV people are affable. Nikki sits behind me and we make small talk. Jimmy is intense and sits in the front of the canoe and helps set the pace. We cruise around the lagoon while Zach, in a Zodiac that Frank pilots, films us. Every time we stop, Zach asks the on-air folks to describe the experience. They talk about the similarities between outrigger canoeing and stand-up paddleboarding, compare the difference in paddles, marvel at the clarity and warmth of the water. Frank comments on camera about the regal history of the sport. I just paddle and try to keep below the radar. The sun feels lovely on my shoulders, not too hot and paired with a light sea breeze to keep us comfortable. I’m wearing tons of sunblock because, like Nikki, I’ve stripped down to my bikini.
We continue paddling around the lagoon for most of the day while Zach gets shots. So far, I’m managing fine. The hardest part is switching the paddle from one hand to the other when Tahiri gives the command. Every six or eight or ten strokes, Tahiri barks an order that means “take one more stroke and then change hands.” Ideally, all five of our paddles should hit the water at the same time once that shift has occurred. But I end up fumbling, coming in late, or hitting the water so that a spray of saltwater shoots up my nose. Still, we’re not out to set any record and no one seems to care that I interrupt the cadence. It’s a leisurely kind of day and we enjoy it. My arms grow weary but I keep up. When Zach wants to film the canoe from a distance traveling fast, he tells us to go all out. We do and the bow leaps forward. We move at such an amazing speed circling the lagoon I wait for us to lift off the water. We’re elegant and swift. It’s wild how, working together, we’re so much more than the sum of our parts. Discovering how fast we can paddle bonds us as teammates. I’m glad I agreed to this adventure.
Glad, that is, until I learn about part two of the film assignment. Frank had mentioned something previously but either I hadn’t fully caught on or didn’t realize his plans involved me. Before dawn tomorrow morning, we’ll get into Frank’s Zodiac and tow the outrigger canoe from Mo’orea over to the island of Tahiti. There, we’ll meet one of the top U.S. paddlers, a Hawaiian athlete just arriving in Polynesia, along with his girlfriend who is also a serious paddler. Then, with Tahiri in the steersman position, the two TV paddle-board celebrities, the two Hawaiian paddling pros and (gulp) me, we’ll paddle the fourten-mile crossing from Puna’auia, Tahiti, to Mo’orea. That means crossing a section of open ocean called the Sea of the Moon, and finishing at Temae, a scenic blue-green lagoon on Mo’orea, all under the lens of the camera. I wish I’d known this tiny detail before I paddled so vigorously today. My arms will be like lead tomorrow.
But this is what my life is becoming about finally, or is becoming once again. I was more like this as a kid, always ready to raise my hand and say, “Yes, I’ll try.” “Sure, let me have a go at that.”
One of the reasons I’m so open to the idea of yes these days is a side effect of midlife crisis. For as much as we make fun of this idea, and I’ve spent enough energy this past year and half trying to prove I’m not having one, the truth remains: I’m going through some kind of transformation I hadn’t anticipated. In 2014, The Atlantic published an essay by Jonathan Rauch, “The Real Roots of the Midlife Crisis,” where I find some of the basis for the life changes I’m experiencing.
In looking at levels of human happiness around the globe and how those levels change with age, researchers have identified what’s called the Happiness U-curve: Levels of happiness drop precipitously for almost all cultures in the mid to late forties. But then, after a few years of lowered levels, the happiness index starts to rise again, eventually reaching higher than in younger years. The resulting graph looks like a smile.
The article cited other studies that confirm this finding, basically that though it’s possible to have life satisfaction in middle age, it’s simply harder during that time than at other points in a person’s life. Statistically speaking, going from age twenty to forty-five entails a loss of happiness equivalent to one-third the effect of involuntary unemployment, Rauch reports. A big part of this midlife dissatisfaction, it seems, has to do with our expectations. A German study supported this finding by demonstrating that younger people consistently overestimate how much satisfaction they expect they will enjoy five years forward. On the other hand, older people tend to underestimate their future satisfaction. “So youth is a period of perpetual disappointment, and older adulthood is a period of pleasant surprise,” Rauch writes. Between those two age milestones is when the U-curve serves up the one-two punch that knocks many of us off our game. Not only does satisfaction with life decline at that age, but expectations also wane, and at an even faster rate. People at middle age tend to be both disappointed and doubtful that anything better is coming. No wonder our generation feels so cranky and desperate.
But there’s good news. At some point, expectations stop declining. They may settle at levels lower than in youth, but reality, meanwhile, begins exceeding those low expectations. “Surprises turn predominantly positive, and life satisfaction swings up,” Rauch writes.
And when does this typically happen? Right where I am today, Rauch says, at age fifty.
Now that I’ve finally stopped expecting my life to be perfect, expecting all my goals to come to fruition, now that I’ve made peace with some of my more glaring character defects, I’m so much easier to please. When life hands me a delightful surprise, like being asked to paddle across the Sea of the Moon, I’m thrilled by it and not looking at it as an indicator of what other goodies might be next. At another point in my life, I’d want to prove myself as a “real” paddler and make plans to work on my paddling when I return to L.A. You know, to show them what I’m worth.
Amazing them is exactly what I’ve spent too much of my life trying to do.
Because, guess what? There is no them. There’s only me. My worth is based solely on what I think of myself. When I act in a worthy way, I feel self-worth. Not because someone else anointed me with it. Simply because I know myself and what I’ve done. Likewise, I have a new ability to show up in this moment and to paddle for the sheer joy of it. My merits as a paddler have nothing to do with my worthiness. This is grace. I need not prove myself as valuable, but simply believe that I am.
• • •
The next morning, I get up at three, and Frank, Tahiri, Tangaroa, and I drive to the field station to load the Zodiac. Nikki, Jimmy, and Zach are already there. The inky black morning is thick with moisture, with the possibility of rain in the forecast. We bounce across the sea in the Zodiac, with Tangaroa in the outrigger canoe towed behind us, steering with his paddle to keep the canoe aligned with our rubber skiff. The sun starts showing itself, painting the eastern horizon in pale ginger and blue black, the hues of a bruised nectarine. In the three months I’ve lived here, it’s the most stunning sunrise I’ve witnessed.
It takes two hours in the Zodiac to make the crossing. I wonder how long it will take us to do it by paddle power. According to the plan, Tangaroa will ride in the Zodiac with Frank and Zach. We all know I’m the weak link. If my strength fails or if I just need a break, I can signal for Tangaroa to take my place. I’m hoping not do that, but I give myself permission to fail in order to have the courage to start.
We meet the two Hawaiians at the dock in Ta’apuna, find a beachside hotel to use the bathroom, eat some snacks, and get ready to go.
Maneuvering through the harbor area we pass surfers and swing wide past party boats moored just off the coast to give young adults a place to stay up all night imbibing. Then, before we know it, we’re on the open ocean. The water is not typical gorgeous Tahiti blue, but steel gray with clouds threatening, the air hot and humid.
We paddle. I am not adding much forward momentum to the canoe, but I’m pulling my own weight. With the Hawaiians onboard, we’re going at a faster clip than yesterday. We settle into a rhythm. Thanks to my long-distance motorcycling, marathon running, and backpacking, I may not know how to paddle with the smoothest stroke or steer a straight course, but I do know how to do one particular thing: hang in there.
After about an hour, we stop for a drink of water and a granola bar. A thick clamor of seabirds has been circling and then dives right next to us, attacking a school of fish. Both islands are far in the distance and we are truly at sea. In many ways, being here, feeling the swells lightly rock us, aware that we’re far away from everything we depend on, like electricity or phones, is like being on a motorcycle on a freeway in the middle of rush-hour traffic. I have the sense of being somewhere I’m not supposed to be, of being one of a small percentage of people who gets to know what this feels like. I also know that my strength, such as it is, will be needed to get us home again.
But then the birds are gone and it’s time to get back to paddling. Zach jumps out of the Zodiac and into the water to film us as we paddle. Frank maneuvers the Zodiac for aft, oncoming, and tracking shots. We paddle. Blisters start to bubble on my hands and fingers. My shorts are soaked, my hair and face drip salt water from the spray of clumsy paddle changes. We paddle. The little island in the distance, Mo’orea, grows as the island of Tahiti behind us shrinks away. We paddle. I think of asking Tangaroa to take over for me, but I don’t. We paddle.
As we enter the bay near Temae, I keep missing the paddle changes, too depleted and body-fried to sustain focus. The Hawaiian in the seat behind tries to cue me when to change. But I’m off. I don’t care. I’m still paddling. We glide over the blue-green waters that make Tamae one of the most gorgeous beaches in the world. And still, we paddle. By the time we come ashore on the sandy lagoon, we have paddled for four hours and covered some fourteen miles. My head aches from the steady concentration, my shoulders are searing in pain, my palms are raw, and the joints of my legs, I’m certain, are permanently fused. But we did it. I did it.
Crossing the Sea of the Moon via outrigger canoe had never been on my bucket list. But neither was learning to ride a motorcycle and riding from L.A. to Milwaukee. Nor climbing Mount Whitney. Nor surviving a divorce at age forty-nine.
• • •
My sojourn in Tahiti is running out and Frank is distressed that we haven’t done more. A few weeks ago, we took a group of high school students visiting from New York City to Tetiaroa, Marlon Brando’s private atoll, and camped there a few days. The Brando, an all-inclusive, super-green hotel, is preparing to open soon and we lived among the construction workers and learned about the delicate ecology of the atoll. Brando’s son, Teihotu, took us to Bird Island, one of the smaller motu (or “islets”) of Tetiaroa, to see where some of the most rare and beautiful pelagic and shorebirds nest. While there, we were caught in a tropical downpour and had to seek warmth by stripping down to our bathing suits and submerging in the lagoon water until the storm passed. Then a “cyclonic event” diverted all air and nautical travel with its battering winds. Those of us sheltered in tents had to join the students and teachers in the dorms.
When the storms passed, we learned about the novel system for cooling the luxury hotel that pumped cool, deep water from the ocean and transferred its coolness to fresh water that is then circulated through the buildings. In downtime, I watched lemon and whitetip sharks circle in front of the communal cantina, awaiting scraps. They show up daily after mealtime, just beyond a sign: INTERDICTION DE NOURRIR LES REQUINS / DO NOT FEED THE SHARKS.
Tetiaroa and the paddling adventure, Frank decided, weren’t quite enough. Next, Frank and I should make plans to go to an outlying atoll, Rangiroa, 225 miles away, where we’ll dive the atoll’s celebrated coral reef. It’s logical that Frank, with his background in marine biology, has been scuba diving most of his life. As a kid, he used to dream about breathing underwater just fine. Anytime he dives now, he tells me, it’s that same experience again: Breathing underwater feels totally natural to him, like returning to a normal state he doesn’t get to experience in his land-based life. I, on the other hand, took classes to become scuba-certified when I was twenty. I panicked the first time I was asked to stay at the bottom of a swimming pool and breathe with a tank on, certain I was going to run out of air and die. I finally completed the two required dives to earn my certification but never dived again. Thirty years later, can I remember how to do this? Do I even want to?
I sign up for a refresher dive on Mo’orea while Frank makes plane reservations. The dive master is a retired Frenchman who is patient when we make our outing into Opunohu Bay. We start to descend and the panic grips me again. I can’t stay down here! I’ll drown! I give the thumbs-up gesture for us to return to the surface. “Something wrong?” he asks when we surface.
Okay, this is it. Either I decide I can and will dive, knowing that I’ll be okay, or I decide this is too much for me. Which will it be?
“I just needed to calm myself,” I tell him. “Let’s try again.” I try to slow my breathing and we descend. Five feet, ten feet, twenty feet. We swim along the bottom of the bay, looking at coral, tropical fish, sea cucumbers. I work to keep my breathing even and calm. After forty minutes, he gives me the thumbs-up. I can’t lie: I’m relieved it’s over. When I climb aboard the boat, though, I’m swelled with a feeling of accomplishment.
A few days later Frank and I take a ferry from Mo’orea to Papeete, then fly to Rangiroa, one of the largest atolls in the world. The lagoon’s exceptionally clear water and the diverse marine fauna make this a major diving destination. We’re staying with Frank’s friend and fellow ecotour guide Ugo in a little cottage. Ugo recommends a local dive company and we make arrangements to do a drift dive through Tiputu Pass, one of two places where the larger ocean flows into and out of the Rangiroa lagoon. We will dive as the tide is changing and be carried by the current, viewing coral, sharks, barracuda, and amazing fish.
We are a group of six divers, one dive master, and a videographer to capture it all. I pair up with Frank as my buddy. The dive master warns us to be alert to the ascending current we’ll hit about two-thirds of the way through the dive. We need to make sure we don’t accidently ascend with the current. Ascending too quickly causes decompression sickness, also known as the bends, which can lead to severe joint pain, unconsciousness, and even death. As we descend I stay focused on the magnificent coral and sea life. Frank, on the other hand, dives as though he’s moving through his natural habitat, and I try to emulate him. The shifting tide carries us gently; it’s like being on a ride in Disneyland with beautiful plants and creatures gliding past. I keep checking over my shoulder to make sure Frank’s with me.
I’m pleased with how the dive is going, and the panic is just background noise. The dive master takes my hand. He guides me to a large rock and presses my hands on it, gesturing for me to stay put. Next, he brings another woman from our group over to the same rock and puts her in place as well. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m sure it’ll all make sense in a minute.
But a minute stretches into two. The girl looks equally puzzled and raises her shoulders. Why are we here like this? I glance around to locate my dive buddy. I don’t see him.
I can’t find the dive master either, nor the rest of the group. Just this girl next to me. I look up at the surface above. It’s a long way up but I can still see the light streaming down through the layers of water. My depth gauge reads twenty-six meters. Eighty-eight feet. I’ve never been this deep.
What if the dive master doesn’t come back for us? Maybe something happened to Frank and that’s why I can’t see him. Maybe I should make a break for the surface. But I breathe deep and try to rationalize. The dive master is a professional. He knows what he’s doing. Frank has done this a million times. He’s fine. I’m fine. I have enough air. Look at that coral over there. See how that fish has asymmetrical stripes. I focus on my meditation breathing. All is well. All is well.
It feels as though hours pass, though it’s maybe only three or four minutes. Finally, the dive master returns and motions for us to follow him. I’m flooded with relief. I won’t have to decide about making a break for the surface. We follow and before I know it, our group is reassembled and moving into a trench-like area where the current is moving much faster. We blend with the flow and are swiftly carried along. I am still struggling with surges of panic but also learning to relax. There are more sharks and barracuda and some of the weirdest fish I’ve ever seen. A Napoleon, also known as a humphead wrasse, swims by. A prehistoric cartoon fish, he’s as big as three men, sports massive lips and looks like he belongs on The Flintstones. I’m so caught up with the strange creature I don’t notice I’m ascending. The dive master catches my hand. He gestures for me to go back down. He points to the ocean’s surface, awfully close.
Eventually, we ascend, stopping a few meters below the surface to acclimate for five minutes before heading all the way up and finding our boat. When I break the surface, I’m buffeted by waves and wind, but I’m excited. Yes, I was scared and nearly panicked, but I did it.
Back on the island, walking to town for lunch, Frank is harsh. “You need to pay more attention to your depth,” he scolds. “If the dive master hadn’t come and got you when you hit that ascending current, you would have been toast. That was a major fuckup.”
I shrink an inch with each word. At lunch, I learn that during the period when I thought I’d lost Frank, he was right behind me, a few feet away. I couldn’t see him because my tank obscured my vision. He had an eye on me every moment of the dive. And his scolding, I finally realize, is rooted in concern. If something happened to me, if I had ascended fully, I could have been seriously injured, maybe even killed. And he felt responsible. Still, I am deflated from our conversation and we have another dive scheduled for this afternoon.
We dive again after lunch and I agree to keep closer tabs on my depth. For once, I don’t panic on the descent. I stay level with Frank and the dive master and pay closer attention to what’s taking place all around me.
The next day, on our third dive, I’m really getting it. The day is stormy with showers. We are dropped off from the boat in the middle of massive waves and pelting rain. I descend without a problem and find the undersea world calm and disconnected from all the ruckus going on above.