A Fish out of Water

OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, SMYTHE PREPARED FOR THE FIRST ten-day conference. She re-read the dress code as she contemplated what to wear. Business casual. It was then she noticed a low-level anxiety surfacing within her body. She understood the anxiety well.

Hello, old friend.

She remembered she was often teased by her classmates about almost every aspect of her appearance. Her hair, although wavy, had a little too much frizz to it. Her clothing not cool enough. Her skin tone was either too dark or too light. She felt completely out of step with current conversations about boys, fashion, or all the other topics girls her age would discuss amongst themselves.

As an adult, she quickly came into her own and dealt with her feelings of inadequacy over her appearance. Proudly sporting a shaved head, she draped her body in tailored, gender nonconforming attire which suited her quirky—if not awkward—personality.

While Smythe prepared for her conference, Artie created a detailed travel plan which, to Smythe’s delight, included arriving by vehicle caravan.

“Can you say road trip?!”

“Cool your jets, Smythe. You won’t be driving.”

“I’m ok with that. Just tell me which vehicle I’m in, and I’m good.”

“I thought you said you weren’t keen on traveling as a kid.”

“I grew up. I realized I hated traveling the world—settling in a different part of the country every couple of years. Plopped into a new school in the middle of a school year. It was tough.”

Artie nodded her head. “Well, this girl here has to plan for your road trip.”

“Is it complicated?”

“Only if you consider the route which has to be created, as well a secondary route, infiltrating the hotel staff, staking out the floor you will be on, and generally keeping you safe while you’re in class… nah, it’s a breeze.”

“Smart aleck. I only ask because I’ve noticed you’ve been meeting with Dennis a lot lately and you’ve been away from the apartment more than usual. I didn’t know if it was because of something you weren’t telling me, or simply because you were planning for this trip.”

Artie thought about her conversation with Carole and the chemical company. That information was something she was unwilling to share with Smythe. Smythe, she thought, only needed to know enough to remain vigilant during the conference and refrain from taking any spur-of-the-moment trips out of the hotel.

“I’m not gonna lie, Smythe, these conferences are really risky. There are just too many unknowns. So, while there hasn’t been a direct threat on your life in a while, there are a number of details that I need to address in order to keep you safe. I would prefer that you don’t attend the conference, but, given that you’ve spent months preparing for it and your certification depends on your participation, I’m making do. Safety is key.”

“I appreciate the effort, Artie. I’ll listen and follow your direction.”

“I’m not worried about that. Oh, and by the way, about your room. We’ll be sharing one, so I changed your reservation from a king bed to two queens. Same price.”

“Without asking?”

“Security privilege.” Artie smiled.

“Next thing I know, you’ll be borrowing my clothes without asking,” Smythe said in a feigned mumble.

“Now that you mention it, I’ve had my eye on that burgundy sweatshirt you just bought a few weeks back.”

“Get back to work, you!” Smythe balled up a piece of scratch paper and threw it at Artie as she left the apartment.

*
*     *

The early morning offered very little traffic, allowing the caravan to move easily through the highways and outlying cities to her destination. Smythe sat in the backseat of one of the SUVs and watched as they traveled through the barren landscape. It was the intricacy of it all that Smythe seemed to notice for the first time. The complexity of the desert scenery offered a glimpse of its grandeur, simply because of its apparent lack of diverse terrain. The architecture, she noted, blended in rather than announcing its presence. The lack of precipitation throughout the year left the land arid, allowing mostly cacti and Joshua trees to flourish. Not a fan of cactus, she frowned, diverting her attention to a novel she recently started.

The longer the caravan traveled, the more the landscape began to change. Hints of green grass covered the Transverse and Peninsular ranges. Soft chaparral and woodlands replaced cacti and sagebrush. Palm trees replaced Joshua trees, and traffic became denser.

As commuter traffic began to fill the highway, Artie surprised Smythe with a brief trip to the ocean’s edge about an hour from the hotel. Smythe sat mesmerized as her vehicle drove along the highway next to the Pacific Ocean. She rolled down her window to smell the ocean air, her heart beating in ecstasy at the sight of the water. She watched as her driver slowed, taking a side road which led to a parking lot adjacent to a boarded-up restaurant overlooking the ocean. Once they came to a halt, Smythe shot out from the car like a cannon, kicking off her sandals as she ran through the sand to the ocean’s edge.

“Smythe, hold up. Wait!” Dennis yelled.

Dennis and his team member bolted toward Smythe. They immediately surrounded her and surveyed the surroundings. Expressionless, they moved around her, scanning the parking lot. Not a single car was present, and the beach was all but deserted. But then again, that was the reason Artie chose the location. It was still a bit early for tourist season, and, compared to other locations, this area did not offer a wide beach most were accustomed to, nor bathroom facilities that other, more popular beaches offered. The only restaurant for miles sat vacant, closed for repairs—the result of a fire in the kitchen.

Artie casually walked alongside Smythe and stood next to her with a grin lifting the edges of her gray-brown eyes. “You want to explain yourself, Lucy? That little stunt could have ended badly.”

“I’m so sorry. I could help it, but then again, I didn’t want to. I’ve so missed the ocean. Just look at it! Isn’t it glorious?” Smythe’s smile continued to grow as she scanned the vastness of the ocean, watching as waves lapped upon the shoreline. She looked up. The sun provided a clear blue sky, and the air felt crisp against her skin. Full of jubilation, she unexpectedly wrapped her arms around Artie’s neck and hugged her, causing Artie to blush.

Additional members from the caravan approached and casually formed a U shape around Smythe. With that wide grin still spread across her face, she surveyed their appearance.

“I’ve never seen the guys in shorts and such casual attire. I must admit, Artie, I rather like it. They’re not so stiff-looking.”

Artie smirked. She knew her team was well prepared. Like Smythe, they wore body armor, but with one dangerous difference. Hidden beneath their windbreakers were their weapons—ready to be drawn on her behalf should the need arise.

“All part of the façade, Smythe. We’re just a group of tourists enjoying a quick minute on the beach. You’ve got five minutes. I suggest you take in as much ocean air as you can.”

Smythe nodded and breathed deeply. She could smell the stench of drying seaweed, and the briny scent of plankton. Salt air, she thought. I’ve missed your smell. She bent low and scooped up sand in both of her hands and gently rubbed them together, raising the remnants of the sand up to her nose.

“You really love the ocean, don’t you?” Artie asked.

“I do. It reminds me of Hawaii and my friends who live there,” Smythe said with a tinge of longing.

Smythe shook the bit of sand from her hands and pressed her feet into the sand. It was cool to the touch. She walked forward and allowed the gentle waves of the water to lap upon her feet as she stood, soaking in every sensation of her treasured ocean.

Artie left Smythe alone for a time, observing her body movements. Smythe’s shoulders had relaxed, her stance casual and her head tilted in reverence to the sky. She smiled to herself. If she could be sure that no one was tracking the caravan, she would have given Smythe more time—perhaps a good part of the day. But she could not be sure, and she had a job to do. The quick stop needed to be just that—a quick stop. Artie moved toward Smythe and touched her elbow, indicating it was time to go.

Smythe took in a big gulp of sea air before turning toward the caravan. She watched as her feet left an imprint of her visit as she ambled along the sand. Artie strode to the back of the SUV, opened the trunk, pulled out a small towel, and handed it to Smythe.

“Here, you can clean your hands and feet with this.”

Smythe smiled and accepted the towel, wiping off her feet. She turned around and took one last look at the ocean before entering the car. As they pulled away and continued along their route, she peered out her window and watched as the ocean disappeared behind the homes.

She side-eyed Artie, who sat next to her.

“You didn’t have to stop.”

“I know, but it was necessary. For your well-being.”

“Thank you.”

An hour later, Smythe and her teams arrived at the hotel. It was a typical conference center hotel; the grounds were spacious, offering a large fitness center, spa, several restaurants, and business amenities for conference guests. As they checked in, casually surrounded by Smythe’s security detail, she recognized just how contained her world had become. So much so that once she arrived at her room, she found it difficult to return to the lobby and engage with her new group. Her initial instinct was to hole up in her room, telling herself Artie would want more control over her surroundings. She walked out onto the balcony overlooking the lush grounds of a pool and outdoor restaurant and began reasoning with herself.

Besides, the views from the balcony… Just wow. I bet evenings are glorious.

“Away from the balcony, Smythe,” Artie said.

Smythe rolled her eyes and walked inside.

“You have free rein to meet up with your new friends. I have their profiles, so I know who belongs and who doesn’t. Just remain within the hotel. Breakfast, lunch, and dinners in.”

Smythe pondered her last few months and observed that her only real ongoing human contact had been with her security detail and her mother. It did little to prepare her for real-world engagement, and she had to muster up enough courage to interact with her cohort. That left Smythe with a choice: be ruled by fear, or reach out in love and engagement.

On the second day, she coaxed herself out of her room and into the lobby for a pre-conference cocktail hour. Out of her element, she found herself trying to adjust to the open-hearted humans she met. This group had a way of accepting one another. Hesitant at first to engage them in conversation, she mostly remained quiet, offering only her first name, where she was from, and her line of work. Yet, over the course of a few hours, she began to relax. It dawned on her that no one in her group attempted to outshine one another. She took in long, deep breaths, as though sitting beside a fire on a cold winter’s day, drinking a hot cup of cocoa, smiling, and laughing easily.

With a cohort of 48 attendees and 20 staff assistants, she came to know people from Ghana, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Philippines, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Iceland, just to name a few. She was invited to several dinners where participants whiled away the evening getting to know one another. They reviewed what they learned and the activities their mentor had demonstrated, which supported the learning content. She participated in heart-centered conversations and discovered these inquisitive, sincere, tender-hearted souls were working hard to face their fears and move out into the unknown world they had been called to serve.

This type of interaction had been a first for Smythe, and as her new friends shared their stories, she reveled in their vulnerability. They were so open about sharing their experiences. She reminded herself of an earlier conversation with her Beloved about the dreams she had for her life. Now, sitting amongst her new group of friends, she could almost feel her Beloved smile and hear the words of encouragement. “Everyone feels fear. Yet, notice, while each of you have felt the fear, you have moved through it. Movement is key. Slow, steady forward movement.”

Smythe later remarked to Artie she felt an affinity for them. “They all have a gift to offer a world which seems to be tearing itself apart. It’s as though we’re part of a really close-knit family, even though we’ve only just met.” For Smythe, it was both exhilarating and overwhelming, yet each evening, her heart felt full.

*
*     *

One evening, near the close of the conference, Smythe sat upon her bed, deep in thought.

“You ok?” Artie asked.

“Yeah. I’m great, actually. I was just thinking that I didn’t have to have ‘that’ conversation with a single person in my cohort.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been derided about my looks most of my life; particularly, my hair. Finally, about fifteen years ago, at the age of 22, I had enough and just cut it off completely. But the behavior of others only intensified.

“People would often stare or give me weird looks when I was out running errands—you know, like the ones you get so annoyed about,” Smythe teased. “At first, I didn’t understand. But some audacious soul would come up and say something like, ‘Why would you do that? I wouldn’t have the courage to do that.’ It’s rare that someone would boldly come up to me and compliment my hairstyle.”

“So, with this group, you thought you might have to defend yourself?” asked Artie.

“Yes, actually I thought I would. I’ve had to have that conversation. Politely, of course. Well… sometimes politely, depending on how much energy I wanted to put into the conversation! I realize now, that out of the sixty-plus people I met, I expected I would have had to have that conversation with at least one person. However, it has yet to materialize. It’s funny; I caught myself storytelling.”

“Storytelling?”

“Otherwise called narrative bias. It’s a tendency to make sense of the world through the stories we tell ourselves, especially when it comes to the unpredictable. As humans, we tend to like predictability. So, our brains create a story to connect different pieces of information together. The problem is, we often leave out the other important facts that don’t fit the story we are telling ourselves. We assign meaning where none should be made.

“In my case, based on past experience, I made and created a story in my head by replaying past experiences and consciously created a story in my head. A story of how I’ve been treated and expected to be treated—thus, storytelling. I was so wrong in this case.”

“Storytelling can be exhausting,” Artie mused.

“I would agree there. It’s wasted energy, yet it begs the question: When does one use their past experience to inform or ready oneself for present dealings?”

“For me, it requires that I remain present and watch body language as well as listening to the verbal words spoken. I only use the past as passive information,” Artie said.

“Makes sense. I think I’ve had enough negative experiences around my hair that I’ve come to expect the reaction. It’s really a breath of fresh air. With this group, I don’t need to relive those past experiences.

“I get it, Smythe. You’re a woman of color with an unusual hairstyle. I get the shield. And I’m sure it’s been difficult. I know our country’s behavior for anything out of the ordinary, regardless of what it touts. Just… I don’t know. I’m not sure how to respond.”

“I know there’s a wall that I put up, Artie. It’s just that I feel the ‘ism’ every single day. The otherness. I’m just learning balance and hoping I have finally found my tribe; somewhere I can just be and be supported.”

Artie nodded her head as an ache filled her heart. Another aspect to her, she thought.

If Smythe could describe what she felt from her group during her week at the conference, it was that she simply felt loved. She was enfolded into a group that headed toward something more expansive and, to be honest, rather frightening. In any case, the interactions allowed her perspective to shift. She didn’t need to explain herself. She just was, and her enough was enough.

One evening as both she and Artie were preparing for bed, she explained further. “What’s weird is that I don’t need to fight to just be. My mentor’s assistants have a way of simply making space for whatever shows up in the room and to welcome it. I’m so glad I’ve been able to experience this. And your team? Can I just say, they’ve been great.”

Artie smiled at the compliment.

Artie and her teams made themselves clearly visible to Smythe at all times and offered her both a sense of safety and a bit of humor throughout the week. Dressed in casual attire and split into pairs of no more than two, her detail acted their parts. They were Smythe’s protectors, but they appeared to be nothing more than either patrons of the hotel or hotel employees.

Smythe was rather amused by their behavior as they kept a protective field around her that only she could see. On more than one occasion, Smythe burst out in laughter and had to recover as she watched her security detail mingle with members of her cohort group during breaks. She remembered an occasion where a pair of Artie’s team members were disguised as hotel guests. She watched as they interjected themselves into her conversations with her cohorts. They asked questions of her, pretending to get to know her, and asked her classmates questions about the conference. Serious in their explanation, her new friends politely described the reason they were there and some of the learning that had taken place. Dennis, Artie’s second in command, made silly faces to Smythe, which only she picked up on. Smythe considered their behavior lighthearted, which was an aspect of the team that she hadn’t seen before. Through their playfulness in conversations, they lost a little bit of their robotic, devoid of emotion demeanor and seemed more… human.

Yet, as amusing as their behavior seemed to Smythe, from Artie’s perspective, they were simply doing their job. Profiling each of the conference attendees, the teams were scanning for potential threats to Smythe’s safety, questioning conference-goers on particular aspects of their learning, looking for any signs that a person did not belong.

Now, sitting in the back of her team’s SUV, returning to the valley, Smythe could not help but chuckle and smile brightly. Her heart was lightened, and while watching the rich green give way to the dusty brown landscape, she continued to fondly reflect upon her week. She felt a new sense of accomplishment and drive to meet her upcoming goals, yet she also recognized a nagging uneasiness which began to make its way into her body the closer they approached the valley.

Still, for the first time, she discovered that instead of dreading whatever it was which attempted to erode a renewed sense of becoming, she began to actively search for the source and meaning behind it. Whatever it was, she knew it would offer her the insight she needed to dance her way forward along the breeze of life’s flow. Courage to meet the unknown was taking root in her psyche.