Cousteau

The entire series of his books sat in a neat line on my parents’ bookshelf, low to the bottom, where my hands could reach. Each book held for me a breath of life, a glimpse into the world. The photographs on each page: Cuttlefish, dolphins, him. His black hat and turtleneck. His neat white hair and golden brown skin. I think now, Perhaps I loved him. Perhaps I loved those books for more than the giant squid and the baleen whales. It was his face, always a soft smile or a lightly furrowed brow, and always behind him the blue of the ocean. The rippling nap of waves. The white foam where waves break and churn.

I hungered for more, so I attempted to read the books. Book One slipped off the shelf into my hand. The narrow spine sat on my palm—was it a parrot fish on the cover? A moray eel? With determination I have not lost, yet have not mastered, I lifted the cover and began on the first page. Was it a letter from him? An introduction? He was telling us why and how, why he did this, the boat he designed.

It was not his face, already a grandfather in my childhood. Not a handsome smirk or curve of breast. It was his passion. Nothing else in this world would suffice, and a lifetime of devotion was not enough to absorb his thirst. This single-minded focus he lived: what a tremendous relief and escape from the demands of the world.

He was pulled, held by the sea. He gave his life to the sea and all it holds, and in return the waters drew him close. I search for this devotion, this strength of desire. The thing that will allow me to break free: a love so strong it will rip me from my loosely tethered existence. I know I need something. I knew, even as a child, that I am in danger of not focusing. I felt in him a kindred spirit seeking a target for this energy.

He swam as far as he could, holding his breath. When he tired of being tethered to the surface by his need for air, he found a way to expand the boundaries of his world. Not even oxygen dependence, the hallmark of human frailty, could confine him. The Aqualung, the first underwater breathing apparatus, freed him even more. When he found that the world he sought was just beyond reach, he expanded himself to encompass more.

The rapture of the deep—the voice that calls, that beckons one to come closer, go farther, cross over the line and join fully with the mirror life beyond the confines of your world—did not quite catch him. Before the boundary between worlds snapped, when return would be impossible, he turned back. The suctioning grip did not quite catch him. He moved along this tightrope without falling.

This is what I need: a boat of my design and a purpose without end. A boat like Calypso, which I once glimpsed, tied at its mooring, waiting. A white boat with a mast, poles, wires, and nets. Small boats clung to the sides. A life preserver, a white ring perched on the side of the cabin. He was not in the boat—he had already died—but Calypso floated on, and more than in his son or in his books, I felt him there, breathing. Calypso rose and fell on easy waves as a breath supports life. A haunted boat, alive with his presence . . .

The boat did not move. The waves did not rock. It was only in my mind that I saw this boat, but the vision of it assured me that passion is relentless, and that passion can be found.