“There you go,” Colton says.
Encouraged by him and the fact that we actually moved, I bring the first end back in deep, feeling the resistance of the water as my paddle pushes through it. I think of the circles, like pedals on a bike the way he said, and I keep going, and after a few good strokes we’re cutting through the glassy surface at a decent clip. I laugh, happy and proud that I’m the one powering this little boat.
“You got it,” Colton says from behind me, and I feel the forward momentum of his paddle moving through the water too. I look over my shoulder. “Just paddle,” he says. “I’ll sync up with you.”
I nod and turn back around, face the wide expanse of blue ocean and sky in front of me, and plunge my paddle in again, and again, until I make my own steady rhythm. At first I can feel Colton’s strokes working to match mine, but after a few more, we fall into a synchronized, two-part rhythm that carries us away from the shore, beyond the rock islands, out to deeper water.
A dolphin fin breaks the surface as we paddle past a patch of seaweed drifting in the sun. The only sounds are of the steady rhythm of our paddles and my breath, in and out, in and out with each paddle stroke, and I feel like I could do this forever, paddle all the way out to the horizon and keep right on going. It feels good to get lost in the natural rhythms of breath and movement without thinking of anything else. Like I used to when I ran. Until now, I didn’t realize I’d almost forgotten that feeling—or that I missed it.
“I’m impressed,” Colton calls from behind me. “You’re stronger than you look.”
“Thanks a lot,” I shoot back over my shoulder with a grin. But I take it as a compliment. I do feel strong right now, and it surprises me that my body remembers how to be.
“So did you want to paddle on out to Hawaii, or do you want to see the cave?” I can hear the smile in his voice again, and then I feel the absence of his strokes. I lift my paddle from the water and rest it on my legs, noticing the burning in my arms and shoulders.
“What cave?” I ask, turning around.
“The cave we came out to see,” he answers simply. I look around warily, not seeing any caves anywhere. “At the base of that rock we passed. The big one.”
“Oh,” I say, looking around. “I didn’t see it when we went by.”
“That’s because it’s kind of hidden.”
“Like a top secret cave?” I joke.
“Sort of,” Colton says with a smile. “Not part of the standard tour anyway. Too much liability. C’mon. I’ll show you.” He digs his paddle in deep on one side, and the kayak slowly starts to turn. “You coming?” he asks. “I can’t steer this thing all by myself.”
I doubt that. His shoulders are surprisingly broad, and his arms are strong, but I turn around anyway and dig my paddle in on the same side as him, and in a few more strokes we’re facing the shore again, heading back toward the rocks. It hits me right then that I’ve never been this far from the shore before, which is as exhilarating as it is scary.
When we were kids coming over to the coast, Ryan would swim out so far, I was always sure the lifeguards would have to go out and get her, and later on, Trent would too, racing his friends out past the buoys or the end of the pier. Fearless. But I didn’t ever go out past where the waves broke. It felt too big out there, too out of control. But it doesn’t today. Being out here now, I feel the best I have in a long, long time, and it makes me wish I could bottle this feeling.
Here, beneath the impossibly blue sky, I think I understand what Colton’s dad meant about falling in love with the ocean. Maybe all it takes is a guide you trust.
“So those rocks all used to be part of the coastline,” Colton says from behind me. I look at the rocks more carefully, and now that he’s said it, I can see how their layers of color match up with the cliffs’.
“What happened?”
“Erosion,” he answers. “I kinda picture it like one of those time-lapse sequences—with waves crashing against cliffs, and storms rolling over them, and water and air finding the cracks and widening them into tunnels and caves until the weak parts crumble and all that’s left are these little rock islands.”
The way he says it, I can see it perfectly, like it’s happening right in front of us. And it is, really. Just so slowly you can’t see it—the same way grief can do to a person over time, wear you down until you almost disappear.
“Anyway, the one with the cave is that one, right in front of us,” Colton says.
About a hundred feet away, the largest rock of the cluster rises high up from the water. It’s fairly flat on top and covered with some sort of yellow wildflowers that sway gently in the sunshine and the ocean breeze as they reach for the sky. My eyes follow a crevice, which starts out narrow at the top, down to the middle of the rock where it begins to widen into what looks like it could be an opening at the base. Water flows in and out of it every few seconds, the steady rhythm of the waves.
“It’s a calm enough day; we can go in,” Colton says.
I look back at the opening, which is dark and doesn’t seem tall enough, weighing my bravery.
“If it’s like I remember, it’s one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen. There’s one main chamber that’s open at the top, so the sun shines down into the water, and then there a couple of other smaller chambers that are all connected, and the surge pumps the water in and out of them all like—”
“Like a heart,” I say. It comes out of nowhere, but from everywhere at the same time. I turn around.
Colton flinches, almost imperceptibly, but I see it and wish I could take back those three words I just said. Stupid. A moment ago we were out here on the ocean, just for a day, the reason for our connection left far behind on the shore. But now that reason is right here again, pulling me back in like the tide.