Noticing Magic

They say when you look up at a star, you’re gazing into the past and out here under the dark sky in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, disconnected from the rest of humanity, I look into a collage of distant pasts. It’s a game I’ve always played with myself – attempting to put only the stars in my field of vision to imagine floating endlessly in the universe, becoming something greater than my body in wonder of all that we are a part of. The night sky holds endless mysteries and consciousnesses, endless matter and thoughts. It holds our stories, our histories, and humbles us each time we come to terms with the magic of our world, that we are made of the same atoms in our stars, suns, and moons. Sailing in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by thousands of miles of water around me and thousands of feet under me, I think about how small I am, how small our earth is in comparison to the galaxies overhead. At the time, I was 20 years old, participating in a 5 week long research sailing trip known as Stanford at SEA. Even all the way out here, I’m surrounded by millions of microscopic organisms in the water that form the basis of massive oceanic food chains, so small that I can only view them through microscopes, revealing their tiny beating hearts and intricate body shapes. Their worlds, so vastly different from my own, are still intrinsically connected to mine. At nighttime, sometimes I’m lucky enough to spot these organisms flashing blue as they are tossed by the movement of the boat traveling through waves, as if electrifying the ocean, mimicking the canvas of stars overhead.

If our stars hold hidden secrets to our universe, so too does sand, shells, ants, frogs, humans. If gazing at the stars allows us to imagine our place in the universe, then maybe so too do the acts of wondering, discovering, loving, being. --- Knee deep in crashing waves, my grandma and I scream out as loud as we can, “You can’t catch me, Mr. Wave!” We address the layers of foam and seawater hurtling at us in choppy oscillations, raising our arms as we prepare for each oncoming set. Growing up in Chicago, this trip to Florida was the first time I entered the ocean without being held in the protective arms of my family members. I repeatedly call out this phrase to each 6-foot wave that approaches me, the words covering my small four-year old body and forming an invisible shield of defense against the turbulent sea. My grandma tells me that the louder I yell, the stronger I become against the power of the ocean. I can still hear her voice leading our choir of shouts above the crashing of the waves, our hands grasped together as I collect courage from her strength. The waves finally do catch me, crashing down on me, pulling me below the surface as I gasp for breath and gargle up water, spinning like a plankton caught in a racing current. And then, the water becomes still and I’m left floating under the surface, hearing nothing but the muted sounds of the ocean’s stillness around me. As I take my first gasp of air and sink my feet firmly into the sand near the shore, my fear melts into exhileration. We laugh and run towards the sand, and in that moment I understand the power and force of the ocean - so much greater than us I’m met with a deep sense of wonder for what else I may be able to discover beyond its surface. ---

A couple years later, I sit as a six year old, watching the lapping waves gently glide over the sand, smoothing each grain at its touch. Each time a wave recedes, dozens of bubbles emerge from the shore surrounding me. I start curiously digging holes under the bubbles and to my surprise slowly uncover small pink and white shells that I collect and drop in my yellow bucket filled with sand and water. As the shells slowly drift to the bottom of the bucket, they immediately begin digging as small eyes pop out of their delicate pastel shells. Entranced, I continue unburrowing my catch in the bucket, continuously shocked each time their eyes protrude out of their casings and they dig themselves deeper into the protective sand. Since when are shells alive? I look towards the millions of particles of sand around me, marveling at how unique each one is amongst the vast collection of colored shells and eroded rocks. As I continue excavating the terrain around me, I notice a distinctly misplaced shape - a small blue tooth lying in the sand. As I pick it up, I immediately notice its deep brown root and vibrant blue enamel crown with opaque serrations along its edges. Who did this belong to? I gasp, running towards my family with the tooth firmly grasped in my small palm. From then on, the tooth doesn’t leave my sight until I’m back home, where I place it into a small suede jewelry box and lock it in my safe - protected from the outside world. Back home landlocked in Chicago, this tooth was my piece of the ocean - somewhere I could visit only occasionally when I was lucky enough to travel there with my family. The ocean then was a mysterious force separate from my life in the midwest, something I would dream about at night, often in nightmares, or watch videos on the TV - of shark attacks, shipwrecks, or animal planet episodes on reefs and larger marine organisms. The older I became, the more I began to fear the ocean - how unknown and removed it was from my life, how many secrets and

creatures it held underneath its surface. Sometimes I would hold my shark tooth and imagine the giant predator it used to be a part of, imagine its voyage through the ocean and how much time it has seen. I wished I could have been there to witness its entire journey through time. --- My grandma and I once created a book about a snail whose voice was so quiet that no one could hear him when I was ten. Each time he was ignored, he would have to speak more loudly, slowly raising his voice one note higher until reaching its loudest possible tone – so loud that those around him finally noticed him. By the end of the story, he gains recognition as his community members finally understand his presence. We spent hours scripting his narrative, tracing out the stories' shapes and colors on her porch while we waited for the resident family of deer to pass by in her small yard surrounded by highways and brick homes. This was our usual setting, seemingly a different world in comparison to our small assortment of trips to the ocean. Oftentimes I’d become distracted by the lines of ants in her kitchen, marching their way towards nearby food, or would run outside to find delicate bluebells amongst twigs and decaying plants so that we could taste their sweet nectar. Our snail story was one that I then recognized as a story of holding your own voice, having the confidence to be yourself. Just my grandmother taught me to fight for myself in those waves, she also taught me this lesson through this story. But I now understand this story as one that teaches me how seemingly insignificant things hold importance - if you only are able to recognize them, just as that day so long ago where I sat on the water's edge and discovered the world of tiny marine organisms and shells holding the histories of our ocean. We may often stand on the beach, stand in a forest, and let each intricate detail of our world go unnoticed - the beautiful shapes of moss on tree bark, tree leaves and grass dancing on a slightly windy day,

sparrows delicately crafting their nest with their mate, moving water reflecting thousands of different shades of sun and moonlight. The act of noticing these parts of our world helps us recognize how each part of our world has its own life and purpose, just as we do, and can help us better understand our world and our place in it. --- Below me is endless midnight. Small beams of sun drip down at identical angles, reaching unseen depths before they dissipate into cold still water below. The wall beside me is alive - algae and sea fans sway in currents while shrimp dart around, dancing their translucent feet into bumpy sponges resembling large funeral urns. The sponges - red and orange like the palette of sunset - glow against the muddled blue backdrop, towering over surrounding life as a skyscraper dwarfs brick buildings. Corals sing with the motions of the water, their polyps moving slowly to catch the endless drifting sea particles. My first time diving opened my eyes to a world so magical and alien that I felt as if I was on a different planet. I was fourteen and enrolled in a marine biology and scuba diving program in the Caribbean reef where I was able to learn about the biology of the ocean and enter it on my own - a moment that vastly changed the direction of my life, a moment that turned my fear of the ocean into a deep passion. Down here, the world is one of different sights, senses, thoughts, dimensions – a world we will never fully understand through our limited human perceptions. Time and sounds slow and life becomes still, full of millions of organisms fulfilling their purposes, carrying out their daily tasks just as we do. I’m entranced by the diversity of fish species around me, the eel, coral. Each direction I look I could stare for hours and see something new each second. Here, life continues as it always does and I am just a visitor experiencing these brief moments of marine

time that transport me into a world of discovery and beauty, where I feel mutual systems of life reverberating around me, am reminded that in many ways, I’m just as important as a small shell lost within a sandy shore. ---- Over a decade after the discovery of my shark tooth, after I decided to dedicate my pursuits to the ocean in highschool, I finally learned the origins of my shark tooth. It belonged to one of the most powerful and graceful sharks - a tiger shark. These sharks are often 10-14 feet long, bearing massive jaws and skin with delicate dark blue stripes and patches. I’ve always wondered whether I’ve subconsciously known since I was young the significance that the ocean holds in my life, especially given the only object I kept in my safe was that of my favorite animal, an animal representing what I care most about in the world. Sharks have captivated me for so long – fish that have existed longer than dinosaurs, over 450 million years ago, long before we were even a species on this planet. Their evolutionary history has allowed them to develop electromagnetic sensors that detect electric potentials generated by muscle contractions of nearby organisms, a sense of smell that can detect one droplet of blood in a million parts of water, and lateral lines that can detect pressure changes in the ocean. Some species are even able to glow and emit light to communicate. They have long dominated ocean ecosystems, their presence as keystone species so important to our oceans that without them, many critical habitats and their inhabitants would be decimated. The amount of sharks we kill, trees we cut down, ecosystems we mine for oil and gas... we tend to think of ourselves as the most important species, as the most intelligent. We tend to forget how much we don’t know, don’t experience, are unable to understand about other beings. Sharks and other organisms are far more intricate and powerful than we are in ways we may not

understand. We will never truly understand what it's like to be a squid, an octopus, a tree, an ant, each with senses and modes of existence outside of our realm of imagination. Yet at some point, we all originated from the same thing. The ocean helps me understand, it helps me cultivate a sense of respect and understanding of our environments that make us who we are today. ---- Chicago winter air was always crisp and heavy, disrupted by steamy clouds of breath that disappeared into the black sky. Even while snowing, there was always a stillness outside, coinciding with dark afternoons and empty streets. I always felt warm and at home pulling up to my grandma’s home in the gray Honda pilot soaked with the smell of wet dog. The house was adorned with fake plastic candles lighting up every window, red velvet scarves covering long evergreen pine branches, and glassy deer with wreath collars sitting on the walkway. The ring of the doorbell creates a melodic piano tune as my grandma opens the heavy red shining door. She’d wear the red cashmere sweater and familiar perfume that covered my face in a furry blanket of comfort. During her last winter, my grandma and I sat inside her den, where the couch’s leather cushions absorbed the winter smells of the fire. We looked out her window onto snowy naked trees and the matted brown grass of her small and fragmented backyard, but from above, a massive landscape of stars shone overhead. That night the moon was bright orange and it sat low on the horizon, as if resting on top of the brick and cement covered horizon. We stared into the sky above us as the fire within the fireplace glinted onto the window, and she began telling stories of the constellations. We imagined ourselves floating out there amongst the stars, drifting towards the orange moon and away from earth, and she told me that even though her life is impermanent, she’ll always remain within me, within the universe.

--- As I stood watch at the front of the ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean watching the wooden bow cut across calm black waves under the white light of the moon, I was brought back to watching the stars with my grandma two years earlier - though this time, as I sailed in the absence of light pollution, the galaxies were brighter and more pronounced than I could have ever imagined before. I thought about my grandma’s influence on my life. Who would I resemble in the absence of all that she taught me about the world, about joy and wonder? She taught me of the magic I have within myself, the importance of love, presence, and my passion for the ocean, how one’s influence extends beyond more than just the physical. Gazing out onto the canvas of stars above me as the ocean slowly dances around me, I see my smallness in the universe as something more powerful than myself. Just as the stars are a culmination of their histories, of matter, and their surroundings, so too are we. As I continue to hold close the parts of my grandma that have extended into myself, I understand how our lives never fully disappear, how we stay as energy - each with our own special meanings.