It’s All Maya!

It may seem a little strange that I would come back from a short break of relaxing with friends and then begin talking about death and dying, but when you come face to face with death sometimes you just have to talk about it.  These past few days have been somewhat emotional and yet, paradoxically, void of emotions.  What’s been going through my mind are the people who died on 9/11.  I know exactly why I think of them.

I think about people who wake up in the morning and have no idea that today will be their last day.  For the people who went to work on 9/11, it was just another day.  There were no signs that this morning would be any different from all the other mornings when they woke up and went to work in the Twin Towers.

If there were signs - would they have gone?  Probably not, but who knows?  Do healthy people wake up in the morning with the thought, Is today the last day of my life?  No, each day we wake up and we assume that when night falls we will once again lie down and go to sleep to do it all again the following day….and yet, our lives are so fragile!  As fragile as carrying a candle in the wind.  Each morning we awake and light the flame and go throughout our day protecting it, but at any moment just a small gust of wind could blow it out.

Several days ago seven candles could have blown out, yet it started out just like any other day.  We woke up, showered, dressed, had breakfast, and then decided to go on a friend’s boat.  Greg and his two sons, Zach and Zane, met Stephanie, Alexis, Patrick and myself at the marina.  It was a beautiful morning as we set off.  The sun was warm and shimmering on the water.  Fishes were jumping and we stopped to watch a group of dolphins feasting away.  All of us were taking photographs before heading out to sea.

The weather was perfect, hardly any wind with just the right amount of cumulus clouds to play hide and seek with the sun to keep the temperature from climbing too high.  Greg saw some friends of his on another boat and picked up speed for a short race before veering off in another direction.  We sailed for hours and then Greg navigated us to a nearby deserted island where Patrick, Greg, and the boys started digging for clams.  They weren’t disappointed, there were so many they filled an ice chest!  Patrick was already planning the menu and how he was going to prepare them.  Stephanie was sunbathing as I took photos of everyone and the island.

An hour or so later, the day was beginning to heat up as we set off once again.  Zane cast his net a few times trying to capture a few crabs and then Zach, Alexis, and Zane went diving.  I watched in amazement.  For someone like me who does a mean “doggie paddle” in the shallow part of the swimming pool and always keeps my head out of the water, I couldn’t imagine ever having the nerve to jump into the ocean!  Actually, the idea of drowning in the ocean was one of my worst nightmares!  I looked at one of the life jackets that was lying there and I thought about putting it on, but was distracted by Greg asking me if I wanted to navigate the boat.

“Sure!  Why not?!” I said.  I took the wheel as we set off once again.  The boys were all sitting in the bow daggling their feet.  Several minutes later we came upon another group of dolphins, so we slowed the engine and watched as they swam nearby.  Then another larger boat passed by causing huge after waves.  When the first wave hit, it came over into the boat!   In a matter of seconds the front of the boat was inudated with water and started to sink.  Everything happened so quickly, yet at the same time it seemed to happen in slow motion; it’s hard to describe.  I watched the front fill with water and tip to the right.  I watched as my eyes could not believe what I was seeing, but my mind was telling me that this is real!  “It can’t be!  Oh my God!” I said, and then I was falling into the water as the boat capsized!

Everything was dark, I was waving my arms and legs, my heart was up to my mouth when I surfaced!  I didn’t know where I was; all I knew was I had air to breathe.  I realized I was under the boat and there was a pocket of air.  “Oh my God!  This can’t be happening!  This is a nightmare!  This can’t be happening!”  But I knew it was real, and it was happening!  I was so frightened, yet I couldn’t stop saying those words.  I felt so alone, yet I think I would have stayed there hoping that someone would come rescue me.  That is, until I noticed that I was losing that precious pocket of air.  It was getting smaller and smaller by the second!  When I had to lift my face up to breathe, I knew I had to leave or I would drown!

It took everything in me to emerge myself back into the water.  Not knowing how to swim, I didn’t give myself much chance of making it out of there.  I knew I was going back into the water, but I didn’t know if I was going to come back out.  Still, I had no choice.  This is it, I thought as I took a final big gulp of air and lowered myself down into the murky water.  I started waving my arms and legs without any idea of what was happening, where I was going, or what was up or down, when all of a sudden I surfaced up out of the water.  Patrick grabbed me.  “It’s all right, Cheri!  It’s all right!” he said, holding onto me as I gasped for air.

We were all in the water holding onto the sides of the overturned boat when we saw another boat in the distance.  “Help!” Alexis yelled.  “Help!” I screamed, waving one arm.  “Help!” we all screamed.  The boat saw us and slowly made its way toward us.  It was at that moment that I thought about sharks!  (Thank God I hadn’t thought of it sooner, otherwise I would have panicked even more underneath the boat!)  I scrambled my way up on top of the overturned boat and got my feet out of the water.  I must have communicated my thoughts with everyone by telepathy, because soon afterwards everyone else made their way up on top of the boat as we waited to be rescued.  Thank God the boat was made of some sort of Unibond construction and couldn’t sink!

Patrick, I think, had it the worst!  His feet had been caught in the canopy of the boat and he couldn’t get loose!  He struggled for the longest time and he thought, My God, this is how I’m going to die!  Something made him swim deeper down into the ocean and he was able to free himself, but his lungs were ready to burst by the time he resurfaced!

He said what was even worse was when he realized that I wasn’t there!  “Où est Lynn, où est Lynn?!” he asked, his heart skipping a beat.  Everyone looked at one another, still in shock by their own experience.  “I’ll go down.” Greg said.  Patrick was still trying to catch his breath, he was exhausted, but he was planning on following Greg down to search for me, when they said, I came popping out of the water, sunglasses on, camera still around my neck, and white as a ghost!  (Lol.)

Stephanie and the others had had the good reflexes to jump away from the boat and then swim back to it to hang on.  Little did they know that as each person swam back to the boat and held on, their weight kept dragging the boat lower and lower into the water and my pocket of air kept diminishing until I had to abandon my safety net.

All seven of us made it aboard our rescue boat with hardly a scratch.  It wasn’t until we were home that I noticed I had a small cut in my foot that bled, not much, but it’s legendary that sharks can smell one drop of blood from a mile away!  Maybe that’s why I got my feet out of the water as quickly as I could!

Little by little as we learned about each one’s ordeal we realized just how easily things could have ended so drastically for all of us.  If I had put on my life jacket, I would not have been able to dive back into the water and I would have surely drowned as the water rose; the same is true for Patrick.  If the boat wasn’t a Boston Whaler,* it would have sunk and Patrick and I would have gone down with it; not only that, everyone else would have had to stay afloat on their own and it would have made them less visible for being rescued.  As for sharks - I’d rather not think about it!

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Maya Muses:  As Patrick later told Stephanie, if people on our rescue boat had taken photos of us being rescued, it would have made the cover of Paris Match!  If that weren’t bad enough, Alexis’ dad kept text messaging him and started worrying when he couldn’t get ahold of his son.  (Everyone’s cameras and cellphones were in the ocean!)  When we got home, Alexis called his dad.  “What’s going on?  Is Lynn torturing you in a dungeon?”  Michel asked him.  “Uh, no, but the boat that we were on sank!” Alexis told his dad!  (I don’t think he’ll be letting his son visit us again anytime soon!!!)

As for me, from now on I’ll stick to my first plan, which was to skip the boat ride and go shopping instead!

During dinner that evening we listened to the CD, Le Coeur des Femmes.  As Marie started to sing Chante, it took on a whole new meaning for each of us as we sat there and listened!

Chante (#12)

Chante la vie chante
Comme si tu devais mourir demain
Comme si plus rien n’avait d’importance
Chante, oui chante
Aime la vie aime
Comm’ un voyou comm’ un fou comm’ un chien
Comme si c’était ta dernière chance
Chante oui chante
Tu peux partir quand tu veux
Et tu peux dormir où tu veux
Rêver d’une fille
Prendre la Bastille
Ou claquer ton fric au jeu
Mais n’oublie pas.

Chante la vie chante
Comme si tu devais mourir demain
Chante comme si plus rien n’avait d’importance
Chante, oui chante
Fête fais la fête
Pour un amour un ami ou un rien
Pour oublier qu’il pleut sur tes vacances
Chante oui chante
Et tu verras que c’est bon
De laisser tomber sa raison
Sors par les fenêtres
Marche sur la tête
Pour changer les traditions
Mais n’oublie pas.

Chante la vie chante
Comme si tu devais mourir demain
Chante comme si plus rien n’avait d’importance
Chante, oui chante
La la la….
Chante, oui, chante

P. Delanoë/M. Fugain

Sing

Sing, life, sing
As though you must die tomorrow.
Sing as if nothing is important.
Sing, yes, sing.
Love, life, love
Like a thug, like a fool, like a dog
Like it was your last chance
Sing, yes, sing.
You can leave when you want.
And you can sleep where you want.
Dream of a girl,
Take the Bastille,
Or blow your money in gambling,
But don’t forget…

Sing, life, sing.
As though you must die tomorrow.
Sing as if nothing is important.
Sing, yes, sing.
Celebrate, live it up
For a love, a friend, or for nothing.
To forget that it’s raining during your vacation.
Sing, yes, sing.
And you’ll see that it’s good
To let yourself go.
Leave by the windows,
Walk on your head,
To change your habits,
But don’t forget…

Sing, life, sing.
As though you must die tomorrow.
Sing as if nothing is important.
Sing, yes, sing.
La la la….
Sing, yes, sing.

(By purchasing the cd, the proceeds go to the Association Laurette Fugain in their fight against leukemia.  You can listen to portions of the album here.   

Photo Credits:  Flickr and Personal Photos that I was able to retreive from my camera.  The camera doesn’t work, but I took the card out and, lo and behold, I had the photographs.