A Story

Several years ago, when I was living in Boston and working on a wedding publication, Jamaica’s Board of Tourism reached out and invited one of us to come to Jamaica to see all the great places people could have destination weddings there. My business partner offered me the trip. A few days off by myself in Jamaica instead of momming, wifing, and working in snowy Boston in December? Um, ok!

A small group of us “press” people were wined and dined and treated all around the island.

One day, toward the end of the trip, our little van wound us inland to the edge of the Martha Brae River.

The water was this beautiful cloudy jade color snaking calm and swift through lush jungly banks.

There was a fleet of bamboo rafts and Jamaican guides to navigate us down the river.

I wish I could remember my guide’s name.

I remember the feeling.

He moved around the front of the raft; I sat in the back. He steered us along using a long bamboo pole.

The first half of the river was a little tricky, but he knew every ebb and current of the river and gently sang or whistled Bob Marley, “Don’t worry...about a thing…” and songs like it.

The songs moved through his whole field. He kinda danced along, subtly bobbing and weaving. He utterly embodied that lightness of being, making it all seem entirely effortless.

I felt alive and completely at ease. Delighted and enchanted with all the beautiful sounds and smells and sensations to take in.

Skimming right on the surface, we passed through the warm thick air like we were our own wind. The cool river water looked almost glacial and balanced the heat perfectly.

By the second half of the ride, the river had widened and slowed to an easy meander.

I’d gotten to be friends with my guide by this point and asked him if I could try navigating us. “You want to run the river?” He laughed and seemed surprised but he let me!

My body did not have the same lightness he had, despite it being a significantly easier section of the river.

I stood wide and solid like I was ready to face something much fiercer than this easy current. But he had infected me with his lightness of heart, and eventually, my body lightened up, too. 

It was so much fun!

I felt even more alive. Now I was calm but even more alert, engaged with my surroundings, and experiencing just the right amount of challenge. My new friend sat in the back of the raft now and gave me pointers here and there. But mostly, we just enjoyed it all.

I laughed, he laughed, and all the other guides passing us laughed as he played up the part of the relaxing tourist while his buddies were still working.

Later that evening, as the sun was setting, our little group was brought to a small boat at the edge of a lagoon where the Martha Brae River empties into the Caribbean Ocean.

Someone explained how the brackish waters—where the freshwater of the river meets the salt waters of the sea—somehow created the right conditions for this lagoon to be the brightest of only a handful of bioluminescent bays known in the world.

We rode out in the little boat to the middle of the bay. As the last of the twilight faded, our churning wake began to glow brighter and brighter blue.

Once we made it out to the middle of the calm lagoon, our captain cut the power on the boat. He passed out life jackets to any of us that wanted to swim in the water. Of course, I wanted to jump in!

I told him I’d rather not use the lifejacket, though. I wanted to move freely and unconstricted in the magical water. But he explained that the water was actually pretty shallow, and there were only a few feet of clear water and then a few feet of mud below that.

If I were to jump in, stand up or even tread water or move too much, the water all around me would become too murky to see the bioluminescence.

He suggested I slip into the water gently and use the life jacket to let me float on top so I could see and play in the magic on the surface.

So I did.

And it was magic. 

We were so far out into the bay, and the night was so dark that there was only blackness above, below, and nearly as far as I could see in any direction—save for the scattering of stars in the sky and a few distant lights from the shores like some stars slid down the black dome to gather at the mirror of the horizon line. 

Suspended in this starry blackness, when I moved, bright light blue sparkled and glowed around and on me like something from Avatar. It was so surreal. It felt like this strange mix of feeling so alive and awake but at the same time, like dreaming and existing in another dimension.

Only a couple of us got in the water, but we played and played until eventually, it had gotten too murky around us, everyone else back in the boat had gotten bored, and the captain said it was time to go back. 

On the way back, I was chatting with the captain about how it all worked. I was curious about the plankton and the bay and what made it glow and a million other things. He patiently answered my questions with a lightness similar to my guide on the raft earlier that day. 

Eventually, I asked him, “How deep is the mud out there?” He laughed and said, “I don’t know. I don’t put my feet down there because that’s where all the eels are!” 

“ALL THE EELS??!!” I’m sorry, WHAT?? I was horrified! 

“Oh my gosh!! Why didn’t you tell me that before you told me I could get in??” 

He laughed harder. “I thought you might not get in if you knew!”

Now everyone on the boat who hadn’t gotten in was dying laughing. Like, can hardly breathe laughing.

And the three of us who had gotten in were all in a state of shock and disgust. Wondering if and how many eels we’d been swimming with... Thinking back to any moments where we thought maybe a fish had touched us.

My whole body writhed with that get-it-off-me feeling of having just walked through a spider’s web.

But as that initial shock wore off, we laughed with him and agreed that he was probably right.

I might not have gotten in if I’d known, and I definitely wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the experience as much if I had been conscious of “all the eels” right below me as I was floating in another dimension. And I was grateful I hadn’t missed out on the magic because of the eels below.

Gosh, it still makes me laugh out loud to remember. 

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Co-Regulation, Self-Regulation, & Attunement

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