Vacation, Part 2

February 4, 2024

Last night, we took a nighttime kayak tour from the Fajardo port to see the bioluminescent algae in Puerto Rico. It was magical. Sometimes things are only magical in retrospect—in the moment, you’re distracted or hungry or annoyed, and it’s only afterwards when you’re telling someone else the story you talk about how great it was.

This wasn’t that; it was magical in the moment. The kayak’s movement was peaceful and smooth. The brush-covered channels were dark and mysterious. The algae (actually, plankton) were visible around our paddles. When we got to the bay, they put tarps over us so we could see the full, dazzling effect of billions of glowing microscopic organisms.

I wrote his name in the water with my finger. Each letter shone for an instant before vanishing. I felt him then, in the way I have been expecting and never quite getting. I felt that he is part of the ocean and the sky, he is around me, he is nowhere because he is everywhere.

I sobbed under a tarp while the stranger in the next kayak cupped some water in her hand and squealed with delight.