After dancing into the wee hours at pub night at SFU, we piled into Phil’s trusty and rusty Ford Bronco and headed across town to our rival university, UBC.
It was 1988 and we were a motley and slightly inebriated band of students on a quest to verify the rumour that we would glow in the dark if we swam at Wreck Beach under this particular moonlit date. I had never swam in the buff (the common attire at Vancouver’s famous clothing optional beach) and was quite sure I would glow - out of embarrassment. Furthermore I was a northern interior girl, born of lakes and rivers; the ocean had no claim on me...yet.
We had stumbled in the darkness, single file on the rugged trail down to the water, our path lit by a single flashlight. The uneven steps threatened the 7-Eleven hotdogs held precariously in our hands. It would have been smarter to eat them in the parking lot before entering the dark woods, but we naively envisioned a moonlit beach picnic to fuel our swim. Once we had eaten, we sat and listened to the waves lapping against shore.
Conversation slowly dissipated. Silence fell around us.
Chris was the first to rise, disrobe and brave the rocky shoreline. His pale skin completely disappeared into the deep black sea and sure enough the water glowed neon yellow and lime green in his wake. A miracle or magic?
His childlike laughter and the mysterious phosphorescent swirls beckoned us to follow.
Luminescence explains how “you can make things give off light by exciting the atoms with many different kinds of energy” and bioluminescence is “made by living creatures such as fireflies, glow worms and many marine creatures.” (explainthatstuff.com).
This definition matched our experience exactly. Swimming amongst the plankton excited their atoms to produce light and I believe our own atoms lit up, too.
Late last night, I stood at the far end of the pier at Willingdon Beach, curious and hesitant at the same time. Kit, my young adult daughter, demonstrated how to produce the phosphorescence by swirling a stick in the water.
Soon my boyfriend Geoff sat and dangled his feet off the edge of the dock magnifying the light effect. I stood watching, intrigued at how such minimal movement produced such a dynamic effect within invisible creatures.
Now silver haired and aged 53, I knew I still wanted to swim and stir up the light. And why not? I was glad to have donned a bathing suit before heading to the popular qathet beach. Just in case the moment and the transient light inspired me.
Silence gathered around us this night, too, and another word came to my mind, liminal. The word liminal “is derived from the Latin word “limens,” which means threshold.
When you are interacting with a liminal space, you’re quite literally “standing on the threshold between two realities.” (theludlowgroup.com).
Last night I wrestled with being afraid to jump into the uncertain depths, and, with not knowing my own capacity to swim back to the familiar shore. Much has happened in the time and space between youth and my present mid-life reality, including a fairly recent diagnosis of MS and a marked decrease in my physical mobility and tolerance for stress.
At the edge of this pitch-black water, time paused, allowing me to both remember the magic of my first bioluminescent dip and to notice the present opportunity for my atoms to be excited - perhaps even rearranged. I couldn’t know what lay underneath the water and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to swim the distance to shore.
My sudden splash instantly produced a vibrant luminosity.
Worry was instantly replaced by glee. I floated on my back for a time gazing up at the Big Dipper. With starlight shining down from above and plankton sparkling all around me, I easily made my way to shore. I guess you could say the moonlight and tides of this ocean and this qathet land have indeed claimed me.
I am excited to see what comes next. I will start with another jump and glowy swim with plankton tonight. What about you?
Lana Cullis is a local writer and aspiring all-weather swimmer.
