The World-Famous Cod Hole

Jason was cleaning out our entertainment cabinet, and oh hurrah, found a videotape I thought I'd lost. It's the record of our excursion, back when we were fairly newly a couple, diving on a liveaboard exploring "The World Famous Cod Hole", which is a dive site way up along the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. And as you do, he immediately popped it into the VCR. I had to leave the room to cry. It's not that I don't love my life now. It's not like I wouldn't die for my boys a thousand times over. It's not like motherhood isn't the coolest, most profound, most life-altering spiritual exercise I've ever undertaken. But watching that video, I saw a girl who had a life where she could say "hey, it's been fun, but I'm heading off for two months to Fiji and Australia to go have adventures and soak in the ocean. I imagine I'll come back if I feel like it." And damn, I miss that. The soundtrack to the video that the guy on the boat did of that trip is the Des'ree song "Ya Gotta Be". It's been on fulltime on the radio in my head since Jason found the tape. Probably doesn't help that Rowan is watching the thing nearly compulsively. He is obviously having a fine time integrating this woman he knows as "Mama" with that person on the tape, who is six years younger, sporting two-inch-long screaming bleached blonde hair, and is in excellent physical shape. He seems delighted that he can now point me out. The first few watch-throughs, he mistook me for another woman on the trip; a doughy midwestern newlywed who annoyed the bejeebers out of me at the time. I suppose that's some form of cosmic come-uppance. I'm pretty sure that finding that tape is yet another notice from the Cosmic Muffin, that I really, really need to get on with my life. Or back to my life, it's hard to say which, precisely. I think that through sheerest inertia, I have somehow allowed myself to go fallow, and to sort of circle around the shallow end of the drain. Or maybe that's just what one naturally does when one gets married and has children. All things reckoned, I'm doing just fine. And then in quiet moments, Des'ree sneaks into the back of my brain, and she's saying to me,

Listen as your day unfolds Challenge what the future holds Try and keep your head up to the sky Lovers, they may cause you tears Go ahead release your fears Stand up and be counted Don't be ashamed to cry You gotta be You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm You gotta stay together All I know, all I know, love will save the day