Island of One

As many of you know, I have a fascination with island living, a draw, a hope, a dream. I don’t know where it came from or why but it’s there, nonetheless. I’ve never been afraid of the water and can remember from my childhood specific instances that impacted my life. I was young, maybe 4 or 5, if that, and walked on the beach with my mother in San Francisco. I can hear the waves, feel the sand under my feet and the ocean breeze across my face. I felt at peace. Another experience close to the same age was when I was up camping. My dad left me and my brother while he went down river to fish. My brother trapsed over to the river to see it, and I was playing right on its shores. My brother turned around and left, and I reached out for a red ribbon I say floating in the water, in an instant – KERPLUNK – I went in. I remember floating downstream, I had no fear, just a keen awareness of the rocks, of the bubbles and subconsciously thinking how do I get out of this. I thought if I just reach my arm out, I will snag on a branch and that will be that, and that’s what happened. I don’t recall how I got out exactly but somehow, I did. Then I sat there, looking around. I could see my dad downstream and called out to him, but he couldn’t hear me and so I did what most little children do, I started to cry. My brother found me short order and took me back to our camp and I don’t remember much after that. My point being in all this, is in all rights I should have some fear of water, but I don’t. I have always loved the water and although have come close to drowning on several occasions, I have a connection to it, especially the ocean, that I can’t fully understand. So hence my intrigue and enchantment with the ocean and island life.

When I was older, I was able to take scuba lessons and had the ambition to move to the Florida Keys to work for a dive shop there and start my life as an island boy. Life has a way of getting in the way and also giving us time to educate ourselves. Well, through many mistakes I eventually did become a scuba instructor and I lived in San Diego for a time, but I have never been able to live that “island life”. After much research I knew that the Caribbean was not where I wanted to be, too many hurricanes. So, I looked south. I thought maybe an island off Puerto Rico’s coast would be good. That didn’t work out. I ended up in Hawaii, for a visit. I have made 3 attempts to move to Hawaii and yet I am still landlocked in the states. I am an island of one. I researched what an island spirit is and basically what I found was, an island spirit is one born with one foot on the land and one foot in the sea. They exist in both worlds. Now, I was born in, like I said, a landlocked state, mountains, rivers, and no ocean. But that deep rooted longing has always been with me. I say all this to really make another point though. We are all an island of one. We all have our own desires, our own dreams, our own passions. We are uniquely made with our own personalities, likes and dislikes. Yet, we are tainted by our environment to a huge degree. We think we are to go off to college, get married, have children, buy a house because that’s what everybody does, that’s what life is. No, it’s not.

Life is the choices you make either from fear and walking dead thinking, or life choices can be made from the soul and an awareness of true self. Don’t be afraid to paint those pictures, create that book, travel to those countries, sky dive, climb that or any mountain. The only thing stopping you, is you. An island of one. You are your own island whether you know it or not. How you create that island is entirely up to you. You may surrender that island to the hostiles, and they take it over and dictate how you live, or you may start to build your place only to have it blown over by storms. We will all have storms. How we weather them again is up to ourselves. Sure, we need others to help, to support, to encourage but still, ultimately, the choice of how to live is up to you. You may feel overwhelmed for an island is surrounded by the vastness of the mighty oceans, 1000’s of miles of water and we aren’t a marine mammal. We need land, we need structure, but we don’t need to be or to live in fear. The world is about 70% ocean. Without it, we wouldn’t have the world we do. So, embrace your island, search it out, learn it, know it and then use it in harmony with all that is out there. There is no reason to fear the ocean, just because it’s unknown. There is no reason to fear the island, it’s your island, isn’t it? And I think that’s one of the deep understandings of my own truth and desires of trying to seek out an island life both figuratively and realistically. I am aware of bigger things, I am not afraid to live water locked, I am not afraid to take a chance, but I am my own worst enemy as well. This, I am aware of and this is my island. Do you know what your island is? Let’s seek it out and find what paradise it my bring. See ya on the journey.