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Back Breathing Underwater Save as PDF
Chapters (22)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  21. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  22. Newsletter Sign-up

People, I think, are not so much like oceans or puddles or rivers. I think they’re more like planets, whole planets, with all kinds of oceans and puddles and rivers of their own. Some people splash easy, some people dive deep fast, but we’re all sinking and swimming together.

I dive to the ocean floor and dig my fingers into the sand. I swim around the ship’s side and put my nose inches from the old, mossy wood. The world here is green. Every snapped beam, every crooked mast, is a story. Multicolored fish swim in and out of the cracks and gaps and holes.

A hand on my shoulder pulls me from my glazed-over daydreaming. It’s Ruth, of course. She taps her head, like she’s had an idea. I nod. She puts her hands in circles and holds them up to her goggles, looking through them like binoculars. I must look confused, because she holds her hands out, thinks for a second, then starts signing. The letters come slowly to her hands; it’s been a long time.

She signs: T-R-E-A-S-U-R-E.

Treasure. Treasure Hunt.

I nod again, this time so hard I nearly bang my head on my tank. If it were possible to bounce underwater, I would be.

We give each other the okay sign. Then I shrug to say, What’s our word? She gets it, and pauses to think. She signs again:

B-R-E-A-T-H-I-N-G.

Breathing. Our Treasure Hunt word today is breathing. I wish I could take a picture of the entire planet. O-K-A-Y, I sign.

Something Breathing.

Maybe I’ll find rocks that look like lungs. Maybe I’ll take a picture of the way waves go in and out like a sigh. Maybe I’ll manage a close-up of a fish’s gills.

Something Breathing.

I watch Ruth swim away, looking for treasure. As Ruth swims, she glides into a sunbeam from the surface. It catches her and she looks up, her flippers sashaying below her. Bubbles from her mask pop on their way upward.

I lift my camera.

I take a picture.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For all my treasures—

SOMETHING NEW

When I wrote the earliest drafts of this story back in 2013, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t know how much digging and exploring and soul-searching and revising were ahead of me. I’ve rewritten this story so many times I’ve lost count, but what I do know is that at each step, I’ve had people helping and supporting me, and each of those people has added something new and helped me bring this story bit by bit closer to its true form.