Soft, Powerful, and Blue

aurorafabrywood
Jun 12
3 min read

Updated: Jun 15

Some people find the ocean overwhelming.

I find it soothing.

I’ve been swimming in big water for as long as I can remember—not just playing at the edge but entering it, letting it hold me, move me, strip me down to something essential.

One of the first times I swam in truly big waves was on the Big Island of Hawaii. A storm was rolling in, and the sea was full of power—darkening skies, crashing surf, energy rising in every direction. I should’ve been afraid. But I wasn’t. I waded in, mask on, and floated just beyond the break, letting the waves lift and carry me while I watched the world below. It was like entering another layer of reality. No need to think. No need to speak. Just float, and breathe, and belong.

That’s what the ocean does—it invites you into a different kind of awareness.

In the tidepools off the Big Island, I moved slowly through the lava-formed shallows, careful not to stir up sand or graze the coral. Pufferfish hovered like sentinels; parrotfish darted past like watercolor brushstrokes. I even heard one biting at the coral—a delicate crunching sound. The intimacy of it struck me. You don’t expect to hear fish munching.

I’ve always been drawn to the small things. But big moments are magic too.

One morning on the Big Island, I went for a swim in a remote bay. The ocean was glassy and still, the light soft and new. I was returning to shore when I saw them—two massive manta rays, swimming right at the surface. Just me and them, and the ocean, and whale song in the distance. Their movements were slow and wide. I watched them for over an hour, sometimes needing to get out of the way because they came so close. They didn’t mind me at all. It felt like something sacred had let me in. Like I’d been welcomed without question into a world that wasn’t mine, but that somehow knew me.

Years before that, I stayed in a simple cabana on the beach in Tulum, Mexico. The bed floated on ropes, and the sea was just steps from my door. Every morning I’d swim straight out to the reef. That was where I fell in love with snorkeling—the coral, the sponges, the flickering fish, the rhythm of breath through the tube and heartbeat in my ears. One day, I paid for a boat trip, thinking they’d show me something new. Instead, they motored out to the exact reef I’d been swimming to alone. I laughed. Of course I’d already found it. That’s what happens when you follow instinct instead of instruction.

I’ve felt that magic in deeper water, too. Scuba diving in Lake Malawi. Off the coast of Mozambique. In the calm, crystalline Mediterranean near Ibiza. Every time I descend, the water quiets something in me. I stop trying to be anything. I let go. And something in my nervous system releases.

Wild water does that. It clears old stories.

Last year on St. John’s, I slipped into the sea at Cinnamon Bay. Just below the surface, purple sea fans swayed with the current. A young turtle blinked up at me from behind a fan, and I became joy. Most people are searching for big fish, big moments. But it’s the tiny things that break me open. The miniature lives moving with quiet purpose. The flashes of yellow or silver darting just out of reach.

Initially, at Cinnamon Bay when I had lowered my masked face into the water, I noticed a small fish beneath me. I swam out, slowly, and it stayed tucked under my chest like I was its mother. For nearly 45 minutes, it swam with me. I dove, twisted, turned—it stayed. As I headed back to shore, it vanished for a moment. Then reappeared—with two more. Three baby fish now swimming with me, using my body for shelter, like I was the safest thing in the ocean.

I don’t always know what I’m seeking when I go into the water.

But I always come out different.

Softer.

Clearer.

Whole.