Dominica, Part 2

Dominica, Dec. 1^st, Part 2

I run upstairs to my cabin on deck 5.  My memory of this is in stuttered glimpses, I think because my brain was stuttering in what I could take in.  I collapse in sobs first for Casey.  I get up and start to change out of my wet clothes.  I collapse again then for Casey’s parents.  I start to put on dry clothes.  I collapse again for us on the ship, for Casey’s friends and for our entire community.  I get water and Kleenex.  I collapse one more time in the cabin for everyone back in Charlottesville & UVA, for everyone who works for ISE and who sends us all of out into the big wide world time and time again.   This all happens in about five minutes.  In dry clothes, with Kleenex and water, I head up into the Union.  All around are students crying, holding each other, wrapped in blankets, and boxes of tissues—these last two signs of how much the crew cares and is trying to help in any way that they can.  Jacques and Emily and others (I’m sorry, I do not remember who) are standing in the center of the Union.  I go up to Jacques and I think I said, “Really?” and I think he said “Really”, and then he took me in his arms and I cried on his shoulder.  I know there are people all around crying, and I’m supposed to be offering what little comfort I can, I’m supposed to be offering my shoulder too, but first there are tears.  I try to gather myself, and I finally ask “How?”  And Jacques tells me.  And I collapse again into his shoulder, now knowing that the people crying around me are both grieving and traumatized.  I do not know how a vessel can hold so much pain.  I do know that I will be forever grateful for Jacques and Emily and Jonathan and Kierra and Renee and Brett and Kai and Kate and Isaiah and Annalyn and Chris and Gudrun and Dr. Greg and Dr. Ann and Mary and Damian and Pema and John and LaVohn and Randy and Shimim and Andrea and Darlene and Kathy and Matt B. and Mark P. and Bruce and Don and Lisa and Mikki and Keith and Joe and Jessa and Kim and Claire and Holly and Seth and Jack and Katie and Julie and Inez and Ian and Conrad and Danielle and Alex and Brandon and Jackson and Cathy and Shelby and Rebecca and Eddie and Jake and Jordan and Katie and Jennifer and Maritza and Cameron and Allie and Jess and Donovan and Andrew and everyone who offered their love and grace to one another as we pulled together to support one another as best we could. 

Later that night, John Tymitz calls everyone to the Union and tells people in person what happened.  Later that night, I sit with Dominican police officers for an hour as they take a statement from one of Casey’s friends who was there.  Later that night, Pema and Kate encourage me to eat something.  Pema brings me an apple.  Kate asks what I want, I don’t want anything, but I know that eating is fuel, and so I say I just want vegetables.  Jerry, from the deck 7 bar, finds me in Tymitz about ten minutes later and runs up with a handful of paper—“Here, here is the paper for you!”  Everyone trying to help.  Except I have no idea why it is so imperative for me to have paper right in that moment, and then we all figure out that Kate asked Jerry to get a pepper for me because I wanted vegetables, and there are green peppers for pizza on deck 7, and  peppers turned into the emergency paper.   Ten minutes late I do get a plate of sliced green peppers, which I do eat, and somehow they do help.

The next morning about 70 of us quietly walk to a church in Dominica at 7:30 in the morning.  It is hot and tropical and we are still stunned. The congregation there welcomes us with grace.

Other stuttered snapshots from that week:

Standing out in the rain during our last on-ship time.  All of the student life staff is there (so grateful for every one of them), welcoming students back on board, subdued energy, gentle hugs and some smiles and some tears.  Staying behind to be the last staff back on the ship, claiming that. Letting the rain fall on me, sharp sparks of coolness.  Knowing how different this leaving is from the 2007 voyage.  We are not all back on board, safe and sound.  We are leaving Casey behind.  No John on deck 5 to smile up to with thumbs up; this John was getting ready to lead a memorial service.  One knee on the ground, hands to my heart, rain and tears, I said goodbye to Casey, I got back on the ship, last staff member back on board.  Later that night we got a delivery of 200 flowers to throw overboard for a maritime mourning ritual.  Before the ship left, I got off one more time.  The security folks seemed to understand.  It was still raining.  I left a flower on the dock, and came back inside, last staff member back on board, again. Struggling with not bringing everyone home.

That week I learned a new hug—one where I wrapped my left arm around someone and held the back of their head with my right arm, essentially channeling everyone’s mom or dad who couldn’t be there in that moment to hold their child in their grief.

At Casey’s memorial on board, only about 30 hours after she passed, I learned more grace and wisdom from her friends, who had beautiful reflections about her and who also managed to incorporate a touch of humor as well;  I learned how that little ripple of joy and laughter helped us hold the heavy grief.  On Sunday night on the ship, after Casey’s memorial service had ended, we all just sat there, over 500 of us.  Not moving, holding the space.

Getting words of wisdom from Mary, about how we can still claim the joy of our journey.  This translated into a line of my commencement speech—the joy doesn’t negate the pain, and the pain doesn’t negate the joy.

Writing the commencement speech—I think it was only 5 minutes long, if that, but it took me a solid day to write it.  I enclosed myself in the deans office, and wrote and cried and wrote and cried.  I wanted to be able to say it without breaking down.

And finally, two things, two reflections:

1.  I went back to work on Monday, Dec. 10^th, and one of the first things I did was go for a walk with my sweet and wise colleague, Marlene.  I told her much of what happened, and I also shared the insight of what else I was grieving—I was grieving (and still am) the fact that I couldn’t bring everyone home safely.  My biggest two goals of the voyage were to get everyone home safely and to help to build an amazing, caring community.  And I couldn’t bring everyone home safely.  Marlene’s words to me, with space for hope and for doubt and for wonder—not making it an easy remedy, but a true inquiry, were, “Lisa, how do you know that Casey isn’t ‘Home’?”  I’m grateful for her words, they reminded me that I don’t know, that as much as we work for something, some things are not in our control, and that I am but a small humble human on a big planet in a infinite universe.

2.  The other reflection, simply this:  We all matter.  Casey showed us how much she mattered, both alive with her presence and smiles, and in her absence. And in turn, we all showed each other how much we matter in our outpouring of grief and love and support.  The emails and notes and messages and hugs I got all helped, they really did make a difference. We all matter, every single one of us, all the time, we matter and we are connected and we do make a difference with our love and our simply being.  We all matter.

Much love,

Lisa

Dominca, Part 1

Dominica, Dec. 1^st, 2012

This is the entry I’ve been avoiding, and yet I feel like I can’t access writing about the rest of my trip without passing through this one first, and I can’t quite access life yet without writing about this.  It’s emotional.  I’m trying to do something by writing it down, I’m not sure what yet, but it’s emotional and heartbreaking.

Dawn over the mountains of Dominica—a gorgeously beautiful island arising out of the ocean after 6 days at sea and after passing islands to our left and right.  John Tymitz, Renee, Kate, Pema, Patrick, Chris, Kelly, Gudrun, Ian and other students, all gathered on the back of deck 7, bathing in the beauty of the dawn—everywhere we look are gorgeous mountains of fluffy clouds, catching the light and tossing it back and forth from purple to gold to pink.  We too are all bathed in this light—it is joyous on our faces.  On the port side of the ship the sun is flexing her rays across the mountain ranges, and on the starboard side the bright moon is still smiling down at us, and we drink in beauty from every side.  We pull closer to Roseau and wonder exactly where we will dock and then we see a T-shaped dock, a wide planked walkway out from the city to the top of the T where the ship will anchor and tie-up.  It is strongly reminiscent to me of the dock in Guatemala, our last port in the summer 2007 voyage.  On that voyage, that dock became an impromptu RD-facilitated threshold of leaving the port-part of the trip behind and pausing to think about what gifts you were taking with you as you crossed back to the vessel.  On that voyage, everyone was safe and sound on time, and it was a professional peak experience to know that the community we had built was caring and respectful of themselves and others to be back on time, and it was a professional peak experience to know that everyone was back safely at the end of so many adventures.  I spoke of this in my interview for the Fall 2012 voyage, that this ultimately was my goal—a caring community, and everyone back home safely.  On that voyage, I was the last staff member on the dock (besides the crew), smiling up at John Burkoff on deck 5 with a walkie talkie, shouting down “all back and on time!” with a couple of whoops and arms raised in the air, full of gratitude and a deep sense of accomplishment. 

We have two days in this paradise, and weeks ago Pema (since I’ve not been going in a linear fashion, to fill you in: Pema, one of my best friends of 18 years, joined me in Argentina for the last 5 weeks of the voyage) and I decided to take the plunge and just fill up our Dominica days with SAS trips—we wanted to wring as much joy and adventure out of the last port as possible and not spend our time trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.  For Saturday the first day we signed up for inner-tubing down a river in the morning, and a 4x4 adventure jeep trip up into the mountains in the afternoon.  For Sunday, we signed up for a river to ocean kayak adventure.  I was excited for all of them, especially the kayak trip, not only because I love kayaking, but also because although we had been around the rim of the Atlantic, I had yet to swim in her waters on this voyage. 

The ship cleared, and we headed off the ship with the innertube trip—which included Jacques and Brett and Kai.  We first visited the emerald falls, where we all plunged in to the cool waters in the midst of a tropical island jungle, swimming to stand or sit or cling to rocks under the waterfall.  I remember everyone laughing and posing and a multitude of water-proof go-pro cameras.  It is really sweet to be on an adventure with students, staff, and faculty—how the joy is contagious, and shared, and feels like a shared blessing.  Our guide on the van sweetly and jokingly apologized to us as we drove to the next destination.  “I’m sorry to say, that now that you have dipped into our waters, you will be living longer.  That is the way of life in Dominica—it is beautiful here and healthy here and people live longer. We have the longest living woman in the world here, she lived to 126.”  From the waterfalls, we headed over to a mountain river, suited up in life-jackets and helmets, were given a paddle, told that one of the rules was to splash one another, and launched off into a beautiful class I-II river.  Through jungle and through pebbly river-washed plains, and through ravines, we bumped and splashed and spun and rafted together to tell jokes and sing songs and watched this beautiful world unfurling around us, floating along in joy and gratitude, and this was only the morning!  At the end we had fresh guava and coconut and a taste of island spiced rum.  Damp and exhilarated, we piled back into the vans and headed back to the ship. 

Pema, Kai, Brett and I went out for a quick bite to eat in town—I had a chicken curry pasty with a Coke.  We headed back to the ship and I picked up my big camera for the afternoon’s trip, and then we got into an open top 4x4 jeep that fit 16 people in the back.  Brett, Kai, Kate, Annalyn, Chris, Jen, Pema, myself and several students got into one of the jeeps, and John Tymitz and other friends and students got into the second jeep.  We headed up into the gorgeous mountains, stopping to see the volcanic hot water springs, several vistas, and finally ending up off-roading to a short hike to a stream pouring out of a ravine. 

Most of us went swimming in this ravine, which was like swimming into a cave, a cleft in the world, six or seven smooth-walled chambers with a slice of green jungle light way above us, our laughter bouncing off of the walls, as we swam our way to yet another waterfall.  It was an outdoor temple of awe, friendship, adventure, and connection.  At the waterfall we climbed up onto a ledge and plunged back down into the center of the cavern, whooping triumphantly, and slowly drifted and swam our way back into the sunny entrance, which included a side-stream of volcano-warmed water.  We got out, dried off, and had yet more fresh coconut.  The drive down the mountain was lush and beautiful with the sun beginning to turn everything golden.  The air was soft, and my body felt like I was 8 again;  I had been swimming three separate times that day, and felt pleasantly alive and tired all at the same time.  Upon arriving at the ship, I could tell that there was only about 5 minutes left until the sun set over the ocean in front of the ship, and I wanted to walk out along the wall of the port to see the sunset.  You could walk along the top of this wall that faced the ocean, or you could walk along the sidewalk about 4 feet below the wall, and I walked out along the top of the wall.  I passed by several students who did not look happy about something, but didn’t stop to engage, as I knew that several of them had been going through some personal drama earlier that week, and I simply walked out along the wall and took several pictures of the sunset painting its magic across the world.  At this point, one of my RDs, Brett, came over and said something to me about hearing that a student had died.  I shook my head, and said that we would have known, we were with John Tymitz the whole afternoon.  In my head I thought well maybe someone got hurt, I will go check in, and I took 2 more pictures of the sun slipping beneath the horizon and started back to the ship.  As I walked along the wall, I passed by two students below me who were on the sidewalk and leaning against the wall itself—they looked really sad.  I slowed and stopped and half-sat down to check in on them.  “Is everything ok?” I asked, still not putting everything together, still deep in the throes of denial.  “You all look really sad.”  One of the students said something to the effect of “yeah…we are really sad. A student died today.”  And in the act of just beginning to sit down, it all broke through into my consciousness, and I rose up (I think I said “I have to go” and started running back to the ship, along the wall, through port security, down the long dock.  I don’t remember my body, I just remember running as fast as I could.  And snapshots of realization.  And not knowing which of the 475 students (minus the 30 I had been with or just seen) we had lost, and the weight of that in my soul.  And passing Pema on my flight down the dock and shouting to her “I won’t be able to go out to dinner tonight” as if that mattered.  And getting to the gangway and trying to swipe in and seeing the stricken look of grief in Chief Security Vladamir’s face as they just waved me through, with every step knowing that our lives were going to be forever changed, and meeting Mary Andres (one of our shipboard counselors and an amazing person) right at the deck 2 entrance, who stopped me.  “Tell me” I said.  “One of our students died,” she said.   Time slowing down briefly on the first syllable—K.  Knowing a Casey and a Kalynn and several Katies and the rest of her name on Mary’s lips.  “Casey Schulman” she said.  I knew Casey Schulman.  I don’t know when the tears started, I do know that I was in shock and a part of me wanted to keep running forever.  “Go put on dry warm clothes and get water” Mary said.  “And go to the Union.  They are in the Union.” She said, giving me direction for the next ten minutes, giving me the only advice that she could, I clung to it like it was a life boat and ran upstairs to change into dry clothes, get water, and head into the Union.

Part 2 is still working its way through my heart and head.