The Blue Hole

In the Caribbean off the coast of Belize is what was, in prehistoric times, a gigantic cave. It now is a 300m deep perfectly round hole that is submerged, surrounded by magnificent coral reefs and one of the best dive sites in the world. The water around the blue hole is the most amazingly clear, iridescent blue, filled with fish, dolphins and all sorts of incredible sea creatures. The sky competes against the sea with its own brilliant blue and the stunning sunlight saturates everything. It is an amazing part of this world. 

But the experience of the blue hole itself is different. In it lies something we all have within us, something that some may be more familiar with than others, a deep dark black nothingness hole. 

As soon as I swim over the abyss the water gets colder, the visibility diminishes and the sea life disappears. My breathing rate increases and I stop to let my eyes adjust. Beneath the top ring the steep walls fall back into a cavern, blocking the brilliant sunlight. I sink down and under the lip of the cave I find Stalactites. I swim between them, some as big as telegraph poles. They seem to reach, achingly down into the darkness. I look down into the dark space below, there is nothing to gauge if I'm moving, just all encompassing darkness. the feeling of being lost in a dark void encroaches. A dark void with no light, no life, no hope. A void that seems to be bottomless. The dark space beneath seems to beckon me. It seems so familiar in my mind yet absolutely terrifying. Terrifying because I don't know how deep it goes, how dark and convoluted my thoughts can get, how dark the deep hole within my mind is. Is it bottomless? Will I get lost in the darkness forever?

I swam into the black hole and made it out. I have done so theoretically several times in my life. I don't know how deep it goes but I know it is there tempting me with its familiar all consuming darkness. Which every so often, seems better than the harsh blinding sunlight.

Hazel eyes

Sweat was making my skirt stick to my legs and my head pounded as another horn pierced through the air. I grabbed the metal bar in front of me to steady myself as I was jolted off the seat of the tuktuk. We were making out way through the crowded streets of Varanasi, the driver utilising his horn as much as possible and often resorting to shaking his fist. Trucks. cars, tuktuks, bicycles, kids, cows, dogs, goats and masses of people swarmed the street, each with a different destination, each trying to make their own way through the hoards. I imagined it would look similar to a swirling river from above.

A truck had stopped ahead due to a stubborn bull blocking the road and traffic was cramming through a bottleneck. We stopped and the driver resorted to fist shaking. I looked out at the women passing through the crowds all adorned in colourful saris wrapped elegantly around their slender frames. As I searched through the crowds a set of eyes immediately cause my gaze. They were a creamy deep hazel colour, the same deep as milk chocolate, surrounded by skin of a slightly darker shade. She was dressed in a black burqua complete with a veil that allowed only for a slit for her eyes. She stared directly at me and we held eye contact. It wasn’t meancing, mearly curiosity that extended both ways.

My first thought was “We are from different worlds” and in many ways it is true. You would be hard pressed to find two women of similar ages that have such different lives. She would be lucky to finish high school; her parents would chose her husband and he would choose where they lived, if she worked, when they have children and how many they would have. She would give birth without medical care or pain relief and could expect at least one of her children to die before they reached adulthood. She would sleep on the floor and eat after her family, if there was enough food. Religion would be embedded in every aspect of her life and she would be persecuted by the majority of the Indian population because of it.
But the major difference between us that I saw is choice. I can choose to live how I want, where I want, with whom I want. I have choices, she does not.

But as I stared into those deep eyes I realised I was wrong. We are not from “different worlds,” we are 3 metres apart. This is the same world and we are both young women. She will care for her children the same way I will, she will feel the same pain when she is ill, she will cry the same way and she will have the same hopes, dreams and wishes as I do. When I made a wish into the Ganges I bet it wasn’t too far off what she would have made if she were sitting next to me. After all, we all want to be happy.

The driver had managed to find an alley barely wide enough and he punched the accelerator, lurching the tuktuk forwards. I smiled at the woman in the black burqua and as she slowly disappeared from view and even though our perspectives were from different worlds, I wished her all the happiness in her world and mine.