Crossroads: Listening as a compass

I stepped off the boat, fins first, in weighty dive gear into unfathomably turquoise waters just as the instructor and my boat mates had demonstrated. Splash. More than a slight panic ensued as the overcast sky opened up to soft raindrops that tumbled into the waters of the Similan Islands of Thailand. Is it really raining right now?! I wondered how I would remember all the instructions given in the very brief introductory scuba diving lesson I received the night before. “Follow the rope,” my instructor stated as he led me away from the boat and along the braided, rustic-brown cable anchored to the sea floor. I delayed and fumbled in pushing the red button on my buoyancy jacket for what felt like hours. I felt overwhelmed and fearful that I was sitting in an experience I imagined while choosing to submerge myself underwater where I would surely lose any battle. Patiently, but likely in response to my shenanigans, my instructor met my eyes through our goggles, whispered some words and held my hand as we descended 90 feet into another world. As lukewarm, navy-blue water surrounded me on all sides for mere seconds a brilliant void engulfed my ears before gentle crackle-pops lit them alive like ocean fireworks welcoming me home. Below its surface, the ocean might be the only place on Earth accessible to humans where words hold no weight.

Recently, I’ve been playing mermaid in the waters of the Caribbean in Costa Rica where those same, soft crackle-pops and crisp silence greeted me while riding the unpredictability of each turning wave with squeals of amusement. Water, salty or fresh, has become my biggest teacher in the art and practice of listening and of tuning into a form of understanding and knowing that doesn’t involve words or logic. It is in that lightning silence beneath the sea that I remember that in the act of listening is where my desires become known. My desire to slow travel and move across places is a result of listening to and following an internal pull. That same pull has led me to a place where Ancestor Garvey spent years witnessing, documenting, writing and building community. Being here, I find myself wondering what he listened to. What was his compass when standing in the middle of a crossroad? We live in a loud and muddied world where our truest desires can get blurred, suffocated and lost in the sauce of life, but listening can allow those desires to bubble to the surface and breathe new life and purpose into us. For Black wanderers, listening can offer us clues to where we can find belonging, safety and our truest selves. Nowadays, in between the voids I seek and those that find me, I’m tuned into sunrise symphonies of colorful bird songs, howler monkeys playing in the jungle, boisterous ocean waves, reggae music, construction site jackhammers, patois greetings and the rhythmic sounds of cicadas and vibrating hummingbirds. Listening, whether intentionally or stubbornly, guides me, almost always without a detailed roadmap filled with turn-by-turn directions, but I guess there would be no fun in that adventure, and fun is what I’m here for.

Renée Cheréz, also known as the Travel Liberationist is a writer who expresses her thoughts, experiences, and stories at the intersections of joy, travel, Black liberation, and the pursuit of more life. She is a mermaid, child, storyteller, adventurer, and lover of mountain gorillas. Her work has been published in The Huffington Post, Geez Magazine, Sister Letter, Lonely Planet, and more. You can find her come up to the surface from her living on IG: reneecherez.

This story was originally published September 30, 2022 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Crossroads: Listening as a compass."