Dive Into Your Imagination

This summer, Annie will give me the gift of breathing underwater for my very first time. Life will never be the same! I recently passed my 23rd birthday, however I have wanted to learn to SCUBA dive for as long as I can remember. My parents instilled into me a love and respect of the ocean habitat, and I took to it like a fish! I was fortunate enough to grow up in a household with a great backyard that piqued my imagination, full of perfect hiding spots, climbing trees, gardens – and a swimming pool! During the summer, my brother and I would spend hours frolicking in the water with a multitude of pool toys. We would stay in the pool until evening, and when it was time to get out, I would plead, “Just a little longer!” My Mom would call back from the pool edge, holding out a massive dry towel, “Rebecca! It’s getting cold! Your lips are purple!” But I didn’t care. I just shook my curly head and smiled, then dove back under the water.

Everyday we can choose the direction of life we want to explore. Most people do not realize they have a choice. Our lives expand when we realize that we have choices and if we take the time to listen to our intuition, the choices become easy. We do not have to drive our own lives. When we open ourselves up to the Universe, the Universe opens itself up to you.

A friend once told me, “Annie, Diving with sharks in the ocean is safer than talking with friends, family or living in our terrestrial world. Diving with sharks is more fun than any television show you can ever watch…I am more at home in the ocean than on land.” And this friend I knew I would have for life.

During the next two months I am going to introduce a few people to my ocean. You are going to be able to learn about them and their trials and tribulations as they learn to scuba dive. It is my intention to give the gift of breathing underwater to them because it is a life changing experience.

As a child I felt alive when I was in nature. With four children in our family, we spent a lot of time in a station wagon towing a pop up tent. We camped every three day weekend and usually spent two to three weeks on a trip during summer vacation. Whether it was sitting around a bon fire, night hiking to a hidden cave without flashlights turned on or pretending we were the people in mountain dew commercials rolling down a hill in an inner-tube into a lake, I came alive in nature. I also came alive at the zoo, when traveling through the city of Chicago on the CTA bus, when I read books, watched television or even when I formed my tree climbing club, I was alive when in nature. I was alive when exploring. And somehow I learned the power of imagination interspersed with nature, I was simply trying to survive life.

The problems with (us) humans is we don’t know how to enjoy our lives because we spend so much time in survival mode. It doesn’t matter whether you come from a family with no parents or those that are millionaires, we all have to go through the developmental process. We all have to learn how to survive, thrive and live life.

November 17 1991 I left O’hare airport in Chicago for Melbourne Australia. Before cell phones, before the internet I would use postal restante and the telephone for any communications. And one of my first journal entries penned these words:

“The only thing that keeps me going is the anticipation of the unknowing. I am sure my travels will be more than I could ever dream.”

And so I encourage everyone to EMBRACE THE UNKOWN!

I had been on the road for nearly two years when I first set foot in Indonesia. I bought a ticket to Australia, learned to scuba dive and sail and then spent the next two years working and living in Australia and New Zealand. I had looked at a girl’s pictures of Indonesia on a bus ride going to Cape Tribulation and knew I had to visit the country. Nowhere in my life do I remember ever seeing such beauty. A moment captured in my mind. And immediately after completing my dive instructor’s course in Auckland, New Zealand I went to the travel agent and turned in my ticket to America for a one way ticket to Bali, Indonesia.

I was going to go and either travel for two months the $1,000 in my wallet (all the money I had in the world) or I was going to find a job as a dive instructor.

Life was just that easy. “Do it while you are young kid, when you get to be my age you can’t climb the mountains you want to climb. You can only look at them in photos.” My Grandmother said. Travel brings freedom, if you are open to the road that unfolds as you go. If I would have left home to travel with the intention of going somewhere, experiencing something and returning, I would have missed glorious years of my life.