Well, I went diving for the first time in my life today. I mean, we won’t get into the fact that it was only yesterday that I went snorkeling for the first time but I went diving today. We didn’t go very far since it was our first time but it was so amazing. Never mind that our SCUBA instructor calls us sea donkeys no one could have been as bad as I was.

Some friends of mine and I have always aspired to being as graceful as Audrey Hepburn. Never mind that we tend to trip over our own feet and at times find it difficult to come up with two coherent sentences when talking to certain people but we believe that eventually, at some point in our lives we will finally learn to walk gracefully without tripping in slippers, something which I have done many times. Well, today I realized that was never going to happen. Andre, the instructor, gave me some fins to swim with. Now, trying to move with these things in the water wasn’t working. Never mind that I was finding it difficult enough to sink and the man had to keep tying me down with weights so I could finally reach to the bottom but those fins were going every which way but where they were supposed to go. Then, because of the weights that he had to keep adding to my suit could I every get back up? No, no, I’m crawling along the bottom while everybody else is moving through the water with ease. I tell you, I think Andre must have just felt sorry for me. First, I to change the jacket thing, or BCD (I know big word), because mine kept shifting and was deformed, which is what I’m telling myself so that I feel better. Then, he had to swim me back to shore because even though there was a girl there who has ear problems it was mine that started hurting. I can’t get anything right, you nuh. I know that I’m not the greatest swimmer but I figured I could do this I’m away from my mother so she not fretting and making me fret about it and if all my life all I’ve ever wanted to do is swim with dolphins I say, this is a step in the right direction. We won’t get into the fact that apparently dolphins don’t like the regulators and there really aren’t any in Barbados but that was my plan, then I realized just how absolutely ungainly I can be in and out of water. I mean, quite frankly, I looked like a fish out of water even though I still have trouble handling land. I mean don’t get me wrong I was keeping up with everybody else and could follow everything that was being done but I’m scratching myself on rocks, my legs going everywhere but down, I was just not doing well. It was really to Andre’s credit that he just didn’t sit down and laugh at me but he did have to pull me along a lot so I could keep up with everybody else. I just hope it gets better because I’d like to find one thing I’m good at. I haven’t quite found it yet but who knows maybe after several years of practice I’ll master the whole walking upright. No more tripping in slippers or when barefoot. We won’t even discuss dancing, that’s a whole other story, that and the rent-a-dread who tried to “speak to me on a more personal level” …Christine.