Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

To Stop Pushing Against and, Instead, to Go With


Yesterday, for only a minute or two, I stopped pushing against the current.  I simply pulled my arms to my side, extended my legs, and let the ocean current pull me slowly across the reef.  I was not so much snorkeling as floating in the water.

Below me, Christmas ornament fish drifted by; some gathered into dart and run schools that exploded like silent fireworks as I neared them.  Just as I wafted over a slightly deeper shelf, I noticed my friend Larry beside me.  And then I noticed the sea turtle.

The turtle slowly drifted right up to us.  Either of us could have reached out to touch the turtle.  At one point, I lifted Larry’s diving fin so that the two of them would not touch.  For a minute or two more, the turtle and I drifted along together across the reef.  The sunlight shimmered in the water around us as schools of fish sifted through.

For that brief time, I was without weight, without fully composed thought.  I was going with…



















--Mitchell Hegman

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