Queer Voices: Open Waters

Necessity drove my decision to swim across the Hawaiian ‘Au‘au Channel. Six months into the pandemic, I craved a sanity break from hunker-in-the-bunker mode. The prolonged isolation had induced an existential quandary: was the enormous time spent on my writing worth the effort? 

As a lifelong swimmer, a marathon ocean trek seemed the perfect outlet to drown my quarantine angst. I swam across the channel several times before as part of a six-man relay team, always without incident. The conditions varied, from sunny to gusty showers, from flat seas to twelve-foot swells. But this time, I wanted to swim the entire distance myself—ten miles across shark-infested waters from the islands of Lanai to Maui.

I rallied with three friends, who were also eager to swim off their pandemic blues. We secured a guide boat, a captain, and two support crew. Then, on the day of our crossing, under a rose-pink sky at dawn, we launched from the beach at Club Lanai toward the West Maui mountains.

True to the meaning of ‘au‘au, the ocean was a bathtub. The first thirty minutes proved to be a snorkeling haven—thirty feet of clear visibility in shallow waters over a field of sea urchin-spotted coral heads. Psychedelic parrotfish flitted. Eagle rays meandered. A school of Convict tangs flowed like a river. We swam in loose formation, comfy in the serenity of our large aquarium. The boat tracked from a distance. Gradually, the ocean floor dropped. The coral reef receded. Sea life disappeared, and we entered the dark blue waters of the channel.  

My comfort level for open water swimming ran high. For years, Maui has delivered euphoria-inducing ocean swims with various sea life encounters. Like a pod of spinner dolphins when swimming with my friend Rosanne in La Perouse Bay. Or with my husband, Bill, gliding over coral-covered lava fingers alongside Honu turtles and pink-tailed Humuhumus. 

When asked by people if I feared rapacious predators attracted by blood, I always shrugged. Once, a mile offshore, I converged with a Portuguese man o’ war. Its thirty-foot tentacles with venom-injecting nematocysts lassoed my arms and chest, left whip-like welts and ER-worthy pain. Paralysis spread through my limbs. Breathing felt like a 300-pound weight was pressed against my chest. A 30-minute swim to shore turned into an excruciating hour. But never, in thirty years of ocean swimming around the island, had I faced a shark.

My ease in the water started at six when my parents enrolled me in a summer swim program. Since then, the ocean and pool have been my postpartum womb, a place of comfort and curiosity, where awakenings happen and my sense of self emerges. Mentally, water soothes me. Socially, my closest friends are swimmers. Nineteen years ago, I met Bill swimming laps in LA. During difficult times—a homophobic law firm, a midlife crisis, two mentors lost to AIDS—swimming nurtured and consoled me. And during my youth, while struggling to fit in, I bonded with my father over the sport. I wasn’t like my brothers, who found commonalities with him through fishing and cars. I was the son who wove macrame plant hangers and painted paper mâché puppets. I was the son who, at age ten, secretly rode his yellow bike to deliver a love letter to an eighteen-year-old boy. 

Behind us, Lanai receded. Stroke after stroke, we inched across the channel. A breeze kicked up. The groundswell undulated. Wispy clouds sharpened in the sun. On the horizon, the volcanic tips of the West Maui mountains, what locals call Mauna Kahalawai or the House of Waters, jutted upward.

An hour into the swim, I found myself contemplating the gap between my writing ambitions and reality. Eight months had passed since my last publication, a particularly vulnerable coming-out essay in the New York Times about a day I sort of accidentally took my parents to a nude beach. While the essay was one of the top ten NYT essays of 2020, the success hadn’t been, as I had hoped, the launch pad for publishing my fiction. 

My four in-progress novels, all at various stages, from draft to agent submission, had no publication options in sight. My fiction devoured years of unpaid practice only to produce a bleak publishing horizon. Was this a dream I couldn’t realize? I was sinking in an eddy of inadequacy. Maybe my successes were merely from a high tide of luck overriding a low tide of merit. Had the time come to stop writing and paddle my boat in a different direction? If so, where? Who was I without my writing? Or was this angst about something deeper? Imposter syndrome? Shame?

Five miles later, three hours of mind-churning, and still no answers—we reached the middle of the 100-foot-deep channel. Two swimmers 30 feet ahead.  Rosanne next to me. The boat 50 feet away.

Something from the blue depths caught my attention—a gray circle, the size of a dinner plate, ascending from the bottom. A dolphin, I thought, surrounded by a halo of reflected light until I noticed the flick of a tail.

“Shark!” Rosanne screamed. “Shark!” 

My heart hammered against my sternum. The support crew blew the alert whistle. Two from our group scrambled to the boat, climbing aboard and out of harm’s way. They screamed for us to swim to safety. But for Rosanne and me, the distance was too far. We were screwed.

The predator rose, now 40 feet underneath. I couldn’t tell what species–tiger, galapagos, great white. Visions of amputated limbs and skin with crescent shaped puncture wounds dominated my psyche. Hunched over, fists tight, my face in the water, I prepared to do what I’d been told—punch the shark in the snout. Rosanne braced herself, too. She climbed on my back. Weighed me down. Pushed me toward death. “Eat him. He eats meat!”

I elbowed Rosanne, gasping for air. Don’t thrash. He’ll think we’re prey. 

I kept my eyes on the shark. Thirty feet away. I mean you no harm. 

Twenty feet. I am not your lunch.

Ten feet. This may not end well for me. 

The shark maneuvered closer—a 12-footer with gray sandpaper skin and round, wide-set eyes. Now, inches from my face, his mouth agape, I could see rows of stout, triangular teeth stained by debris from his latest snack. The close proximity to such a lethal animal didn’t trigger panic. Instead, a strange calmness rippled through my limbs. He’s smiling. How adorable. I could kiss that snout. And then….

Gone.

Rosanne and I raced to the boat, our blood pressures thumping. A few minutes later, the shark out of sight, we debated whether to continue our swim. We’re not his prey, someone said. We swam this far, let’s finish, I suggested. I will, if you will, became the team sentiment. So, with mortality in our hands and our fears sidelined, we finished the swim, the four of us like timid sardines packed in a can. Ten miles. Five hours. Exhausted. 

On the drive home, thinking about my encounter, panic finally caught me. My body shook. I couldn’t steer. I pulled over and called Bill. “You’re okay,” he said in a steady voice. “You’re safe.”

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On the lanai that evening, sitting on the chaise lounge with a glass of wine, I called my friend Alisa. I recounted the swim and how I’d been inches away from jaws powerful enough to crack bones and rend flesh in a second. The memory made my neck tighten and my stomach churn. 

“The shark was a message,” she said. 

“Right.” I gulped wine to quell my jitters. “Like, don’t swim in shark-infested waters.”

“No, a spirit guide message. Wait there.” She left the conversation, returning a minute later with a book on animal spirit guides. She flipped to the section on sharks and explained how animal spirit guides were extensions of our spirits—a source of power, inspiration, and enlightenment. “The shark, with its torpedo-shaped body and powerful tail, represents strength and aggression regarding opportunities and adventures. He moves forward, never backward. He commits to decisions with confidence and gusto, power and persistence, guided by instincts and perceptions.”

“Oh,” I said. “Aumakua.”

“Auma-who-a?”

“Hawaiian mythology. Sharks, dolphins, owls, octopuses—they are revered as ‘aumakua. They’re family guardians, often a dead ancestor’s spirit. When ‘aumakua presents themselves to you, the connection is spiritual, a respected and honored supernatural counselor.” Then, I confided I’d been questioning my writing career.

“You see, your gray-suited friend was a message.”

I hadn’t seen it then, but now the answers clicked. I hung up, hugged my knees, and watched the crescent moon reflect off the ocean for a moment. Then I closed my eyes and reconnected with my aumakua as he swam toward me through the blue water. 

I saw the shark up close again. His dark, wide-set eyes stared at me, reflecting years of internalized homophobia and harsh self-assessments. I’m not good enough. I’m not perfect. I’ll never measure up. As my aumakua passed, he took those old messages of inadequacy with him, leaving guidance in his wake. Be brave and confident. Face the challenge. Full steam ahead. Never look back.

My writing adventure is filled with floods and ebbs, riptides and waves. Some creative currents flow on the surface. Others run deep. With courage and strength, I recommit to my writing journey. Aware and instinctual. No turning back. Only moving forward.

Author bio

Matt’s GPS coordinates are split between San Francisco and Maui. When he finds snippets of spare time, you can pinpoint him swimming laps, surfing waves, painting a canvas, or unleashing his inner Julia Child. Learn more about him at mattknightbooks.com and his publishing law blog at sidebarsaturdays.com