Doughnuts and Jellyfish

The summer before my senior year of high-school, I went to a volleyball camp with a few of my friends from the team. It was a week long camp in Connecticut, about an hour and a half from home. At the end of the week, my sister was nice enough to pick up me and my friend. We drove along on the Merritt Parkway or I-95, interchangeable in the amount of traffic loading their lanes, until we hit a Sunday afternoon traffic jam. As we crawled along, (I don't know who noticed it first) we eyed a Dunkin' Donuts truck next to us on the freeway. When traffic became a stand-still, we started fantasizing aloud about how nice it would be if the driver of the Dunkin' Donuts truck came out and gave us some doughnuts. We all laughed and grew silent, each of us dreaming of our teeth ripping into the surface of the doughnut of our choice. Then, (I don't know who noticed him first) the driver got out of truck with a box in his hands. He walked through the cars with drivers begging to step on gas pedals, holding the box with two hands. We all knew it was impossible that he might give us these doughnuts. How could he have known that we were fantasizing about them? We sat exclaiming and marveling over what appeared to be happening. The man knocked on our car window and offered us doughnuts and we accepted the box in disbelief. We watched him return to the truck without making any other deliveries-it was a confirmed miracle. Of course we all thought the doughnuts were poisoned, but we ate them anyway. While we sat in the traffic jam, we thought out dozens of reasons why the man had brought us these magical doughnuts.

To this day, I have no clue as to why that man came to our car to give us those doughnuts. In fact, every couple years I bring up the incident to my sister when I stop believing that it actually happened. I often think the event was one of my fantasies, one of the millions I have had that hasn't been realized magically. There are few events in my life that take such status-that seem too fantastical to be real. The episode with the Dunkin' Donuts man is one and my experience in the Great Barrier Reef is another.

When I dream of wonderful and unbelievable events and encounters, I try to keep as much reality out of the picture as I can. In my fantasy life, reality only deadens the experience but in reality, fantasy floats in the air, at times making it difficult to believe that I am really experiencing something. Travel is the best vessel for this fantasy high for it requires a subtle balance between fantasy and reality. Each place I visit holds a thousand fantasies tempting me to realize them. I must always be able to pry my suckers from where I sit in order to continue on. I continue to travel, to stay semi-uprooted to maintain my high. Prancing about me wherever I go are thousands of beautiful moments which fill my senses, but I cannot get caught by any one moment. If I do, reality seizes me and drowns out the fantasy.

My trip to the Great Barrier Reef began with my body being seized by the reality of motion sickness. No, not motion sickness, for there were forces stronger than motion involved on that boat ride. As we, the passenger we hurled about the mad sea, I hurled off the back of the boat. After an hour of riding waves of the bucking beast sea, I leaned over the starboard stern and threw up the ginger cookies I had eaten so diligently earlier to keep my stomach settled. I stood, frozen at my new post, close to the edge of the boat as the tour staff came back periodically with little white bags of puke to toss in the trash near me from passengers dry but just as miserable inside the cabin. Wild sea-spray drenched me but I did not dare move for fear I might throw up yet again. My bright green skirt grew darker, stained with ocean and salt water dripped steadily from my nose. A woman carefully tapped my shoulder. "We are almost there," she assured me and gave me a sympathetic smile.

Soon the boat slowed and the sea grew calmer. I lifted my sunglasses to the top of my head as they were speckled with sea water spots. As my sunglasses passed over my forehead tears filled my eyes. The water. The water is so blue, so beautiful. The swelling sea then appeared so inviting, still but electric with life and vibrancy. I wanted to crash into the sea's crystal arms and swim forever. Moments ago I had been miserable, wondering how I could possibly make it through the trip, and suddenly everything changed-the sea changed color, the sun grew brighter and I became overwhelmed by something other than nausea, by beauty.

The tour guides first took us to an island made of coral sands, uninhabited by humans. The island was ruled by black noisy birds nesting in trees and congregating in patches of sun on the trail. I stood on the edge of the island with its soft pink-yellow sands under my feet and looked out at the ocean, seeing no one. The group headed back toward the boat and I stayed alone for a few moments amazed by the untouched beauty before me.

As soon as we docked at the barge I grabbed for a mask, fins and snorkel and plunged into the ocean. The fish barely noticed my presence and I could swim through dense clouds of tiny silver life. Other fish stayed close to the coral but their bright purples and greens gave their locations away, so I stared at them unabashedly, fascinated by them as they remained essentially immobile. I swam back to the barge to discard my fins and snorkel and went back to dive deeper, swim with the fish, always conscious of where my body was in relation to the precious coral-a life that gives life to so many bright and beautiful creatures. I felt afraid that even one touch from the very tip of my finger might destroy all that I could see before me.

Someone on the barge blew a whistle and motioned for me to swim back. I swallowed up all that I could of the coral and the fish and the blue of the sea as I slowly pulled myself through the water. I returned my mask, wrapped myself in a towel and carried my still damp skirt and tee-shirt with me onto the boat. Despite the fact that I had lost my lunch hours ago, there was a fullness in my belly from all that I had seen on the Reef. But the fantasy fix didn't linger long; quickly this fullness dissipated, and I was hungry for my next journey.

Good memories such as mine of the Donut man and the Great Barrier Reef, I tuck away to fuel my lust for more. Whether these memories are real or fictional does not matter because both the real and the unreal force me to search for more adventures seeped in fantasy.

Abigail Rothberg