Mexico Day 104: Good thing, bad thing, who knows

La Barrita, Guerrero //

It’s been four days since Mark and I were caught in a rip current.  Since then, I’ve watched countless people play in the waves and return to shore without issue.  This only leaves me more confused about what happened to us.  Did we experience a rare-occurring rip current?  Were the conditions just right and haven’t repeated since then?  Was it as bad as I’m making it out to be?  Every time I look to the waves, I’m baffled.

Until this afternoon.

Mark returns to the water today, this time with a boogie board.  He enters the water further to the west from where we were pulled out by the current.  I trust that he knows what to do if pulled out once again, and he is confident in his ability to remain calm and ride it out if needed.  For the next twenty minutes, I watch from the patio while he catches wave after wave and glides back to shore.  It looks like a great time.

Meanwhile, a man and woman that are staying at the campground make their way into the water.  I’ve seen them in the water multiple times; they were even out boogie boarding at the same time we were fighting the rip.  Though, this time, they’re going out sans boards.  

Just prior to them walking out, I began to notice a variety of waves converging, creating turbulent water in one particular spot.  It seemed to be right about where we got pulled out and was where this couple was headed.  I go back and forth between watching them and Mark, and the next thing I know, I’m only seeing the couple’s heads barely bob above the water.  With my longest lens conveniently in hand, I pick up my camera and zoom in on their faces.  The woman looks okay, but right away, I recognize the look of fear on the man’s face.  I have no doubt in my mind that what happened to us is happening to them.  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Mark paddling towards them, and my heart begins to race.  

He wants to help, of course he does, that’s who he is, but what if helping gets him killed?  I nearly turned my back and walked away, too afraid to watch, but instead remained in my chair with my camera glued to my face.  I later learned from Mark that he was calculated in his approach and very clearly told the man “do not hold on to me, hold on to the board”.  Through the lens of my camera, I watched both Mark and the man hold on to the board while the woman treaded water alongside them.  They were beyond the wave break at this point, so they weren’t getting hammered by waves like we were.  Thanks to the capabilities of my camera, I could zoom in far enough to see that Mark was smiling.  I knew this meant he was calm and working to keep the couple’s spirits up.  As for me, that smile kept me from having a heart attack.

What now?  How long will this go on?  How will they get back?  They weren’t really moving.  Instead, they were doing what many rip current experts suggest, which is to simply float and wait.  Oftentimes, the rip will pull you out and then circulate you around and back in.   As if I was watching some sort of twisted magic trick, all three of them suddenly stood up.  They’d been slowly moved by the current to a shallower section of water.  My jaw dropped in disbelief.  Everything I’d been reading, watching, and listening to about rip currents for the last four days was just displayed right in front of my face.  I watched while the man hurried to shore, awash in a frightened state I recognized deeply. Behind him, Mark walked out with the woman who was in tears, saying she nearly killed her husband.  It turns out she is a strong swimmer, and he is not.  

Once again, I was in complete disbelief.  What were the chances that four days after Mark and I got the fright of our lives, Mark would be on the rescuing side of a nearly identical event, and I would be there to watch it all unfold?  Between the two events, I felt as though we’d just been through a masterclass in rip current education.  

After all was said and done, one question weighed on us both:  What would have happened to that couple if Mark had not been out there boogie boarding?  

…

There’s an ancient Chinese parable with a premise that Mark and I live by.  As told by Alan Watts, it goes like this…

Once upon a time, there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.”
The farmer said, “Maybe.”
The next day, the horse came back, bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening, all the neighbors returned and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky? What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!”
The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day, his son tried to break one of the wild horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. Everyone then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded,
“Maybe.”
The next day, the conscription officers came around to draft people into the army, and they rejected the farmer’s son because he had a broken leg. Again, all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!”
Again, he said “Maybe.”

…

We’ve distilled that parable down to one simple saying: “good thing? bad thing? who knows.”  We say that all the time to remind ourselves that rarely is something either good or bad; only our labeling it as such makes it so.

The situation we got ourselves into four days ago could easily be labeled as a “bad thing.”  We could have died = terrible thing.  But that’s hardly true.  If that had not happened to us, Mark would not have had the awareness to recognize what was happening to that couple or the knowledge to know how to handle the situation.  What happened to us four days ago may have directly affected another man’s fate four days later.  

We’re all connected.  Every single living thing on this planet.  Something happens to us, we react, and that reaction goes on to affect something or someone else, whether it be the planet, a loved one or a stranger.  

I’m so proud of Mark for what he did today.  And I can’t help but shake my head and laugh as I think to myself, I’m glad we got caught in that rip.  It might have saved a man’s life.

…

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