into the azure deep
Or, Thoughts on Taking the “Plunge”
My favorite color is pretty much any shade of blue.
Blue is deep– as in deep, cool waters. Blue is the quenching of thirst.
In general, I’m pretty bad at identifying particular shades of blue, like the names of crayons (other than, say, “light blue” and “dark blue”). And I’m not sure that I could correctly identify exactly what “azure” looks like, unless I see it in the sky.
I know from literature an “azure sky” is one that is an especially deep, vibrant blue. Last year, while travelling with a group through Bosnia, we spent a day at a river that so reminded me of the sky, it would have to be called “azure” as well. The river was called the Neretva and it bisects the old turkish town of Mostar where we were staying for the weekend. The wikipedia entry for the Neretva river notes that it “has water of Class A purity and is almost certainly the coldest river water in the world, often as low as 7-8 degrees Celsius in the summer months.”
The most outstanding feature of the river at this point is the white stone bridge that crosses it some 85 feet above (an engineering marvel from the Ottoman Empire). This pedestrian-only bridge — the “Stari Most”– attracts a moderate number of tourists in the summer, who file slowly over the bridge’s arch as they meander through the old city. At the pinnacle of the arch, they stop and stare over the side at the churning blue below.
Approximately every 20 minutes, the crowds are treated to the spectacle of an old Mostar tradition– young men jumping from the bridge as a test of their manhood. At least, that was how the tradition started originally, though today it is done more to collect tips from tourists. A group of 4 or 5 local guys in speedos seemed to be working the bridge in rotation while we were there. One of them would stand up on the bridge’s edge for several minutes and make as though he were psyching himself up for the jump, while his accomplices would pass through the crowds with buckets for donations. When the buckets had been sufficiently filled (we estimated it took about 20 Euros), the jumper would take one step forward, and– after a long silence– dissappear into a little, white splash.
When we first heard of the bridge and the jumping tradition, I recall that my friend Greg and I were quite confident we could make the jump ourselves. However, after standing on the peak and watching the professionals, jumping appeared like death in 85 feet for us amateurs. You could feel your manhood withering at the sight. Similar to the sensation we later felt stepping into the icy water for a swim.
Though we were not willing to risk jumping from the Stari Most, we found a more reasonable opportunity to prove ourselves just a little downstream. Someone had constructed a metal diving platform on an outcropping of rocks, reaching in total to perhaps half the height of the bridge. We surmised that this was the practice platform where the locals trained before making the big jump.
Greg and I decided to go check it out. It took a little doing to find our way down to the platform– it could only be accessed from a little path behind a restaraunt on the street market. When we got there, we stripped down to swim trunks and decided that Greg would have the privilege of jumping first. With resolve, he took hold of the ladder and ascended the wobbly structure. I watched closely as he climbed, so that I could experience vicariously through Greg what I was about to go through. It was truly alot scarier than it had looked from the opposite side of the river, when we first spied the little outcropping. As Greg reached the top of the the platform, he was visibly in the grip of fear; my stomache dropped as well in sympathy.
He paced back and forth for about 15 minutes up on that platform. At one point, his feet even made the decision to make a run for the edge, but his hands resisted him, clutching the rails at the last moment and foiling the attempt. At last, he decided that for the first jump, he would jump from a lower rock ledge, rather than the full height. This would prove for certain whether the jump was safe to make; and this he did with no problem.
Then it was my turn. I made the long climb up the shaky structure, and I knew that by the time I reached the top step, I had committed myself to a loss. From this point there were only 2 ways down, each with its own loss– the way behind me, back down the steps, would require me to lose my dignity, and worse– my courage and sense of manhood. The way before me, into the azure deep, would require letting go of safety, the loss of the security of solid ground. At the time, the latter was definitely the hardest to give up on; irrationally, but deeply, I felt that the way ahead of me could be the loss of my life.
Because blue is baptism. Blue is death.
I walked out to the edge of the platform and back a number of times, for at least as long as Greg had stood up there. Each time that I got to the edge and looked down, I would visualize myself taking that next step, trying to build my courage. Somehow, I felt as if more was at stake than mere bragging rights at the dinner table that night. There was something symbolic, I knew it, something of almost spiritual significance represented by the blue beckoning in front of me. And though I didn’t know what exactly it was, I knew that I had to answer this calling well– whatever I might lose by letting go was not to be compared with what I would gain, or the ignominy of retreat.
At last, I did it. I cursed my fear, and ran forward, past the edge of the platform. At that instant my fate was decided… no amount of reconsidering or rethinking could bring me back to that platform and the safety of earth. Nor did I have time for any such thought to seize me. All I remember was the complete silence of the world in that moment, as I fell towards the river, as though falling into the sky.
In another instant there was a shock and then my senses were completely engulfed in the icy blue water.
Now it is a year later, and I am grateful that I made that plunge. Even moreso now as I consider that in three weeks, my world will change dramatically, as I take a plunge of a different kind. The plunge of marriage; and marriage, I’m told, is also baptism and death. I know this, and though I was once afraid, I no longer am. In the metaphor of the river, I have begun my sprint to the edge. A plane is waiting for me on Sunday, to take me over the blue, to the Beauty that waits for me. A Beauty that’s deep, as in deep, cool waters– the quenching of thirst.
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And then I started remembering just how great that movie was. …REALLY great. If you somehow missed this movie the first time around then I am truly sorry for you. You will never know how incredibly cool it is years later to still have the creatures of Fantasia running around in your head. Characters like–
Yes, those of us who saw the movie will know that there is nothing quite so scary as nothing…THE Nothing to be precise. The only thing that comes close to that scary is walking between the topless Southern Oracle statues with the laser beam eyes, destroying anyone with self-doubt. Like Sebastian, we shouted “Run Atreju, Run!”– or at least we thought it very loudly.
. We have a symbol to represent infinity on paper and we can even solve for it in our equations– equations that yield accurate, testable results. In fact, without utilizing infinity modern calculus would be quite impossible. It would appear that the mystery of infinity has been tamed by the mind of modern man.
