A Fish Out of Water

Being a Navy kid, I’ve been around or in water close to my entire life. My family was commonly found strolling across the beach in Coronado, or visiting the Ballard Locks while living in Seattle, and there was hardly a Friday afternoon while living in Singapore where we didn’t go to the pool after school.

What's weird, though, is that I am most definitely a homebody who loves to crack open a nice new book. Rather than being outdoorsy, I'm "outdoorsy-ish." When it's nice out, I might consider sitting on the grass with my book rather than in my room if one of my parents suggests it, and I do enjoy sitting outside to eat lunch with my friends or get work done during school. But I’ve never been the person to suggest going and doing something outside and spending as much time as possible in "the great outdoors."

 When I do, I prefer to know what we're doing, where we're going, and when we'll be done. Like a specific hawker center (open-air style food courts in Singapore), with iced lemon tea, or my house, where my long, hot shower awaits me before I can return to my library haven. 

Swimming has never been something I suggested, nor has going to the beach. I don’t even like the beach, and the feeling of wet sand is one of my least favorite feelings ever. I’ll just enjoy the view from the hotel balcony and smell the salty air rather than feel the salt water on my face.

That is, until being around water wasn't as much of an option for me. When we moved to Pittsburgh in 2020, we went from always being able to get to the ocean in a half hour or so to being landlocked. The water was taken from me, and this was the first time I actually missed it. 

I guess that’s a bit of a lie, though, because Pittsburgh is known for their 3 rivers. Really, there are two, but they merge to form the third. It's because of these “3” rivers that I found the sport that really connected me to Nature and what I was missing thanks to the Navy. 

I got involved with the rowing team during my freshman year of high school because of a few friends and their adamance that I should join. I quickly fell in love with both the team and the sport. Pittsburgh was the first place that truly felt like home to me, and it was the first time I got deeply involved with anything outside of school for a long period. 

It was also the first time that I fell in love with being near the water. I realized that I’d much rather be on the water rather than in it.  When I'm on my dad’s ship, or in a rowing shell and feeling the breeze on the back of my neck, I feel completely at peace. 

I fell in love with the sport by chance, and just as I did, it was taken away. I left Pittsburgh and moved to Singapore for a second time, where I went from being outside 5 days a week, rain or shine, with a bus taking me directly to and from the boathouse, to being isolated from the sport I had fallen in love with, with no easy way to get back into it. Now I am an hour and a half away from the reservoir and have no easy access to get there anymore.

And to think that I had joined impulsively because a friend of mine was going to, and that I knew from the start that I would be moving at the end of the year, but 14-year-old freshman me could never have guessed how much I would miss it when it was gone. 

One of my favorite sounds in the entire world is still the clicking of my oar blade handle against the lock. It's rhythmic and soothing and calming. That and the slide of my seat as I extend my stroke from the catch to the recovery. 

Rowing helped me realize how nature can fit in my life. I mean, being soaked to the bone and having to borrow a teammate's jacket because you have to wring yours out while walking back to the boat trailer through the muddy grass after a race tends to do that to you. 

That being said, the past few years, I have for sure gotten more adventurous and purposeful by taking paths and roads that lead me to experiences that push myself far past what I think and thought I was capable of. 

 Being a part of my school's experiential learning program this year has forced me out of my shell (rowing pun!) and gotten me to explore things I never thought I'd do or enjoy, like going on hikes in unmanicured places I didn't know existed or snorkel with sharks and sea turtles and fish, oh my, in Indonesia. 

I’ve finally realized it wasn't nature I disliked, but the unstructured time that usually accompanied it. Having the rhythm and repeatedness of rowing made me realize that it's all because of the crazy butterfly snowball effect the Navy has had on my life.