Twirl, twist & tango

So. Many. Legs. There my catalyst was: a horseshoe crab flipped on its back, its telson working hard to right itself. I was probably still using the bunny ear method for tying my shoes when I stared at the ancient creature before me, watching it make its way back to the ocean. I have been chasing curiosity ever since.

And what is more curious than what lies where we can no longer breathe?

Older, now able to lace up my boots, and well on my way to a bachelor’s degree in marine biology, I chased my first mantis shrimp around the tidepools of the Solomon Islands for course credit. Never mind news of a sea snake lurking in the waters, I was armed with my first-point-and-shoot underwater camera and I was determined to capture the eyes of the dazzlingly quick green-carapaced crusader. That snap remains my favourite photo I have taken to this day.

Years later, in the midst of my professional soccer career, I found myself tethered over 5,000 feet of Hawaiian ocean watching larval mantis shrimp twirl, twist, and tango around our bubbles on their nightly migration.

There was something special in feeling small at that moment. Granted, I am over six foot tall, but there, as a visitor in the ocean, dodging box jellyfish and keeping a peripheral eye out for oceanic white tips while filming these larval lobsters, I felt a humbling smallness. Think: “Honey, I shrunk the kids.” All while floating among some of the ocean’s littlest wonders.

Whether descending in full scuba kit or donning the US Women’s National Team kit, there is a sense of being a part of something bigger than yourself. A part of a community with oh so many legs – and oh so many shoes to tie, too.

This is how this short essay appears in the special Oceanographic publication, The Innerview