Two weekends ago, before my country engaged in more senseless war, I stepped off a boat and into Caribbean blue water at Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands. Unbeknownst to me until just before we moored to a buoy at the southeast corner of the island, Little Saint James is also known as Epstein Island. As I began swimming toward the tiny coast, my mind rolled through every prayer and meditation I knew by heart—not because I felt unsafe or fearful, but having been plopped into this place when its name is plastered across world news and social media, my job, at a minimum, must have been to send all the light I could conjure to the aggrieved. In the weeks leading up to this point, I had abandoned news and social media on my phone to turn away from the horrors that the Epstein files have been unmasking from the last 20 or more years—many which took place on this island. My stomach couldn’t handle one more horrifying image of an innocent child swept into such evil. Yet here I was, purely by circumstance, swimming directly toward it. The beautiful clear water enveloped me as my head went down. My heart felt heavy, but my breathing stayed even through the bright green plastic snorkel that covered my face. My eyes began to adjust to the world beneath the surface of the water, though my mind was distracted with the unimaginable sadness borne by the young, sweet souls who endured that land.I swam away from our tour boat closer to the shore. I snorkeled solo while another snorkel group went off in a different direction and the scuba divers sank 40 feet down. At first, I noticed nothing but a few scattered sea fans and coral fragments.But as I continued swimming, the more I noticed in the water, the more relaxed I became. And the more I stilled myself, the more sea life appeared. Before I realized it, my prayers were quieted by the natural, rhythmic beauty playing out before me on these infamous shores. This was a habitat present long before human atrocity took its first form and will be present long after we’re gone. Suddenly, it was as if I were living a prayer rather than the one praying. My breath was taken by an experience of the sacredness life set against the shallows of evil. As I floated above the coral reefs teeming with life, the ocean's depths showed me vibrant constellations of sea creatures: urchins in every color and size imaginable; a curious young barracuda and porcupinefish puffer following me at different points; small schools of angelfish swimming together; blue tangs darting through the coral; yellowtail damselfish watching over their spotted juveniles; red fish and parrot fish of all colors nibbling for food; bright teal blue-headed wrasse moving through the rocks; flounder gliding across the ocean floor, seamlessly blending into their surroundings. I even spotted a lone queen angelfish hanging out between two large chunks of coral. Fish of different types chased and circled each other.The coral reefs themselves were alive with movement and color. I spotted thin reddish brown sea fans elegantly waving with the water, large elkhorn corals firmly planted, bright yellow brain corals—both large and small—growing here and there. I noticed different colors and sizes of barrel sponges and giant tube sponges. Nature was holding in strong balance this delicate world daily affected by human activity yet not at all lost to any of it.I reflected on the communities upon communities of creatures living in unity together and realized we’re often taught to view beauty and darkness as mutually exclusive, but in nature this is not so. Beautiful things can come from the ugliest of places. Likewise, diametrically opposed ideas can exist in the same spaces at the same time. Peace can exist in the midst of war—even within us.At one point, the sunlight shone through the water, making the baby jellies and tiny silver fish near the surface shimmer as millions of iridescent rays through the clear salty water, and I felt uplifted as if in a dream. I thought of my lovely daughter and wished I could share the experience with her for her passion for jellyfish and marine life. I figured she must’ve found something similar to what I saw that day, and I could understand her love for it.After about an hour, despite my shivers and deeply pruning fingers, I slowly made my way back to the boat. The divers emerged one by one, their faces somewhat expressionless as they gazed out at the sea. I wondered whether they had seen anything like what I was still seeing.The last instructor pulled herself out of the water as I neared the ladder at the back of the boat, and I turned back toward the island, pressed my face mask into the water, and let my body float for one last gaze. Before me, maybe 10 feet away, a school of hundreds of angelfish turned with the microcurrents, moving as one. On the long ride back to the main island, Saint John, I thought about how such incredible beauty could exist here all the while—centuries before Epstein was his parent's first thought and before colonial explorers plundered, raped, and pillaged the Caribbean's indigenous people. Divine beauty abounds regardless of the harms humanity brings to one another. As I reflected on this realization, I found a wellspring not just of hope in the midst of darkness but anchorage in the very state of mind that keeps us striving for greater things, inspires art that captures us through centuries, and ideas that bring human experience into balance with nature rather than at odds with it.And I was gifted with a vivid reminder that whether we look for it or not, whether we find it or not, beauty exists in everything everywhere for all time. It cannot be squelched even from the worst of places. In fact, these might be where beauty, and the human spirit that witnesses it, burns the brightest.#writing #writingcommunity #sailing #epstein #essay #everydaylight #nature #creativenonfiction #light #peace #empathy #beauty
