Over the last year during the Covid - 19 pandemic, I've spent a good deal of my time underwater swimming and snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii. I live on land in Honolulu near a coral reef, visited by all sorts of fish, including Hawaii's state fish, the humuhumunukunukuapua'a (a word even harder for me to pronounce than Nachtraglichkeit!). Easy to spot in the water, this colorful reef triggerfish displays a palette of white, black, blue, orange, and stripes of yellow. The water is home also to sea turtles and monk seals, with occasional appearances by dolphins, whales, and sharks further out in the open sea. Most of my submerged sessions, not far off the south shore of Oahu, are spent in silent conference with a bounty of mostly friendly fish and turtle species native to the Hawaiian Islands.
The first time I ran into one of these large sea turtles, I had hardly seen it coming when, all of a sudden, I found myself face-to-face with a real live honu (Hawaiian for “turtle”). Fortunately, turtles are dexterous in the water, and this one was able to avoid my flailing, spasmodic body. I must have been swimming directionless, looking down at the reef which caused me to veer into its “lane,” so to speak. The turtle gave me a look that I can only describe as, “What the hell are you doing?” or “Watch where you're going!” or “Get out of the way, man!” It took me a moment to realize this was its home, not mine. I was trespassing. I promptly apologized as the turtle swam away. I have consequently become more careful in watching where I am in the water and more adroit at swimming alongside the turtles, who don't seem to mind me anymore.
The rest of my time in the year of the pandemic has been spent in the dry confines of my office, way above sea level on the 20th floor of an office building overlooking the ocean where I practice psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in-person and remotely with humans, not sea creatures. It has occurred to me that some of my patients may have, from time to time, thought or wanted to say: “What the hell are you doing? or “Watch where you're going!” or “Get out of the way, man!” Nevertheless, we keep swimming along, albeit flailing and, at times, spasmodic, around a reef, we hope, of understanding, insight, healing, and change. This has been especially challenging given the tsunami of illness, death, economic hardship, and disruption we're all swimming in. I lost a family member last year to the virus, and I still grieve this loss. Much of the time I have spent in the ocean these past months has been floating around thinking about my loved one — also an analyst – reflecting on her life and what she meant to me.
Prior to the pandemic, I traded in a life where I was keeping my head above water on the island of Manhattan, for this one on Oahu where I try to keep my head below water. As a native New Yorker, I found the decision to relocate difficult, but, now in hindsight, it has worked well for my family and me, particularly now that Hawaii has been hit less dramatically by the virus than much of the rest of the country.
It wasn't until sometime after leaving New York that the pandemic struck. Residing on my new tropical “rock,” as locals call Hawaii, exploring the coral reef, its inhabitants, and all the ocean around it, my mind has become freer to drift along with my body in the water. Far from my office, my patients, my books, and theory in a concrete sense, my mind frequently drifts toward psychoanalysis in a way I had not experienced before. Alone in the water with the sun rising above me or setting in front of me, I sometimes see the sun setting on one side and the moon rising on the other: I float between two celestial bodies. Lying on my back or swimming through the undulations of waves, I recall something a patient said to me and what it might possibly mean, or of my own analyses, or something Freud wrote and I have a sense, maybe for the first time, what it really means.
Luke Hadge, Ph.D., is associate clinical professor of psychiatry, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii; founder of the Hawaii Psychoanalytic Society; and author of Psychoanalytic Stories (2019, IPBooks).
Like an “oceanic feeling,” floating lubricates my mind. But then I wonder if a mind thinks about psychoanalysis while in the ocean, does psychoanalysis therefore exist in the ocean? If a mind contemplates psychoanalysis, is psychoanalysis alive for those moments in the vast open space of salty water and sea life? Fred Busch's idea of “creating a psychoanalytic mind” comes to my mind. Some assert that, these days, psychoanalysis exists only on the margins. This is literal for me, living in Hawaii: I am the only APsaA member and formally trained analyst practicing in the state. And even though it may be even more marginal underwater, as long as a single human mind conceives of psychoanalysis — or functions according to its truths — then psychoanalysis lives.
When I am out in the water, I realize that I am freed in these moments – in these hours, like analytic hours — from the distractions of daily life and, now, the constant reminders of the pandemic. I am away from my office phone, my smartphone, my laptop, my desktop, my email, my snail mail, even my watch. Importantly, I am away from other people with whom I have to confront fear and anxiety, or “fear and trembling,” in Kierkegaard's words. “Wet trembling” in my case. The writer and surfer William Finnegan described the ocean as “an unkind god, power beyond measure.” It feels primordial but also soothing. Alone in the elements, I feel a clarity of thought arise within me. Avid swimmers have described an altered state of consciousness called “sea-dreaming” and a state of mind of “forgetting the water.” I haven't quite had this experience yet, but often, while swimming and letting my mind wander, I lose track of time as I do during analytic hours, but here I cannot reorient myself to time or human connection since there is neither clock nor human voice. I am out there, a speck in the ocean — an insignificant speck — a floating mind within a floating body, suspended in animation.
The water never stops moving. The tides go high and the tides go low. The waves form and break. The current goes this way and that. Fish and turtles and other sea creatures go about their business, not thinking about the pandemic, certainly not thinking about psychoanalysis. But I lie in this ungodly expanse of ocean in awe of a virus-free world. With my goggles, I see my own personal loss and try to reflect on the analytic mind swimming in our own watery skulls. During this tragic and terrifying time, I think underwater is the safest place to be.