Brittany Bentley is a poet and writer who is living, working and creating on Yugambeh Country. She is currently studying Creative Writing and English literature at the University of Queensland. Her work has been published in Meanjin.
Salt, Sink, Surrender
There are days when I forget how to breathe, and so, I turn to the sea.
My early twenties were years that were heavy, like swimming lessons in pyjamas, the flannelette kind that dragged me down into the deep end of the pool. Is it chlorine or tears burning my eyes?
Sometimes I imagine that instead of tiles and drains beneath my feet, there is a trench deeper than Mount Everest is tall, extending down into an obscure world. An enigmatic dark.
The deepest part of the ocean is called the hadalpelagic zone. Gutters of infinite black where light cannot penetrate. Only one quarter of the earth’s seafloor has been mapped by multibeam sonar systems. Dark corners of the planet hold ancient secrets. A lightless realm, where water temperature hovers just above freezing. And yet, life persists, even under eight tons of pressure. How would it feel to be swallowed, to surrender to the weight of the brine? What would it sound like in a place so vast and unknowable, void of time and meaning? When the world above fades into shadow, and the arcane subterranean creatures of the fathomless deep embrace you in the maw, are you crushed into something eternal? I would be transformed into nothing and everything at once.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
Lovecraft writes that ignorance is mercy. Perhaps he’s right. My mind closed off certain memories in the name of preservation, but the only way to heal is to voyage deep and far, to correlate the fragments and confront the terrifying vistas of my past.
My stepmother was the riptide. At first glance she was calm, but then the mask would drop and suddenly I found myself pulled out by a current of hatred, by whispered insults and humiliation, by food withheld and dagger eyes that watched with no remorse as I flailed far out to sea.
My father was the driftwood. A useless being that floated amongst the wreckage of our lives, ignorant, pretending not to see the tempest he had created. Too weak to provide support, and always out of reach.
My mother was the sinking ship. She battled her own waves, first the cancer that removed both breasts and entire reproductive system, then the alcohol that filled the void. She was drowning in lymphedema and depression.
My brother was the storm. Violent and unpredictable, the walls became battered with holes as his rage blew through the halls. His anger had nowhere to go, until he let it out on me. A court order barely held back the high-pressure system. And then, he descended into the chasm of drugs.
The abyssopelagic zone is the second deepest layer of the ocean. Creatures found in these depths exist in total darkness and under immense pressure. As a teenager, I was one of those creatures. A nocturnal being, a vampire squid, avoiding the harsh realities living in the daylight. I was treading these tumultuous years for so long, unable to perceive up from down, lost to oblivion. No one was going to help me out of the abyss, so I had to swim out myself.
A psychologist told me to book a trip. Bind myself to the future. So, I chose Thailand. I chose the heavy work of banana tree harvest, the sun searing and bugs biting and the sticky sap bleeding from machete wounds. I chose rising before dawn to chop fruit and make banana balls to feed the elephants at the refuge. I chose to shower and brush Kaw Petch, Nam Phon, See Puak and Pai Lin while they were distracted with bowls of watermelon and pineapple. I chose to ride in the back of a ute going 120kms per hour through the mountains of Phetchaburi with new friends from Sweden, Iceland, Scotland and the Netherlands. I chose days off in Hua Hin, exploring the markets with crates of fresh limes and chillies and dried fish. I chose the slow walk beside a gentle giant, both of us wounded and scarred. I chose the heave and sweat of living, and when the work was done, I chose the sea.
In 2019 I was accepted into the Queensland University of Technology to study a Bachelor of Science. I was drawn to the earth systems and biology subjects, pulled to understand this relationship, this enthralment I had with the ocean. I learned that the bathypelagic zone extends from one thousand to four thousand metres. This is the midnight zone, where microplastics are silently slipping down into the deep, drifting with the currents, falling with marine snow, a ghostly rain of decay and dust. Creatures and crustaceans that forage the dim flurry, scavenge on the plastic, mistake the glittering detritus for food. As the debris from a world far above descends through midnight, and passes through the abyss, it finally settles in Hades’ graveyard. It is estimated that there are fourteen million tonnes of microplastics on the seafloor. As microplastics settle in the trenches after a slow descent through the water column an inaudible despair settles deep in me. The sea is filling with things it was never meant to hold. It is infected with persistent organic pollutants, endocrine disrupting compounds and mercury. Toxic chemicals have been found in ocean fauna in the deepest trenches below ten thousand metres. We imagine these remote and inaccessible marine worlds to be untouched, mythic, sacred. And yet, tides and currents are depositing our waste like confetti, suffocating and contaminating beasts we haven’t yet discovered.
The mesopelagic zone is the twilight zone. The sun starts to fade into the increasing blackness, from about two hundred to a thousand metres deep. In this liminal space where light starts to falter and I drift into the dark like a dream, I remember one of my professors at QUT saying something profound.
“Humans think so highly of themselves to claim that we are destroying the planet.” He was resolute, and I was mystified. “The planet will heal itself; humans just won’t be around to see it.”
They did warn us that this bachelor would be the cause of much despair, and my earth science classes teach us how insurmountable it is to imagine geological time.
“We’re not destroying the planet,” he said. “We’re destroying ourselves.”
The planet will recover from the damage humans inflict upon it. Maybe it will take thousands of years, or perhaps millions. One day it will be free of plastic and chemicals after an epoch of peace in the absence of people and industry. But I do not have eons. My existence demands mending in one fragile lifetime.
After the pandemic, I started travelling again. Exploring new corners of the earth and choosing discomfort is how I chisel down the fragments of me that have calcified over time. That rough fossilised shell of trauma requires exposure to the elements. My skin is exfoliated by the sea spray and sand, and my soul is altered by the vulnerability and strangeness of an alien place.
It’s the 11th of April 2023, in Port Lincoln, South Australia. I stand on a cliff and wonder who named these places. Wreck Beach, Point Avoid, Cape Catastrophe, Coffin Bay. The entire coastline is a warning. But there is something comforting in the honesty – there are no fences or boundaries, no illusion of safety, just me and the bluff. The wild wind whips my body from a southerly gale blowing in from the Great Australian Bight. It says, take a deep breath, fill your lungs with salt and let it burn away the part of you that needs to die. Surrender.
We make our way to South Quay Boulevard for check in at 6am. The rain patters gently in the dawn light of the marina. It’s fifteen nautical miles to the Neptune Islands – a journey that will take approximately three hours. There is a particular kind of silence that comes with this distance. The deep hum of the boat’s engine, the soft crashing of the wake, the hull thudding on the waves. You don’t realise how loud the wind is until you try and speak against it. It’s not the absence of sound, but the absence of interruption. There are no Honda Civics speeding down the street, the default Radial iPhone alarm going off at 5am, the whine of the ceiling fan or the ta-dum of Netflix opening on your laptop. Just the low guttural sounds of salt and metal, of pressure and currents.
There are six of us in the cage. My bones aren’t used to this cold. Even with a 7mm wetsuit the sixteen-degree surface temperature causes my lungs to seize as I enter the water. Combined with the wind and rain, it’s the kind of cold that monopolises your attention. I can’t get enough air through the shared hose and feel my heart start to gallop. Most people would be afraid of the sharks circling the area, but my lungs are arguing with my brain, saying the air is too thin. The crew on the boat are impatient but reassuring. Just slow down your breathing. It feels like trying to suck air through a straw. I can take a breath, but it isn’t deep enough.
Slow. Breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
Eventually I find a rhythm.
The surface layer of the ocean is called the epipelagic zone. The sunlight zone. Home to ninety percent of marine life and almost half the atmosphere’s oxygen. Light, life and breath. The underwater realm inside the cage is chaotic. Silver trevally fish flash in every direction, brushing my skin, knocking into my mask and crowding my vision as they swarm for the berley being thrown in the water around us. The swell tugs and pulls, making it difficult to hold onto the metal bars of the cage. Weight belts help to hold us firmly beneath the surface. Suddenly, a Great White appears, about three metres long, emerging from the murk like a spectre. Close enough that you could reach out and touch its sandpaper skin. It’s a female, and she ignores the berley. She’s too smart for that. Instead, she takes a curious bite at the cage, less than a metre from my face. There was no terror, no fear, only awe and exhilaration. I forget that I can barely breathe and stare at the strong swish of her tail as she propels away from us unsatisfied.
In the freezing churn, I can hear the hiss and pull of rapid shallow breaths taken from the shared oxygen tank. I can hear the muffled swoosh and groan and roar of the Southern Ocean throwing us around the cage like a saltwater washing machine. I feel painfully alive in this pressurised wet world. All my worries, fears and anxieties have been swept away in the undercurrent. I’m surrounded by fellow divers, fish and sharks, but I am also completely alone. Submerged. Consumed by the sea. My mind is gloriously blank, empty of all thoughts, memories and flashbacks. The only darkness is the depths below my wetsuit clad feet. My body starts to shake from the intense cold, but I feel wild and primal, and I embrace it. I surface from the cage, grasping a crew member’s outstretched hand to haul myself back onto the boat. I am shivering and gasping, tasting of salt and feeling renewed.
My favourite sea is always one that is wild beneath bruised winter skies, the held breath and eerie stillness before the weather turns, the strange lure of the siren’s thrall drowning ignorant sailors in myth and folklore. I dream of taking the polar plunge in Antarctica, feeling that icy water attack my skin like a thousand needle pricks. I dream of wild ocean swimming with orcas in the fjords of Norway, hearing them sing an ancient song beneath the dark waves. I dream of Scotland and my ancestors there calling me home, cruising the Atlantic and the misty Outer Hebrides to see Minke Whales and Basking Sharks. My psychologist’s advice was sound; these future voyages keep me alive with anticipation and provide aspirations for the future. Connecting with nature is medicine and solace.
Changing my name was the written record of all the shaping I have done on my soul. The slow erosion of my trauma over the years on this mortal plane of water and rock. I carved out the patronymic, allowed the wound to bleed, and then sewed together a new identity with waterproof nylon from the names of family matriarchs.
Today, the Pacific Ocean holds my body weightless when I feel burdened and tense with memories and feelings. It is here in the saltwater realm that I surrender. In the desolate deep, time loses all meaning. I am sutured to nothing but the wide-open sea.
As my mind and body mends, gently, on my own miniscule geological time scale, I will continue to work to heal the ocean, as it helps to heal me. I will write about the mysterious deep, learn its primordial secrets, and share its beauty with the world. I will volunteer and donate to environmental organisations and petition for immediate climate action. We cannot live on a placid island of ignorance; we must embrace the madness that comes with knowledge and use it to persevere in our attempts to campaign for change.
Complex-PTSD sometimes causes my body to sink, but I will kick to the surface. The sea knows. It too has been filled with trauma, and yet it persists, and the currents continue to drift through time.