Magic in the Mundane: How a picture of a whale shark, a random stranger, and curiosity impacted a decade of my life
During my second contract on cruise ships, many of us in the spa caught a vicious case of wanderlust. The insatiable itch resulted from watching other crew members take off on their four-week vacation every four months while we were locked into our fourteen-hour days, six days a week, nine-month contracts. Between the fifteen of us, we'd amassed a small but fabulous collection of travel porn. During our slow days, which was often because this was during the 2008 recession, we'd browse travel books and excitedly discuss all the places we wanted to go after signing off.
The picture
One day, I stood beside the desk browsing The Travel Book by Lonely Planet. It was filled with full-color images of incredible places in every country around the world. As I flipped through it, the pages paused on a full-page photo of a whale shark. I'd never heard of them before, and I was instantly mesmerized. I flipped to the description, vaguely noting the picture represented somewhere in Australia, and mentioned something about swimming with them. Traveling to Australia wouldn't even be on my radar for another two years. At this point, I was deeply obsessed with finding a way to the beach from the movie The Beach. I closed the book, trudged down to the buffet for lunch, and went about with ship life, promptly forgetting about the gentle giants- or so I thought.
The stranger
Two years later, in mid-2010, I was back on land living with the folks in Waunakee, WI, and working at Aldo Shoes. Wholly changed after a two-month backpacking adventure through Europe with one of the Spafia shipmates; I had no plans or direction. I was just trying to save money and figure out my next move. After that Eurotrip, my eyes and ears were acutely attuned to pick up on conversations and people with a travel nugget to share. While working the register at Aldo one slow evening, a middle-aged man dropped shoes off for repair, mentioning a deadline for a trip. His presence intrigued me as he didn't look like our typical clientele. The vibe and a hint of travel caused my spine to straighten involuntarily as I said, "Trip? Where are you going?"
He was heading somewhere in South America, which snowballed into a lively conversation about a shared love of wandering foreign lands. He raved so much about a working holiday in New Zealand that I immediately hopped on Google when I got home that night. In reading the fine print, I knew this was my next thing. I could travel for a year AND support myself while doing so. A WHOLE YEAR IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY WITHOUT GOING INTO DEBT?! Sign me up!
Turns out, there's a smattering of countries that offer working holiday visas to Americans. However, because I wasn't a student, only two countries were available to me: Australia and New Zealand. I didn't have a specific draw to either country, so I chose with my rational brain- The age cut-off for NZ had an extra five years, so Australia would go first. (If every country offered those visas without age limits and restrictions, I'd still be doing that to this day.)
Fast forward to March 2011. I had been in Australia for almost two months and nicely settled in with my first Aussie fam- a family of five with three children under four years old. They needed an au pair so the mother could attend Uni while the father worked full-time with a constantly changing schedule. Michelle, the mum, informed me I'd have the week of Easter off while her classes were on break. Having backpacked the world before starting a family, she often encouraged me to explore and plan adventures. I think she was more excited about giving me the week off than I was to receive it- at first!
The trip that would change everything
Looking at a calendar to see when this was, I noticed my birthday was smack dab in the middle of her break. The wheels began to turn. Since I'd been diligently squirreling away my weekly payments and working overtime when Michelle had the flu, and it was my first birthday alone in a foreign country, I would treat myself to a big adventure! As I began searching for things to do, the memory of the whale shark picture bubbled up from my subconscious.
I searched "whale shark swimming Australia" and got miffed when all the results pointed to the other side of the country. My bad search bar; I should've been more clear.
"Whale shark swimming Sydney."
Still, all results highlighted the west coast.
"Whale shark swimming Great Barrier Reef."
Link after link invited me to plan the trip of a lifetime to the Ningaloo Reef.
"Whale shark swimming east coast Australia."
Nada.
Clearly still a newbie, and naive world traveler, it took me embarrassingly long to accept that no matter how hard I googled, the whale sharks only frequented the west coast. Though not cooperative with keeping my trip local, nature's patterns did support the birthday adventure as a whole. Ningaloo's whale shark season runs from March to July, when the coral spawns and the gentle giants return in droves to feed on the bounty. I rerouted my stubbornness to gratitude that such an incredible experience was even an option and surrendered to plot the trip that would shape the course of my life for the next decade and then some.
On the afternoon of April 19th, after a night in Sydney and a night in Perth, I landed at itty bitty Learmonth Airport and boarded a shuttle bus to the small town of Exmouth. I was nervous and excited. I had no phone service, and the dry, rugged landscape was unlike anything I'd seen before. I remember the heat catching me off guard. It was mid-autumn and had been getting cold in Sydney, but here I had sweat accumulating as the shuttle bus aircon struggled to keep up. Besides the road and occasional passing vehicle, there was no evidence of human existence during the thirty-minute drive to town.
I checked into my dorm room at the Potshot Hotel, Potty as the locals call it, where I would wind up working a few months later. I walked to the shops, grabbing three days' worth of snacks from IGA, also a place I would take employment later that year. That evening, I kicked off the celebrations by treating myself to a nice dinner and glass of wine in the beer garden. I positioned myself near a light so I could read my book, journal and linger as long as I wanted.
After my meal, a curious local paused to ask if I was in town for the whale sharks. Exmouth's resident population is around 2,800- they can spot the newbies from a mile away. I thought he was intrigued by an out-of-towner so comfortably alone, but I would find out months later that his inquiry was motivated by something else entirely. Upon learning that I was traveling alone AND celebrating my birthday, he invited me to join his table and treat me to a glass of wine. I remember pausing, sizing him up, checking out the table he motioned towards, and tuning in to what I felt in my body before answering.
A quiet but confident inner voice said, "No danger detected. Go on, put yourself out there, and if the vibe changes, you can feign bathroom needs and easily sneak out one of the side exits to circle back to your room."
At the table was a mix of locals, and backpackers-turned-locals for the season, which would soon include me in three months' time. Everyone was friendly and welcoming, but one handshake, in particular, stood out. I still remember the grin on his face as we locked eyes and hands. There weren't immediate fireworks, but there was a memorable energetic ping. I remember thinking, "Huh, that was weird."
The memorable energetic ping grew into butterflies as we gravitated toward each other and chatted the night away. Aside from the full-day whale shark tour, I spent most of my stay hanging with him and that crowd. A buttload of serendipity and a series of meet-cute storylines occurred during those three days, but I'm saving those deets for my first memoir. The point of this post isn't to spill the tea on the rise and fall of my first epic love. It's to plant the seed of knowing that you are always one seemingly insignificant moment away from a profound journey, that the tiniest kernel of curiosity can unfathomably impact your life- or someone else's. That there is always magic in the mundane, even if it takes years to come to fruition.
Even though that relationship did not stand the test of time, it led to more blessings, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and life-altering growth than I'll ever be able to quantify. I gained soul-stirring, life-long friendships that never would've happened if I didn't return to Exmouth three months after the birthday trip to explore the butterflies. It cracked my shell of unhealthy self-preservation, guiding me to a more nourishing relationship with myself and the world around me. I had a four-year adventure of a lifetime, making one of the most stunning landscapes on earth my home. I discovered a mindblowing level of resilience in myself that has since bolstered me through the tragic death of my mother. It even landed me in one of the safest places on the planet during a worldwide pandemic.
Was it all rainbows and sunshine? Definitely not.
Like all great epics, there was hardship and heartbreak, too, but tending to the confusion and devastation in the relationship's downfall steered me to The Adult Chair podcast, a transformational kernel of its own that has since blossomed into a life-changing adventure in and of itself.
Curiosity was the common thread in every experience that contributed to this decade and then some unfolding; curiosity about the beautiful whale shark image, curiosity of the shoe store gentleman, curiosity in the table of locals across the beer garden, curiosity in the butterflies that manifested out of nowhere while chatting with a guy I'd just met, and curiosity to look for support tools as I felt the foundation in our relationship start to crumble.
It's my hope that this post taps into the vagabond magic of those experiences and awakens in you a tiny kernel of curiosity that could lead to the life-altering growth, soul-stirring friendships, and profound journeys that are always within reach.
Thank you for joining me in another blog post.
With gratitude,
Cat