Lost At Sea

Nobody influences your life like your family. Being the youngest child and only girl in a house full of stair-step, crazy boys certainly affected me, and gave me plenty of good stories. This post introduces the first in a reoccurring series: Mib Back Then.

In honor of the culmination of the LOST Underground Art project, the folks at LOST, Gallery 1988, my Lost ARGs friends, and my sweet husband, I give you, Lost At Sea!

Whenever I feel like a bad parent, I just think back to childrearing of the sixties and seventies. My parents had five children in the space of six years, and it seems their main concern was keeping us breathing, if we were lucky. Mine were not the only parents who allowed their kids to roll around the boat-sized family car, or left their kids unattended in all kinds of places, or the only parents who spanked their kids with whatever object was handy. Ok, maybe some of these only happened in my family. We were regularly lost in department stores, and someone was always getting hauled to the ER. One of my brothers actually got himself locked in a Sears store after it closed, and camped out in the sporting-goods department. I wanted to be the one who slept in a tent across from the Sears candy counter. Instead, I am the one, who at fifteen months old was lost at sea.

My Navy dad and perfect nineteen-sixties Mom had just relocated their young, rapidly growing family to Oahu from Virginia. After the stress of unpacking, my fair-skinned, redheaded parents needed a break and decided to take the kids to the beach. Damn the broken dishes, and damaged furniture, we all needed some sunshine. So, they slathered their whitey-white children in baby oil to help them work on their tans, and hit the sand!

My mother does not swim a stroke, and hid herself beneath a huge hat and umbrella. She watched her four non-swimming toddlers frolic and play in the surf, pretending to drown each other. My father was anxious to introduce his newest addition of the family to the crystal blue waters of Hawaii.

Now, if you’ve never been to Hawaii, consider this; surfers travel great distances to get to Hawaii for one reason: the waves. I have turned this scenario over and over in my head. I can’t help wonder if my parents had a little ‘talk’ before this outing. Maybe it went like this:

“Well, Margaret,” my father would have said, “I just can’t handle five of them. It’s too much. Let’s give one back, and since she’s the newest, let’s make it that girl. You haven’t gotten attached to her yet, have you?

Maybe my mom argued, but ultimately she must have given in, because my very intelligent father then took me, barely a year old, covered in baby oil into the waves looking for the Big Kahuna!

Maybe he held me high above the wave, and whispered “Kunta Mib-te, meet Mr. Ocean…”

“Well, hello, Mr. Ocean, how are… blurb blurb blurb?” I babbled then fell into the sea. I was immediately swept away by the wave from Hawaii Five O’s opening scene.

My father submerged searching for fat baby toes. He came up for air, dove again into a new wave, and searched again. He came up from the water clutching the arm of an elderly woman who didn’t need rescuing. By now, several minutes had passed, and a crowd had gathered. Newspaper reporters were licking their pencils and scratching out headlines: “Navy Couple Loses Baby in Ocean”, “Baby-Oil and Water Don’t Mix”, “Baby-less Husband Found at Topless Beach”, “Young Boys Cheer Death of Sister” (that’s a reoccurring theme).

After several more minutes, my father emerged victorious with a live, wiggling, seaweed covered baby. As some of us have seen in Russian birthing videos, babies take to water. We are little dolphins! We hold our breath, swim, and blow air out our little blow holes. Babies can survive in the water for several minutes. Now, I don’t advocate throwing your baby in the ocean, but they may be able to swim back home.

Much like my LOST friends, I was Lost, but now I'm found.