Sarah Turnbull - All Good Things : From Paris to Tahiti: Life and Longing

All Good Things: From Paris to Tahiti : Life and Longing.

In this lushly written follow-up to Almost French, Sarah Turnbull explores a new paradise - Tahiti.

Having shared her story in her bestselling memoir, Almost French, Australian writer Sarah Turnbull seemed to have had more than her fair share of dreams come true.

While Sarah went on to carve out an idyllic life in Paris with her husband, Frederic, there was still one dream she was beginning to fear might be impossible - starting a family.

Then out of the blue an opportunity to embark on another adventure offered a new beginning - and new hope.

Leaving behind life in the worlds most romantic and beautiful city was never going to be easy.

But it helps when your destination is another paradise on earth.... Tahiti.

When Im in waist deep, I stop for a moment to take it all in.

Its another flawless daybreak; there isnt a whisper of breeze. In the distance, hovering above the coral reef, the fine mist and spray of broken waves glow like a halo; around me the lagoon spreads a silvery skirt. The surface is so still I feel almost guilty disrupting it. While the temperature may have cooled overnight it is hardly cold, and on this liminal fringe its difficult to discern between air and water. I dont even really feel wet, rather wrapped in the softest silk. Through the crystalline surface, patterns appear magnified and fascinating: the delicate whorls on my own finger pads; the hermit crabs scurrying out of my way, so well camouflaged they look like sand, shifting and blossoming around my feet.

But this ritual has become essential. Briskly, I adjust my swimming goggles. Overhead a couple of seagulls circle, interested only in the tiny fish that spray into air when I dive in.

These first few seconds underwater are like a rebirth. Or maybe theyre more like one of those near-death experiences that survivors liken to being drawn into a tunnel of beauty and brilliance, only here there are no walls, no limit to the luminosity which spreads in every direction. Either way, the unburdening is instantaneous. In the opaline rush of streaming water, a weight I cant name loses its grip and gets left behind in the fizz of my wake.

One two three breathe. I count my way through the first hundred meters. It takes a few minutes for my limbs to remember the rhythm but pretty soon Im longer, looser. Its schoolgirl freestyle: nothing fast or fancy, just enough to earn me third or fourth place in the 50-meter sprint at annual carnivals. But for a shallow breather like me, swimming is fantasticmore than yoga or running or any gym class, it gets me drawing in deep lungfuls of air, and on a good day it feels like someones thrown open the windows on that locked and empty space below my stomach. It was my preferred exercise in Paris, too, which is why I was so thrilled we found a house right on the lagoon.

After heading straight out for a couple of hundred meters, at a large head of mustard-colored coral I tack parallel to the shore, keeping an eye out for the stroppy clownfish who doesnt take kindly to encroachments on its territory. On the sand below, stingrays prowling for shellfish have left winding trails, like spaceships that came and went in the night. The bottom looks close, though you cant trust distances underwater. Try as I have to pencil-drop to the lagoon floor, my feet never quite touch, though the local spear fishermen descend twenty meters or more without air tanks and flippers.

Early on, an obligation to be adventurous had made me try new directions. Once I struck out for the coral reef 800 meters offshore, toward the glistening frill of freshly cracked waves that delineates lagoon and deep sea. Another time, instead of turning left I headed in the opposite direction for the islet Motu Ahi. The distances werent greater than usual and as life changes go these experiments were inconsequential. Yet somehow those swims had felt all wrong and the days got off to a shaky start. Id learned my lesson. Now, faced with the freedom of swimming in any direction, I stick to my route like a sure-footed mountain goat, all too aware of the hazards of leaving the trail.

People talk about switching off when they exercise but it is during my morning swims I feel most switched on. Not to realityat least not realities onshore. Out here the novel thats going nowhere seems blissfully far away. In this womb of water there is no sense of solitude or emptiness. Even timewhose sluggish pace on land I have come to dreadacquires a playful fluidity, streaming through my fingers in ribbons so satiny and seamless I am barely aware of them.

Instead I switch on to myriad small miracles: the fine comb of a tiny fish fin; the dark grace of a spotted eagle ray, more skybound than waterborne. Or the startled schools that flutter nose-down, like striped snowflakes, when I reach the shelf. The mere sight of the deeper blue waters, looming like a shadowland, sets my heart racing. The drop is only about twenty meters but after the glass shoals it feels like an abyss. My eyes swivel anxiously, scanning for sharks. Theyre only harmless reef varieties, no more than one and a half meters in length, though underwater everything looks bigger. As tests of courage go, it is unremarkable. But these days Im grateful for any sense of accomplishment, and for me this shelf is a valued challenge, an essential part of my morning ritual.

As abruptly as it fell, the bottom rises again to a shallow garden. The coral is nothing to rave about; the colors are dull and tweedy. Yet between the branches, in the crannies and caves, its all go. Theres so much life nibbling, hiding, watching, slithering, darting through tentacles of sea anemones whose tips cling but dont sting when you brush them.