Say what you may, but I always rather work at night than day. There are few things I hate as much as having to wake up early in the morning. Ironically, if not working, I don't last long awake at night anymore. For some reason nights always seem to go by faster than days, and since good sleep has become so difficult for me, somehow sleeping during the day makes me more restful than sleeping during the night. Go figure. I still don't know if that makes me a night owl.

My new (for me) very gently used bag. Whoever owned this before me was really in love with it. It is in awesome condition. OK so it is not new, but let's face it, I can't always afford a 300 dollar bag and I am saving to buy a new bag closer to my birthday. Then I will be happy. I am not like Carrie who needed tons of new shoes, I don't need tons of new purses. Ahh but it is sooo pretty and useful.

This series of self portraits you'll see from time to time, are shots taken in different places, times. All of them have one thing in common: I am on the road. I spend so much time in hotels and dirty gas station restrooms (like the pink photo from weeks ago, more detail here) that I figured I'd start taking shots of these moments in time.

I found this bug on a window while waiting for my badge. After quite a few days of being unable to upload any images onto this site I finally can again.

I heard today that in Michigan there is a place for hunters to go called The Sanctuary. It struck me as incredibly ironic and cold to name a place where animals can be freely hunted and shot "the Sanctuary". I always thought "sanctuary" was what a person screams as he knocks on the doors of the local church when seeking protection from those persecuting him. Wow, I guess I was wrong. Then one of the guys, upon my pointing out this irony and saying that I guess no one asked the animals when they were naming the place said "that's why we are at the top of the food chain". Mind you, I am not contesting this or people's desire to eat meat, it's life. But answer me this: does being at the top of the food chain mean that we can let go of any morals, that we can treat animals with such indifference?

Self Portrait. Red Roof Inn.

Pachinko parlor, Japan, Sunday morning 6-11-09

Sometimes I catch myself being a little more aware of myself and who I am, what I'm doing. This isn't the good kind of mindfulness, I wish. It's that deep seated desire to be discovered. I think we all have it, a lot of us anyway, or we wouldn't have so many blogger sites, we wouldn't be so eager to spill the beans on who we are, what we do, what we look like. That proverbial 15 minutes of fame, we all crave it, lets face it. Used to be I'd imagine someone was watching me, the right kind of person of course, not a stalker (ironically, the right kind of person won't waste his time spying on someone right?Ironically, the love of my life, my husband, barely ever looks at me). I knew that I'd never catch someone's interest on looks alone, I don't have them, not the captivating kind anyway. I knew that the only way I could ever be noticeable was through my actions. Even so, they are still not loud enough, right enough, good enough. All I have to stand on are my own achievements. I catch myself wondering what a little moment in the realm of the popular would be like; after all they have a way of glamorizing everything, why can't what I do be interesting enough? I hope that I can find the words, experiences and voices to help me write the book I want to write, and make it interesting enough for people to want to read. That's a gamble, but it feels, cheesy I know, that that is the essence of life.

Right now all we ever look at, all we ever idolize and glamorize is the beautiful. We watch them and live their lives vicariously. We love and admire and fawn over the pretty faces. Pretty is a prerequisite for anything special to happen. Just watch hollywood movies, TV shows, from reality to series,magazines... Lucky for us there are still movies being made in other countries, with ordinary looking people who have extraordinary things happen to them, including love. But given the obsession with the beautiful people, I will say this: I do admire Angelina Jolie. She stands alone and apart from the rest of those perfect pretty little faces, because she uses her inner beauty, her money and her power to speak up for children, and hopefully this is one person others will listen to. She is one person I really admire.

Yes, I am working here.
And yes, my hands are in the gloves, just that I have to wear the same stuff the guys wear.... and do delicate finger work with it!

Japan, 2006.

A (Very) Short History of Women in Diving
(8-2005)


When I happened to mention to some of the guys at work that I was working on writing a book they nonchalantly asked what it was about. “Women in diving.” I replied, to which they scoffed and one of them said: “It will be a very short book.” How true he could be. If you wanted to find out about the presence of women in the diving field, or about any special woman in diving I assume that the key words typed in would be something to the effect of: “women diving” or “women divers” or perhaps even “female divers”. Forget about even trying “women commercial diving” or any combination because your search will come up dry. I tried several search engines and I was disappointed by the lack of options. I found a very plain web page dedicated to women in diving called: The Women Divers’ Hall of Fame[i]. If you want a truly brief history of women in diving I guess that this would be the place to go. It will not take too much time out of your busy day to read a brief biography of some of the magnificent women that have graced the world of diving since as early as the 1940’s. It was comforting to see how many great women divers the Navy has. The amount of women in the recreational diving area has grown; there was even one woman I know from when I lived in Cozumel. Women in biology, medicine, and photography were quite a few and all have impressive resumes but I only found two names directly related to commercial diving and one woman who runs a commercial dive school.
What was sad about this web page was that there was nothing more to it. A couple of the names didn’t even have a bio to them. The nomination forms were for last year and it looked as if the whole thing had been abandoned. I could almost hear wind and see a lonely tumbleweed bounce across my screen. I urged my friends to visit this page and perhaps combined interest could bring some life back to it. It wasn’t until I moved on to the home page that I saw a promising note about articles on women in diving to be posted on a larger web site. I contacted this web site two months ago and have still to receive a reply. Could it be that they were just swamped in emails from women dying to contribute articles on diving? Other than that there was no more to this page: no photos of the women, no photos of their work, not a single illustration or even a map. OK maybe I exaggerate, the homepage illustration of a woman diver with flowing locks holding a flaming torch is rather sexy. How does she keep her hair so sleek, not to mention, how does she keep the torch lit? I found one article from years and years ago about women in commercial diving on another web site, one which is soon to be defunct, I hear. The diveweb[ii], a very complete and professional site dedicated to commercial diving has a features library and there I found a very comprehensive and interesting article about women in commercial diving written by Madalyn Russell. In this article I recognized the name of a girl who graduated from my school who the director often mentioned. He was very proud of her so I was glad to see that she was still around, at least when the article came out in 1998! Either she was exceptional or the director hadn’t seen that many women walk through the school since she attended five years before me! There were 135 women listed on the Women Divers’ Hall of Fame and only 3 commercial divers; that means only 2.2% of these women are commercial divers. While I was in dive school the director sent me to a little college which was having a career day dedicated to women. The careers being introduced to the girls were those in which women make up 10% or less of the work population. At that time only 4.2% of the student force was made up of women. In our company we make up about 1.6%. In Singapore, in 2002, there were 200 divers; not one of them a woman; in other words: 0%.
What was disappointing was the dispassionate way that the women on the article on commercial diving mention how companies are not willing to make the changes necessary to have women in their crews, or, for example, how some of the women interviewed in the article mention that they share hotel rooms with the men so as not to be a “liability” to the company for having to pay for a single room for them. One man interviewed wasn’t concerned with the hiring laws as much as he was about what his wife would think about him sharing a room with a woman so for that reason he is reluctant to hire women.
I must say that here I am grateful to the company for having hired me and from the beginning having made it a requisite, a given that I would not share a room with a man for three simple reasons: 1) I am married 2) some of the guys are married 3) some of the guys are not married. Makes sense to me.
As for women in the military, I found a beautiful page along with photos dedicated to those trailblazers [iii]. Of all places it appears like the Navy has seen the most women come through their tough diving programs, succeed and go on to play important roles in all sorts of operations. I also noticed a common mention that many of the women were “petite” and it made me wonder just how much size matters.

Ironically someone at the Sub Aqua Association (SAA) seemed to have the answers, or at least felt close enough to getting the answer[iv]. If I may quote directly from some parts of the article: “Physiologically, women hold less potential for power, speed, work capacity and stamina than do men. At a specific height a woman has a smaller heart than a man. Coupled with smaller lungs (by about 20%), a smaller thorax and a smaller cardiac output. Women can not functionally achieve the maximal oxygen consumption capacity that a man can reach.” The article, however, goes on to mention that women use less air while diving but work closer to the maximum capacity than males. In other words, we try harder to do the same work over which a man doesn’t have to exert himself. The article also gets a little convoluted in explaining why women could retain heat better than men (we have more fat and less muscle, it says, but I don’t think this article used a typical group of diving males both recreationally and commercially since I have seen some guys who have considerably more fat to muscle than I have both in the recreational and commercial fields) but at the same time get chilled quicker and then are not able to reheat as well due to larger surface area (I think they meant big boobs and big asses) and, again, less muscle. There is mention that we are, indeed, more sensitive to cold and heat stress than men (though, thankfully, we sweat less doing so). Again, our lack of muscle is mentioned and that we have weaker shoulders and arms; but wait! This makes us work smarter, the writers add that this applies “specifically to commercial divers” (am I to assume that until I became a commercial diver I was a not so smart technical diver and SCUBA instructor?) but then goes right on to say that we are not to be trusted during our period since it may affect our cognitive abilities. Guys and Gals: not to worry, sharks hate “old” blood, quoting a theory that our periods may act as a shark deterrent (I bet the proponent of that theory was a man who was quite put off by his wife’s monthly visitor and could only assume that everyone else would be as well). Here is the best one yet (it’s amazing what you find in the internet): “Some women with severe menstrual tension have been found to have abnormal personalities reflecting underlying mood changes during this particular time of the cycle. Women who suffer with this problem should not dive during these periods.”

So should we dive or not? The article says we are more sensitive to cold and panic easier yet have natural buoyancy and “enhanced” swimming and survival skills. I start to picture a voluptuous temperamental woman on her period who, in the throes of hysterics and having lost her ability to make rational decisions, throws herself into the water where she proceeds to float very well, thrash about and yell longer than the men on the boat wish to hear, all the while working at her maximum capacity, using less air and keeping the sharks away. By the way, she didn’t sweat as much as the guys would have had they been in shark infested water and she also didn’t consider it a life threatening situation (yes, the article mentions we panic more yet see situations as being life threatening less often than men).

Speaking of life threatening situations, I found an article about a female commercial diver who sadly died while doing a dam inspection[v].

It was written by The Front on December 14th, 2000. Martine Côté was killed by suction while working in a dam. The article mentions her love of water and how she felt closer to God when diving so perhaps it was fitting that she die in the water. I love water but in all honesty this chicken does not want to die in it. I love it so much that to me dying in it would be the equivalent of being murdered by my husband. I would hate to have my last seconds on earth be full of the disappointment of betrayal by the one I love. I want to die when I am an old feisty little lady with a walker. I’ll tell people stories about the days when I was a commercial diver and by looking at me they won’t believe me. I’ll pull out my CDs of photos but the technology will be too advanced for my little CDs so they still won’t believe me. I’ll say: “want to see my tattoos?” and they’ll say: “I can’t see them with your pantyhose all scrunched up like that.” I’ll have to pull up the stretched old skin as I laugh: “I’m not wearing pantyhose dumbass.” And they’ll say: “Honestly grandma such language! Ewww disgusting I don’t want to see your tattoos. Mom, take grandma back to the rest home she’s pulling telling crazy stories again.” But I guess I better have children first.

On a serious note, however, the article about Martine Côté is heartbreaking because of how she died. It is an example of how things can easily be made safer and are so often not because, perhaps, it takes the glamour out of the job and it costs money. This article states that Canada loses a diver a year. This was a statement made by Gordon Hayes of the Canadian Association of Diving Contractors. When someone can say that so matter-of-fact it only reiterates to me how disposable we are. I was expendable and a dime a dozen as a SCUBA instructor, I am still quite dispensable as a commercial diver. Oddly enough it is not an extremely lucrative career, and divers do not have unions, not here (only in the west coast) and not in Canada (according to the article). When the journalist asks Pierre Lefèvre, representative of the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Professional Divers Association, why this is so, the answer is that divers are lone wolves and lack the cohesion needed to form a union. Mr. Lefèvre says that divers are also afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs or facing disciplinary action. Yes, we are a dime a dozen. Martine Côté was not a dime a dozen. I don’t believe any diver is but when you get a woman who succeeds and stays long enough in this profession, you know that she did not get there by being cute; she got there by working at maximum capacity by, and here I quote the SAA article by Dr. P. Bryson again (they may have got one thing right) “applying technique and intelligence to a physical situation rather than brute strength” and perhaps she also may have avoided working when she was cranky so as not to upset the guys.

I wonder if I have the right attitude at times. My approach has been to not be too much of a bitch. Nice and sweet... and stubborn. I’ve tried to take heed of my father’s advice to pick my battles carefully. But sometimes I wonder if maybe I’d have more respect if I were tougher. Seems to me the times I have gotten into trouble have been met with approval from the guys. Sometimes I am sure I over think things. The woman issue seems to always loom in the foreground before anything else. I often end up wondering, “Did they do this to me because I’m a woman or am I just being paranoid?” Example: This week I am the lone and sole person who was not assigned to any job. I was offered the shop (though there is nothing to do there) because I am full-time and must be offered the hours. One foreman explained that it was all about seniority, but at that moment there were more guys with less seniority than me working in the field. I am still not paid as much as many of the guys who got hired straight out of school at the same time I was hired. They are paid more because they supposedly have other skills from previous jobs. Quite a few of them have yet to use those skills. It seems that showing potential and passing all training with flying colors is not enough but is that because I am a woman or just because that’s the way it is?

Reading about women involved in commercial diving I think of Norma Hanson. Norma Hanson had a long and varied career in diving. She was an abalone diver back in 1949, she fed fish in hardhat gear as a tourist’s attraction, she did salvage diving and she was the second woman to join the Pile Drivers Union but the first female commercial diver to do so. She looks like she was a very beautiful woman in her younger years. To do what she did in a Mark V; not the lighter (but still heavy) gear we use now a days is no easy feat. As a novelty and rite of passage of sorts, the dive school I attended liked for all its students to try at least one dive in a Mark V. All suited up, including the hat, the breastplate, suit, belt and boots, we were wearing well over 300 pounds of gear. Try climbing a little ladder with that gear on. Norma Hanson, you are amazing, I take my (hard) hat off to you.

Dottie Frazer was also a trailblazer in her time. Tiny but determined she made her way from free diving to becoming the first female scuba instructor in 1955 and a hardhat diver in 1960. This is what I mean when they often mention the small size of the women who dive. Certainly smaller than average. Of my other female colleagues, one is quite petite. She is going on her third year with the company and is currently working in Japan. Meeting her was the best thing that could happen to me in this career. I realized that many of the experiences I had been through she had as well. I also realized that my point of view is not skewered; it is just the point of view of a woman who has chosen a strictly male oriented career and must accept the consequences. She too has gone through her rites of passage both as a commercial diver and as a female one to boot. She has stayed on and loves the job; more importantly she has remained professional. I mention this because unbelievable as it may seem I actually found an article in a dive magazine about the pros and cons of sleeping with your instructor[vi]. Though this article was geared toward recreational scuba, I believe that it applies to commercial as well and not just during training but on the job.
One of the dumbest things a woman could do regardless of her career choice is to sleep with a teacher or boss. Even if it is not for the purpose of making a job easier it will always be seen as a move to advance in position. I have heard a few stories of past women who worked for our company who made that mistake. One of the women who got hired along with me started a relationship with one of her foremen a short time into her career. Needless to say she was not well received by her co-workers. No matter how well they work they will never be remembered as anything more than the one who slept with so and so. If this move is regarded with disdain in most professions it is even more so when women are a minority. This is not to say that even when you remain virginal for all practical purposes, gossip will not follow you when you succeed. According to gossip on the island in which I lived for five years I was a lesbian. This rumor was born after my repeated “snubs” toward a couple of the other instructors and the fact that I did not sleep with my students. According to gossip I slept with two of my instructors while in commercial diving school. Need I mention that these are the two classes in which I got 100% on the finals? If such rumors have also coursed through the company I work for, I have yet to hear them; but this does not mean that I don’t have to be very careful and not make room for a rumor to be started.
I can only hope that someday I can be part of the history of women in diving; that my career will be long enough to help extend that history and that someday soon when I come upon the Women Divers Hall of fame I can see a whole slew of new names. Perhaps I did not go about my research properly but in time typing in the words woman and diving should hopefully result in a lot more positive articles. Sure we are very different from men when it comes to our physical and physiological make up but this should not be a reason why we cannot be part of the underwater world. Even if we have to work harder at it to just be “average” does not mean that we are not worthy of the praise.
To close this commentary on a light note: though articles or mentions of women in diving are few and hard to come by the amount of photos of women in diving gear are countless. I even found a page dedicated to all the films in which a woman performs some diving activity whether commercial, technical or recreational[vii]. The references seemed endless and made me see that though in real life women divers are scarce in Hollywood there seem to be more female divers than male.
[i] Women in Diving, Working Their Way Past the Glass Ceiling… To the Bottom www.underwater.com
[ii] www.diveweb.com
[iii] Military Women Divers, http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/divers.html
[iv] SAA Women in Diving by Dr. P. Bryson and M. St. Leger Dowse www.saa.org.uk
[v] Diving for Dollars www.montrealmirror.com
[vi] www.divegirl.com
[vii] Women in Deep Sea Diving Suits

Couple walking in Kashiwazaki, Japan.

I aspire to this. If someone were to snap a photo of my husband and me unaware of that moment being frozen in time, I'd want it to show that union that love creates and transcends. Not a forced smile, not a posed moment where awareness of our imperfections threatens to take over.

I watched this couple walk down the block. They held hands the whole time, and they were chatting. He'd lean down toward her to talk (yes, she is probably going deaf, but the gesture, nevertheless, was a caring and tender one) and she'd turn to him to talk.

Self Portrait in pink bathroom. Somewhere in central Illinois.

From my Journal;April 2004

So far I have been in the regional manager’s office about four times for one-on-one interviews. Every one of those conversations has revolved around one main theme: commitment, my commitment to this career and ultimately my commitment to the company. Unfortunately for me, as I’ve come to realize in my life as an adult, my father instilled in me, from a very early age and by example, an almost fanatical loyalty to whoever I work for. At the same time he passed this loyalty to me, he also gave me a deep sense of what is morally right. It appears that these two values can become shortcomings to whoever is unfortunate enough to possess them as far as work is concerned. The way most companies seem to be run now a days, these values make for some serious conflict. I could never steal so much as a paper clip, yet can be profoundly disturbed and moved to commit an impulsive action or vocalization if I feel something has been done with the intent of hurting or cheating an employee. You see, the new world of corporate politics calls for two things: 1) You must display utmost loyalty, like that of a soldier to his country but 2) should not speak up or question the fact that you are just that: a disposable soldier in the battle for the biggest profit.

As to my talks with the Head Boss, from day one as nice as he was, and pleased as he seemed to be to have me on board, he always appeared rather doubtful of my staying power. If it had to do with my gender, then it was a lose-lose situation. If I were single then my staying power would have rested solely on the fact that I’d surely date someone, very likely from the company, possibly even a foreman (as one girl did) and then drop out, or get into conflict and drop out, or get hitched and drop out, or get pregnant and drop out, or do any combination of the above- and drop out.

Since I was married, then my staying power rested on how long before 1) my husband got tired of my little adventure or 2) I got pregnant. If it had to do with the nature of the job, then surely I’d get fed up sooner or later. Regardless of the cause, the doubt was there. Translated from his attitude and looks and diluted into a few words it would have sounded like this: “Yes, our door is open, but are you willing to step in and stay in? I’m not holding my breath”. That open door policy was a comfort. It could so easily been much harder for me. This does not mean to say that I did not have to deal with the: “Ahem, what are your plans? What does your husband think? How long will he let you do this? When will he be moving here?”

I. Commitment and welding. “Yes, we have the welding program and we need welders but don’t do it now. There’s the coatings program, it’s more your size.” And the welding opportunity got pushed aside and eventually discouraged and moved entirely out of my reach. When it was first announced that there would be coatings and welding training offered I shrugged at the thought of welding. I did this because I wasn’t sure I was up to par, I thought it took some special credentials to get anywhere close to the training so I turned my attention more toward coatings. Coatings seemed simpler, not quite as strength oriented, more likely for me, a woman, to be able to easily pick it up. When they saw that I thought this way, they urged me harder toward that direction. I didn’t think I could pass the weld test. Simple as that. My only experience with welding had been a single glorious month at school. This was a month where I went from abject fear of the whole concept of electricity underwater to absolute fascination. I was very shaky at first, electricity and I being nothing more than respectful strangers. Having grown up in so many third world countries I heard my share of stories about horrible accidents having to do with electricity from my father’s experiences at work. Whenever possible I always had someone else do the plugging and unplugging of the most mundane objects: TVs, radios, toasters. How utterly selfish! (but saddly true). When welding came up in school, I decided to learn all I could, pathetically enough because I did not trust my classmates with the “plugging and unplugging” of things. I dug around the measly little library until I found a few rather old books. I also asked my father and he emailed me a lesson or two: Electric Circuits for Dummies. During the practical applications I made sure I always stood close to those who had experience. I watched them. I watched the angles, the movements, the positioning of arms. I also listened. I compared the sound of a good weld against the sound of one that wasn’t coming out too nicely. Everyone who welds will tell you that a good weld sounds like sizzling bacon. A bad weld can sound like grease popping in a wet skillet. Not to mention the horrible hum of a stuck electrode. The hardest part for me was getting the arc started. Old Willy made it look so easy, he had talent. Months later at work I was infuriated when someone who knew nothing about Willy and his history, shrugged off the fact that he had been one of the divers to patch up the Exxon Valdez. “It takes no talent to weld a patch.” One said. I was furious. Obviously if Willy had been called out to participate in such a high profile job, he was good; if this guy had been the one to do the job I bet he'd be the first to brag about it to anyone who'd listen. This was another typical example of the immense threat that a decent diver poses on others and the rampant insecurity that all divers (including myself) seem to feel when other divers’ achievements are discussed. I know that the comment was more a reflection of this than a dismissal of Willy, but I was miffed anyway. Willy welded the old fashioned way; he’d sometimes bend his electrodes. Then again Willy was one of the first Navy divers. One of his lessons to me was lending me the book “Descent into Darkness” ; I recommend this book to anyone remotely curious about commercial diving. I’d watch Willy then imitate him and pretend it was simple. In doing this I fell in love with welding. The three hour dives felt like ten minutes and I tried any way I could to get more time underwater. Some of my classmates soon tired of the novelty and no longer cared to be in the rotation. It was at this point that I, along with a couple other fellow fanatics, was able to dive all day and weld rod after rod.

On the day of the test I was very nervous. To put so much love and effort into something and find out that you are mediocre at best, can be a bit of a slap in the face. This happened to me in high school when I attempted to pick up volleyball when I realized that I absolutely loved the sport. Up to that day I had only participated in solo sports so the team effort involved in volleyball was attractive. The ball was not too hard (I always seemed to get hit with a ball if a ball was involved so at least this wouldn't hurt too much) and there seemed to be a balance in standing relatively still and sudden bursts of movement. Above all else I had noticed that all the girls who played developed rather limber and beautiful bodies. I gave it my all trying to learn to play. I was all over the place; “I got it!” became my mantra, motto, and call. Sadly, I hardly ever had it, and when I did the ball landed in an entirely different court not currently involved in our game. In the end I was rarely picked to play. When the team captains (you know, the popular girls no one dares stand up against) had us all standing in a group and got to pick us out in turns I was called on only after the very tall girl with the back brace for her scoliosis had been picked. That is just how bad at volleyball I was.

For the welding test we had to cut and grind our own pieces. We had to drill a hole in the center of one and weld that smaller piece on top of the larger one. The test of the integrity of the weld was made by injecting air into the hole and soaping up the welds to see if any air was getting through. If the weld bubbled up then the pieces had not been completely welded together. We were allowed 4 rods for the test, no double passes and one practice piece before the test piece. I went down with my pieces and my first four rods. I began on what was supposed to be my practice piece. Tack weld. Tack weld. Start the first side straight then angle when I got to the lap joint. Let the rod place itself on the metal. Don’t linger or force it. Don’t pull away or speed up. I watched the slag float off as it peeled off the fresh weld.

That was a good weld.

“Topside.” I said quietly.

“What’s up Richter?”

“Ask Mike if I can make this my test piece.”

“You want that to be your test piece, Richter?” Came the unsure reply.

“Affirmative. Please, Mike?”

A minute of silence followed and I could picture my classmate asking Mike.

“That’s a Roger if you want but you cannot take it back if it fails.” The voice of my classmate on comms replies.

“Roger that.”

I weld on the sides, then my little crosses as Mike, our instructor required. I look at the finished piece. I flip it over. I still have 2 rods left. I weld a large capital K, if I fail then I'll own up to it, but I'll be miserable, I know.

I waddle over to the bucket and deposit the left over rod and my finished piece, then I pull three times on the line and watch the bucket ascend.

It is at this point that my heart begins to race. Was I mental to do this? Shouldn’t I have given myself a second chance? I realize I am clasping my hands as if in prayer. This is so meaningless to countless experienced divers out there, and even to many of my classmates who are secure in the idea that they will be going offshore to work and this is just another waste of time class. Even the instructors are constantly reminding the students that grades don’t really matter. It’s nothing to them, but everything to me.

Every day I attended that school was everything to me. I waited so long to finally take the step to become a commercial diver and wasn’t, still am not, sure of what success I will have in the end. There is so much machismo and bravado, even from the few women involved, that you’ll hardly ever hear the truth: was it hard or not, were you afraid or not?

“They’re testing it, Richter.” Topside tells me, and then is silent again leaving me to listen to my hesitant little breaths and speeding heart.

“You got 100% Richter.” Even topside seems happy for me.

“I did?”

“No leaks Richter, congratulations!”

“Yay!” I am jumping up and down underwater, clapping my hands with the joy of a little girl.

I’d have done the same if I had gotten picked first to play volleyball 17 years earlier.

In the real world the 100% that mattered so much to me became meaningless to others. I know this now, but the 100% remains a reflection of my potential. I forgot this for a moment when they passed out the sign up sheet for the weld test which could place 8 of us in training. I let the paper pass me without even touching it. Days later, for lack of anything to keep us busy with, Bob sent me and one other guy over to the shop to join those who had signed up for the test. Over the previous weeks the weld test had become a big deal for many of the guys. The idea of being part of an Elite group (as the manager talked it up) and making the extra money was like a siren song to them. I dragged my feet and vacillated; I went to the office and hung out there, chit chatting with Jan, the manager’s assistant. I went back to the shop and stood about, watching the other guys welding. I could see the intensity in some of their faces: they want this. The supervisor for this event is a guy who scared me a bit from day one. Quiet, chilly eyes, thin smile; unreadable. In retrospect I see I am as guilty of having preconceived ideas, and profiling as any Johnny Redneck (see what I mean? bad, bad Kyra!).

“You want to try?” he asked me.

“I’d like to watch.” I remember saying and I moved closer to Daniel, one of the guys trying out who had previously been a fulltime welder. I watched him make the rod dance as he welded neat little patterns. Julian, my best friend from school, was concentrated trying to follow Daniel’s lead. Yesenia, the only other girl there, was in a place by herself. She had graduated a month before me. I had admired her and looked up to her since I was in school. She had hired on a few weeks after me, and having her there made me feel like we had a little group going. Yesenia wanted this more than anyone there. She had talked of nothing else since she hired on. Her face was set and she was trying it every which way. I was afraid of what would happen when I tried, and try I would have to sooner or later.

When my turn could no longer be avoided, knowing full well that I’d get nowhere, I reverted to class/ play mode. I was just here to have fun and a little practice. Though in reality I could not close my eyes, I almost did. I closed everything else and recalled sight and sound from welding class. I suck at understanding voices, half the time people think I am deaf or getting there but when it comes to sounds things are different. Sounds are signals to everything around us, like the way sometimes words don’t matter, only the tone with which they are said does. As soon as I was done with my first basic lap weld I looked over at Daniel. He used the pin hammer to scrape the slag away and his eyes twinkled. “Good.” He said simply.

By weld #3 the slag was lifting itself off like an old scab that’s ready to go. I looked up expecting to see Daniel standing over me but the supervisor was there instead. He was eager to give me tips on how to improve my positioning. I wanted so badly to be able to pick everything up as soon as he said it, but he is incredibly experienced and experienced people can impart the best tips and knowledge and it will only do so much good right then, the rest could only be brought about by my own experience. We broke for lunch and after lunch they called us all into the shop. They made a short speech about narrowing the decision to eight people and blah blah, but all we wanted to hear was names. The manager began to read from his list. “Ben Ryan, Mike Nielsen, Ryan Ferdell, Joe Buchanan, Daniel Stacy, James LeClair, Kyra Richter…”

Truly I felt honored. Truly I felt, at last, gifted and in a nod to those days in high school waiting for my name to be called for volleyball, redeemed. I felt like I had won a lottery, something based on the luck of the draw, but I still doubted or wanted to doubt what was possible. This, like my test in school had felt like dumb luck. Beginner’s luck. But twice in a row? Could I possibly keep duplicating this streak of luck throughout the training in Connecticut which would prepare us to weld in spent fuel pools, dryers and other extremely important nuclear components? Were these guys so stoic or were they at all aware of the responsibility, professionalism and, yes, commitment that would be required of us? I sure felt the weight of all this, still, something I hadn’t considered before had just become a possibility and now, by God, I wanted this too! Perhaps it is selfish and competitive but the more I thought about it the more it became imperative I push on. Me, Latin, female, and petite, a nuclear welder. Come on, how many of us could there be? Could it be, at last, only ONE? This to me was like reaching the summit of Mount Everest and being the first to put down a flag of your country. If I could do this then I’d be making it possible for many other women to do this too. I wanted this because after years of feeling like I failed my parents, myself and my husband, I could have a little vindication.

Then the regional manager, Bob and the weld supervisor stepped in. The supervisor was the only one trying to help me but I misunderstood him and interpreted his advice as a thinly veiled suggestion to not do this. Bob perhaps out of honest desire to keep me in the area and his crew, also told me it was best to wait before doing the welding. The regional manager, oh him. He was all about commitment. You don’t get to where he is by having a readable face do you? I could not interpret him or his words, all I heard was: “…suit’s too big for you, hindering performance… coatings as practice… commitment…. Never home for months on end… very expensive million dollars training for you to back out of it later.”

That’s all I heard. Could there still be doubt as to my commitment? I have been on the road for four months without seeing my husband, moving from hotel to hotel. It is now April, the welding event happened in mid November. I left Glenn shortly after Thanksgiving , had three days off for Christmas and have been working non stop ever since. I have the bad habit of wanting to see things from everyone’s side, of giving chances and excuses for why people say or do things. I come off as a wimp. June 2005 Last year I spent 8 months on the road. I paid for Glenn’s school and when he joined the company (what a wonderful bonus that was) I thought we would see more of each other. Glenn has now been working with the company for 11 months and we have yet to work together. There are many jobs where more than one crew is present, we could easily be in different crews but at least sharing the same hotel room. There are rumors that foremen and divers alike do not want to have us together. We firmly believe that this is purely out of envy because they too spend so much time on the road. For now, this is a battle that we chose not to fight.

As for commitment and potential, though I still have a long way to go and much experience to gain, I believe that I have shown the potential to be whatever they need, but the opportunity has not come my way. I remember the regional manager telling me that welders never see their families. Oddly enough I spent a total of 8 months on the road and hardly saw Glenn. This year alone from January to May we never had more than a couple of days together here and there. I would have preferred to be welding and making more money, but it was no longer my choice.

Foot of water trough at a shinto shrine in Japan.
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