Kim C. Hutsell

Posted on: Apr 20, 2023 at 3:33 AM

Posted on: Apr 20, 2022 at 3:33 AM

Posted on: Nov 05, 2019 at 2:40 PM

Posted on: Nov 05, 2019 at 2:23 PM

Thought you might recognize the guy on the far right. (from Stout Elementary)

Posted on: Nov 05, 2019 at 11:57 AM

Couldn't attend the reunion. It's been a lotta years but wanted to take the opportunity to say "Hi." Hope you are well.

Marta...just wanted to say "hi." Sorry I missed the reunion. It would have been nice to see you. Hope you're well.

Posted on: Sep 26, 2019 at 10:08 PM

Posted on: Sep 19, 2019 at 12:56 PM

Hi, Ilene! It was nice to see that someone I actually went to school with was involved with the Mono Lake project. In all the time I've lived in California I've still somehow not managed to visit Yosemite. But it's nice to know you're there keeping an eye on things!

Posted on: Sep 19, 2019 at 12:45 PM

Posted on: Sep 17, 2019 at 5:50 PM

Diving for a living was not an easy life. It didn’t pay well. At least, not with anything that could be used to pay the bills. And there were risks...huge risks. Every time I went out, everything out there, it seemed, could kill me. I soon found the diving mantra of always diving with a buddy was one of the biggest risks of all. Having someone else with me raised the stakes exponentially. After all, the only times I really got into serious trouble was because of someone else. Most experienced divers will admit that they prefer solo diving to the burden of buddy-tending.

I dove mostly alone for the majority of my career. I knew that if I got into trouble, it would likely be something I did that caused it. So, as crazy as it sounds, I practiced. I pushed myself to the edge, sometimes hanging on by only a fingertip before pulling back. I used up my air and made free ascents from deeper than most people dive. I descended into the unknown in near zero visibility knowing that there were things that didn’t need eyes to “see” me...things that could eat me or just drag me to where I wouldn’t be able to recover. On night dives, I often turned off my lights just to experience the penetrating dark of a world where I was the ill-equipped alien, where shadows moved while I held still and listened to a cacophony of sound that non divers will never experience. At times, I made repetitive dives to three times the safe limit for sport divers...because for me...it had become something far more than a sport. It had become a triumph over a fear of the unknown. It had become a resignation, a surrender to everything beyond my control...and a willingness to let that moment be my last. Once my head went below the surface, everything above water became non existent. Nothing mattered but the here and now and the immediacy of attention it demanded. Everything there was more important than me. Everything acted with a purpose. Everything went about foraging, collecting, killing, eating, mating, tending eggs and young.

It was a learning experience. An education that no human could ever provide. There was struggle, most times for life and death. There was order. And there was the absolute truth that if there was to be life, there must be death. Sudden and final. No do-overs, no qualifiers, no special exemptions, no court rulings, no judgements...no note from home. One moment an organism was alive, the next...it became part of something else. The reef and the ocean that held it were one gigantic living organism that was continuously evolving, morphing and mutating into something else.

But each organism was an entity...an individual for a brief time, capable of cognisance. From the octopus to the lowly coral polyp, cells were organized into beings that held sway over their own destiny as they reacted to their surroundings.

And me...I discovered, underwater, not just who I was...but what I was...and even a little of how I came to be...and why.

There is so much we humans bring on ourselves that we needn’t deal with. There is so much strife and grief that we could avoid if we just allowed ourselves to open our eyes and see what’s important and what’s not. And there is so much hate in the world today from those who seek to hurt others for no reason other than they can.

I long for the peace I found...there in the sea.

Posted on: Sep 17, 2019 at 4:43 PM

Posted on: Sep 17, 2019 at 4:42 PM