The Loch Ness Monster

Only known image of Nessie
Photo credit: M. Morgan, 2004
Loch Ness, Inverness, Scotland

During my semester abroad in college, three of my friends and I signed up for a week long adventure tour around Scotland. This mostly involved hiking around the Scottish countryside and visiting castles and distilleries with 20 strangers from around the world. The last stop on our tour was to visit Loch Ness to hopefully catch a glimpse of the massive, magical monster in which I secretly believed.

As our rickety tour bus lumbered over the hills and valleys, toward the water, our tour guide Ruthie--a short brunette with a Scottish brogue--began telling us a story of the first time she visited Loch Ness.

She and her two best friends grew up hearing about the loch's mystical powers, powers provided by the beautiful and elusive Monster, in whom the natives aggressively believe. The lore suggests that pursuing the Loch Ness Monster is, in and of itself, a measure of true bravery. And so, it is believed that to show your certainty in the Monster, and your valiant efforts to find her, you should run naked into the loch. Don't think about how deep the water is (one of the deepest lakes in the world) or how cold the water is (such deep waters can't get warm in the misty Scotland climate). Just run. Dive deep down into the endless, frigid waters, and when you come out, you come out cloaked with good fortune as a reward for your courage and faith. 

Then you toast your new luck with a swig of Scotland's finest drink. 

She laughed fondly as she told of how she and her friends emerged from the loch, naked and shivering, and spent the evening warming by a fire while they sipped whiskey and watched the waves carry all their bad luck out to sea. She couldn't explain how, exactly, but that night changed her life. When the dawn came and the whiskey hangover subsided, she knew she would never be the same. 

She seemed lost in her memories as we were pulling up to the water's edge. She turned off the ignition, reached under her seat, pulled out an unopened bottle of Scotch, and glanced back at everyone on the bus.

Without looking at each other, without even uttering a word, my friends and I, in beautiful synchronization, kicked off our shoes and began unbuttoning our shirts. We were stumbling off the bus as we unzipped our pants. We hopped around on the rocks trying to pull the socks from our feet. And on that cold, foggy Scotland day--like some beautiful, slow motion scene in a gripping movie about a dog finding its way home--we all started running toward the water.

When my feet first hit the water, an icy chill went through my entire body in a painful jolt. Though I felt frozen, my body kept moving over the slippery, smooth pebbles that cover the loch's floor. I kept running. I ran until I was up to my neck in icy water.

And then I dove.

Once I completely submerged my entire body in the wintery water, I popped up immediately, a little surprised to be alive. I quickly and effortlessly swam back to shore. And there was Ruthie, jumping and screaming with delight as she waved her siren bottle of Scotch in the air. She ran to us, enveloping us all in a joyful embrace. We were all leaping in the air and triumphantly high fiving while Ruthie cracked open the bottle. As we gathered up our clothes that had made a trail from the bus to the shore, we looked up to notice, for the first time, that the rest of the tour group was still on the bus, faces pressed against the windows, mouths agape.

In that moment, all I wanted to do was make my college years last forever.

A few weeks ago, I received a job offer to become a faculty member at a major university. While this is great news and I couldn't be more excited by the opportunity, this job offer was the end result of an extremely long hunt.

More than two years ago, while in the midst of my dissertation research, there was speculation around campus that a faculty position might be opening up in my field of research. At the time, it was just a rumor. Mere myth. For months I tried to find out more information. I'd casually ask people in the break room. I'd eavesdrop on conversations in the bathroom. I'd stand with my ear suctioned to a cup pressed up to the dean's door.

To me, the rumored position--and all the details about it that I liberally filled in myself--seemed wonderful. While I've never subscribed to the notion of a "dream job" it certainly fit many criteria for the kind of job I'd want. This mythical opportunity could allow me the challenging career I've long desired, coupled with the flexibility I would need with two young children. And it's no secret that opportunities for newly minted PhDs is a very grim fairy-tale.

Over the course of two years, my life accidentally became a prolonged quest for this folkloric possibility. Despite having no factual evidence that this job would ever exist, or if I'd even be considered for it, I carried on ambitiously as though it did and I would be. 

It wasn't as if I wasted time with my life while I waited. I birthed and cared for a child while I finished my doctorate degree. Then I birthed another child. I worked as an adjunct teacher and as a researcher on various grant-funded projects for the university. I did a fair amount of consultation work. I had the dogs groomed. But I found myself refusing to settle into a permanent position. 

At first, I felt courageous. Believing in the existence of something without reason or evidence. But in the meantime, I let many other opportunities pass me by. I even turned down an incredibly gracious job offer, one that would have really benefited my family financially, for the absurd pursuit of what was basically folklore. 

Waiting was not only making me crazy, it was making me selfish. 

After a year or more of fantasizing, the rumor of the position became factual. A national search was to be held to find a candidate for the position. And a search can take up to a year as candidates from across the country are vetted and considered. So I applied and prepared myself for another extended wait.

Another year went by.

All the waiting created in me a certain level of self-doubt. And depression. Well intentioned friends kept asking if I had heard anything, and my explanation for still waiting made me feel irrational, manic even. But eventually, when I was about to give up, the waiting turned into progress. And the progress turned into an interview. And the interview turned into an offer. And the offer turned into a job. 

And as I prepare to start my new role as an Assistant Professor, with an unhealthy level of excitement, I can't help but wonder what I'm sure the Scottish have always secretly wondered: can the monster ever be as magical as it has been imagined?

That afternoon in Scotland--after we emerged from the water, and caught our breath, and got dressed--we stumbled, fuzzy from whiskey, over to a silver Airstream we saw parked close to shore. A sign outside read: Loch Ness Monsters For Sale £1.00. I pounded hard on the metal door. A man, young and attractive but disheveled and crazed, swung open the door as if he himself had also been drinking. 

"I want to buy a Loch Ness Monster," I declared.

"Okay," he said, unimpressed with the four of us. "Come on in."

We climbed into his trailer to see an unmade bed with plaid flannel sheets, a hot plate and a table cluttered with clay, googly eyes and hundreds of Loch Ness Monster figurines. I picked out one that was holding a little clay book and wearing a tiny pair of wire spectacles. It did, and still does, make me laugh to think of Nessie as bookish. 

"So you live here?" I asked. 

"Yep," he said, running his hand through his dirty hair. "I make and sell these to raise money for my research."

"Oh?" I said, intrigued there was a purpose to the kitschiness. "What do you research?" 

"The Loch Ness Monster," he said earnestly. "I'm trying to find her."

My friend snorted. "At a buck a piece, it's gonna take you forever." 

"That may be true," he said, yawning as he scratched his beard. "But I'm crazy enough to wait.