WHALE SONG
If I externalize everything, I neglect all the quiet little details of my own remarkable life.
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A stadium of 5,000 people. This memory of seeming obscurity came flooding back this week.
There, sits a girl with a generous smile.
Like the crowd, she anticipates something extraordinary is about to happen, wrapped in her sunflower yellow jumpsuit, twirling the soft straight ends of her long blonde hair.
I close my eyes and marvel that this is really me, or rather a version of me that I have forgotten or neglected.
While simultaneously fixed on something just in front of her, I catch her glancing over her shoulder to meet me in this crossroads of my now.
Of all those who have come to watch, two official looking people come and pull her from the crowd—
Down the concrete staircase,
Past 6 million gallons of water encased in a 36’ deep tank,
Up a platform wide enough for just one person,
I am in awe that person is me.
As we walk, I am given instructions: Hands to side. Cheek facing out. Lean sideways and down as far as you possibly can.
And I remember thinking in my excitement that he shouldn’t be captive, he should be free.
Was I apprehensive in the moment or is the quickening of my heart from the memory of what was?
To marvel at the memory,
To grasp that the girl bathed in sunlight was an echo of me,
To wonder why this memory seems so important,
To integrate what was, with this rendition of what has come to be.
Girl of sixteen years was kissed by an 8,000 pound killer whale.
Why out of thousands is this the headline bubbling to the surface, why is it this that I remember of all the big and little things?
What headlines of your own life have you buried? Good or bad. Extraordinary beyond compare?
Have we become so obsessed over other people’s comings and goings that we have cast aside the seemingly inconsequential paragraphs of the incomparable story of our own astonishing lives?
I do not dismiss the message that comes in the form of girl in a yellow jumpsuit on this January 2024 day.
Who I am is not contained to breath made visible by a singular frosty morning, not defined or limited by the woman who stands before the mirror and studies the evidence of a deeper story in the lines she tries so hard to erase.
Today, I am not a writer sitting behind her computer drinking matcha but a time-traveler, a huntress, seeking the lost and discarded pieces of reality’s daydream. My life experience so impossibly miraculous, mysterious, and rare.
Here in lies the question—
What could happen if we dive deep into the whale song of our singular existence—
Each encounter examined,
Every moment intimately intertwined,
All orchestrated and intended,
Impossible to rationalize and define.
This life. Vast as the ocean. Unexpected at every turn. Who I am is every possibility of a lifetime of moments assembled. Small as mindful daily rituals. Big as a killer whale.
NOTES:
Such tragedy how often we dismiss and diminish our own extraordinary lives.
In all the questions about purpose and direction, perhaps there is great value in not always looking forward but sometimes back.
Behind us are the echoes of a not-so-random journey but a whale song of both eerie and haunting melodies inhabiting more meaning than we can possibly know. In the notes there is a pattern intended to guide us both away and toward what destroys or edifies.
How could that girl know what she would become today? I am not so far from who I once was—inquisitive, inspired, hopeful, in awe of the surprises that each moment brings.
What patterns are there for us to follow as we navigate the stories we’ve been gifted?
Can we live in this perpetual place of wonder? In anticipation that something big [maybe even giant] is just ahead?
I believe we can.
Something to celebrate—The last time someone was kissed by an orca at SeaWorld was 2016. And as of 2021 their shows and breeding program are deceased. These black and white beauties currently in captivity will be the last.