Searching for Spouts

It must mean something.

Hi friends,

I am in Maui right now with my family, recharging in the ocean. At home, Washington state has become a flood zone. Water, water everywhere, but not all of it is welcome. And how about you? What is this season submerging you in?

This island is stirring so much up for me, and I’m grateful for all of it. Here’s something that came out last night, as I sat in the dark by the sea thinking about the day.

All my love,

Kendall

Photo by Howard R Wheeler on Unsplash

I’ve been following the whale’s trajectory from my spot on the shore for about twenty minutes, but no one else on the beach knows it’s out there. For now, it’s a secret I’m holding in my pocket, rubbing it like a smooth stone, vigilant and attentive to the way that its presence keeps me firmly planted inside my body. When it surfaces, my breath quickens in my chest and my throat fills with an unsung song and I curl my toes into the sand, because my toes curl everytime I feel most alive, whether I tell them to or not. Afterwards, when it dives, my belly rises and falls in a deeper rhythm, and every part of my body holds itself in quiet anticipation as I wait for its return, everything except for my eyes, which scan back and forth, back and forth, skipping over whitecaps and the wakes of distant boats in search of the one thing they know on an almost cellular level.

The first whale biologist I ever worked for told me once that scanning the sea for whale spouts is a lot like having sex— it’s really just long periods of relative inactivity punctuated by short bursts of excitement. I was twenty-three at the time and a virgin, so I had to take his word for it. Now, decades later, I can't help but question his skills as a lover.

The whale I am currently tracking has been down for over ten minutes, and the waiting is an ecstatic experience for me, but maybe I’m just the rare sort that believes delayed satisfaction is sublime and worthwhile, especially in this world of click bait and quickies.

A man and a woman walk past me, and I catch the trailing end of her question like a spout in the wind.

“…. any whales?” She asks him breathlessly, pumping her arms in the way older women do when they are walking with the express purpose of burning as many calories as possible.

“Not yet.” He says, shaking his head. “I stood on the balcony looking for them this morning, but I don’t think….” and then they are gone.

I turn and watch them stride purposefully away, his shirt black and crisp and creased, as though it has just been unfolded from a vendor’s table and immediately tugged over his head, the words “Maui Wowie” screen printed in big white block letters on the back. I pause for just a second, considering, and then I close my mouth and return my gaze to the horizon.

There you are. The puff appears and disappears in less than two seconds, the wind erasing all trace of the massive creature’s brief ascent. A second one follows, then a third, much smaller puff, and then it is gone again, lost to the depths.

It’s a singular feeling, to be the only person in a sea of bodies to see a distant whale.

I rub the stone in my pocket and wait.

---

Just to be clear, it’s not that I don’t want anyone else to see the whale, it’s just that I don’t think they’ll be able to. And yes, I realize my lack of confidence in other people’s spout-spotting abilities is completely snobbish. But it’s not entirely unfounded. In this wind, and at this distance, by the time I shout, There! and point to a puff of air roughly the size and shape of a dandelion seed in the vast blue ocean, it will already be long gone.

I’ve spent countless hours trying to get boats full of hopeful passengers to see a barely visable whale spout in choppy, two-foot seas, and it’s a bit of a nightmare. Half of the people jump up and down, looking in the entirely wrong direction, clapping and taking photos of lord only knows what, and the other half stare in roughly the right direction, squinting their eyes and shaking their heads in frustration as I come alongside them and point, saying something like, “There! Do you see that dark blue wind streak on the water? Now look at the lighter patch leading to the horizon and cut that in half, and it’s right in the middle, right next to that big whitecap.” At which point they’ll respond with something like, “Oh, yeah, now I see it!” with an undertone of resignation that fully negates the words being said.

There are always a few who do, in fact, see the spouts, who turn to their neighbors, saying other helpful things like, “See that cloud in the shape of an upside-down beetle? It’s right there, under the thorax.” And I smile and nod at them, because these are my people.

I think about all the folks pretending to see something that they do not see, and those that genuinely think they see something that is not really there, and those that want to see it, and are trying so hard, but have never glimpsed a spout and don’t know what they’re even looking for, and those that clearly see it and want to share the experience but can’t find the right words, and I feel like all of this must mean something.

These days I often find myself standing silently on the shore, keeping my observations to myself.

---

Until, of course, the whale begins to repeatedly slap its tail on the surface of the water.

Wham, wham, wham! Five, ten times. Now a long pectoral fins rises and slams down in a graceful arc. The splashes are unmistakable.

I look around. There is a row of covered chairs in front me, pairs of them covered in dark green canvas awnings. They cost $150 to rent for half a day, I checked the hotel website, just out of curiosity. Most of the people lounging on these costly cushions on such premium real estate are on their phones or sunbathing with their backs to the sea.

I am judging them, of course I am.

I take a breath and approach the first couple, squatting down next to them. “Hey, there’s a surface-active humpback out there, right off the bow of that catamaran, if you’re interested.” They both look surprised that I have entered their bubble for a moment, but then they light up, setting their phones aside to look in the direction I am pointing.

“Oh! There! I see it!” One says, eagerly sitting up. The other makes eye contact with me and thanks me, smiling. I tell them no problem, and to have a great day, and I move down the line.

I point the whale out to about a dozen other people, as it is still very helpfully announcing its presence with thunderous claps, the water spraying out in large fans on either side of its flukes. Each time I am thanked, often enthusiastically.

Now there is a row of observers standing up, engaging with one another, pointing out the splashes out to beach walkers who have stopped to see what all the commotion is about, and it is so, so good to be in this shared bubble of amazement with all of these humans I do not know.

The stone burns bright in my pocket, and just for now, it belongs to all of us.

Just for now, we all see the same thing, and this also feels like it must mean something.

Photo by Barry Potter on Unsplash