Getting the A

Grad school is an elongated state of triage... In chatting with a friend on my way from one study session to another I mentioned time, and currency, and trade offs.  She accused me of becoming an economist (a topic we've covered often in our Marine Resource Management class these days- assigning 'value' to things which are intrinsically, though not monetarily 'valuable'.  The whole thing makes me want to vomit.  The degree with which I hate a cash based economy is almost enough to forgo this computer, this internet, and this school, and go live in the woods somewhere forever- I digress). After the good natured accusation I wondered (on my bike traveling from point A to point B) whether or not she was right?  Had I abandoned the integrated life that I strove so hard to embody in exchange for this segmented, over-crowded head space, where I strove for this idea of school?  Why does my coursework affect me so?  When will I have not just the time, but the energy, to relax.

I coined a phrase, or I guess an idea (albeit a sad one):  I said out loud to myself.

"The currency of grad school is time.  And we are and will forever be poor of it."

Time cannot be hoarded (to my dear dragon's disappointment).  So if we think of time as a thing to have, to borrow or to spend (as here in school I'm so want to do) we feel forever poor, empty, and clinging to this idea... this currency which is time.

I dole out my time in a miserly fashion.  I give it to John when I can.  To Vista as much as I dare.  If it is evening and I think my productivity would be otherwise bereft, I allocate a moment to my friends.

Mostly I give my time to my assignments.  To this strange idea of excellence.  As if by making through all this within this arbitrary structure that says something about me.

I don't know what my B+ in Fluid Earth says about me... but I bet it isn't as much as any poem I've written, or any conversation with Sebastian that I ever imagined, or any story I ever told anyone (especially if it were about the ocean).  But I strive for these classes, I pay for them. 

Perhaps it is the promise that these ideas will make it into a story one day... that in casual conversation adiabatic lapse rate will become the pathway for a disgruntled parcel of air to rise and then settle... and that parcel of air will have  a story... Perhaps understanding (at least basically) why we have lenticular clouds over Denali will make them more beautiful.

If the currency of life is time, we are poor in today, but rich in tomorrow.  An unhappy present that I have faith is impermanent.

Beause I May Die Today

And that's ok.  It's true everyday, and one day will become inevitable.

I will die imperfect. So will you.  It may be sad, and it may be tolerable.  If I die suddenly and soon, you will be unprepared (I imagine, so will I).  That will be harder than if you remind yourself- as I will- that I may die today.  If I die young, and since I think anyone shy of 60 young, it is a certain possibility, then it may feel tragic.  You may want to idolize my memory, my name, the things I used to say.  I give you permission in advance to let these things go.  To remember me warts and all, for how I am ornery at times, and for how I have a tendency to go crazy when living in cold dark climates too long, or when I choose to not say what I mean and by the time I'm ready to talk I blame you for it, even if it's not your fault.  I give you permission to be sad, but also a little relieved, because I can be difficult even though you love me.

5am airport cupcakes

I turn 28 today, sitting at the airport moving from one type of family to the other with equal importance, and two vegan red velvet cupcakes.

In the past two weeks I have been to Massachusetts, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. I feel like my life has flashed before my eyes. I can see in my minds eye the long strait house my grandmother grew up in with her family of 13, before I or even my mother had yet become an idea. I can feel the weight of the bench that lived alongside the table where they all ate meals in a single room of their shotgun double in downtown New Orleans. I know now that on Halloween they wore no costumes, but carried small pumpkins (before the days of GMOs made them big and watery) with candles in them. There was no candy handed out door to door.

Down the street on the corner was Mrs. White's sweet shop where a nickel would get your box of ginger snaps. Aunt Irma sent little Edna in to ask for the nickels, cause she was the smallest and cutest. My gullible baby grandmother wouldn't see that her sweetness was being exploited by her sister, and really maybe it wasn't since they both got to eat the cookies.

Pop was mean mean mean, my Momie tells me, my mom reiterates, and my uncle Johnny too. But when he was drinking tea and not alcohol you could sit on his lap and he'd be sweet. But he was drunk walking all the girls down the aisle in their beautifully built handmade dresses.

Ole mom would buy the beer and the cokes for the weddings, she'd make chilli and someone would make ham sandwiches, the kids got their own cakes, and were they ever beautiful. For the first few kids they'd have the reception in the house, open up the French doors that separated the main room and the kitchen... Or was it the main room and the bedroom? Dining room? I'd need to see a sketch of the house to be sure.

One could write a dissertation on the legislation involved with the Massachusetts Right Whale Dilemma.  The problem started over a century ago when whalers realized there was a "Right" whale to hunt...

For the slow, quiet, 40 ton whale this marked the beginning of the end.  Now, it's an international problem, a federal problem, a state problem, a community problem.  It's a human problem... meaning that we caused it, and may have the ability to remedy it.

On September 11th, 2001 the ports of the eastern seaboard went quiet.  The large vessels that pass in and out and in and out, for a moment were forced to stop.  The ocean took a moment of silence.  For the first time in years, the right whales could relax. 

A team of researchers were out that week, and despite the tragedy of the day, they took to the water to find the handful of whales that were left.  What they discovered was that in the days following 9/11 when the ocean was calm, so were the whales.  Stress levels were low, much lower than were ever seen before, or have been seen since.

It was a tragic way to find silence.  When tragedy strikes humanity, we take a moment of silence, reverence.  Our culture, many cultures, value that moment. For 9/11 quiet was a gift that we gave to nature, to each other, and to ourselves.

Calm begin with quieting the mind.  I don't yet know how quieting the mind will lead to quieting the ocean, though I'm certain one leads to the other.

When I quiet my mind, I find peace.  Peace is an absence of longing.  An absence of want leads to an absence of material things.  The absence of things leads to the absence of production, which leads to a decrease in shipping.  Quiet. 

The lives our things live

Philosophy tells me there is life essence in everything.  Theatre tells me that props are endowed with importance when an actor takes the time to build their story.  Science (well... at least some science) tells me that the world is made of energy and vibration.  My hat tells me today that it is willing to help me out through grad school- no simple 'thing' could tell me that.

In my life John wakes up first.  Vista wakes up second, she eats breakfast and comes back to bed... so in essence she's out of bed second, but stays in bed the longest.  I get up after roughly 10 minuts of unadulterated pup snuggling.  I shower while John cleans the house (He does this every morning for us), I dress, gather my bag and my bicycle, and head out the door for the coffee shop at approximately the same time John packs Vista out for her morning romp.

I am well loved.

I spend at hour or two sipping tea and sorting through my five e-mail addresses, my multivariate thesis research, my graduate classes, and my job as orchestrator of Salmon Bowl.  I search for grants and donations to support my research, to support my interns,  to support our non-profit, and if I find the time I search for ways to support myself. I try (to the best of my long distance ability) to prepare my 12 incoming interns, to tend to my newly single friend in Alaska, and my dabbling vegetarian friend in Boston, my pregnant sister in California, and sadly my sick grandmother in Louisiana. 

I do pieces of this every morning... at the coffee shop... I haven't even made it to my 10am class yet. 

But I don't do it alone.  I bring with me a bag of things and pieces and ticky-tackies to support me through my day.  What keeps me alive, is the hat on my head, the gloves on my hands, the shoes on my feet, and the jacket on my back.  These things are closer to me than, well anything.

Fast forward through the day.  Statistics assignment completed? Check. Salmon Bowl volunteers e-mailed? Check.  Spring classes registered for?  Check. Flowers sent to grandmother? Check.  Papers read for ecology? Well... Half-Check.  Resume and personal statement reviewed for friend in Minnesota?  Check. Research questions elaborated for meeting with committee?  Check. Hat, gloves, jacket, bag?  No check.

My hat is gone.  I frantically check bag jacket pockets, office, bathrooms, classrooms.  I skip my statistics lab as I walk, in rain and hail, stair stepping through my day.  For a moment, forget the assignments, forget the emails, forget the schedule-  think about just one thing.

It's just a hat. 

But it is more than that.  It's the hat that my mom gave me for Christmas 4 years ago to go with an outfit, that honestly, I never got around to wearing because it was just too cute and too nice for Alaska, but even Alaska appreciates a good hat.

I saved it, and one day when I needed it most I rediscovered the hat and now wear it 6 days a week to survive the Pacific Northwest winter.  Almost daily someone tells me how great it is.  I let them in on the secret: my mom gave it to me.

It's just a thing, but it's bigger than that.  It's my relationship with my mom.  It's the past I left in Alaska.  It's how I'll survive the bike ride home.  It is the one stylish thing that makes me feel like at least on the outside I'm holding it all together.  A thing that, if I had it when I ran into my sister would inspire her to tousle my head and say, "You look just like you should." It's just a thing, but it's the thing that daily touches my bare body most, and no matter how many times I toss it in the closet, or drop it on the floor, or tenderly lay it out to dry in front of the dryer, it waits for me.

It's just a hat.

Funny thing about retracing one's steps. You always ended up where you started. I'm standing by my bicycle, outside of the coffee shop.  No hat.  It's noon now, and I haven't eaten anything in this busy day.  I won't get another chance until 7 o'clock.  I should give up on the hat.  My mind asks me what it is I want to eat, but my body is disheartened, not hungry, and it starts to rain.  So I give up on the idea of food, and head into the library coffee shop for my second cup of tea. I'm tired.  But for the first time in months, my mind is relaxed.  For almost an hour I only thought about one thing.  Just one.

It's a university coffee shop.  At noon, you can't find a table.  Tea in hand I look out over the swarm of students for a place to sit.  Every table is taken.

Except for one.  A small, high table, tall chairs, near a window, is being reserved.  Someone left a hat on it.

Colors I'd Forgotten

The Alaskan sun doesn't burn, it blushes, and in the islands day skipped straight to night with no reference to dawn or dusk...

But this week I began to see value in the in-betweens. Sunsets. Autumns. These moments are not transitions, they are now.

An evening walk with Vista along the river

Nostalgia

Is what happens when you're happy and lonely at the same time...

Anti-Pitta

My cheeks are rosy again today- a feature lauded by victorian poets as romantic, delicate, impishly innocent in its likeness to childlike whimsy. I love these descriptions- but I know better today.

My cheeks are rosy as my head grows tight, my skin grows rough, begins to burn... and my Ayurvedic senses tell me (calmly as they are bound to do) and with compassion (as my Buddha nature is apt to be) to breathe in, breathe out, and return to an anti-pitta lifestyle.

Add sandalwood and sleep. Take cool showers- though refrain from hot bathing.
Take a month off from a few things... the delicious things that are apt to stoke the inner fire of my Miche-self... an inner fire stoked by my will, my brain, my fears, dreams, frustrations, and the serrano peppers littering my table.

Forget... for a short month or so
Chocolate and coffee
Vinegar and lime
Forgo garlic, onions- favor ginger instead.
Tomatoes, spinach, alcohols do little to smooth the roughness of the disposition or the fire on the skin... don't eat them. Ever again.

More cucumbers, dandelion shoots, cilantro, burdock root.
Less cheese, no peppers, no chilis, no salt, no white sugar.

More fruit.
Less seasoning.

Kitchari daily. Miso only in dire need... when umami strikes unavoidably.

Calm the mind by calming the body. More forward bends.

Breathe in. Breath out. Cool down.

"The opposite of dread"

Dread:
The feeling in your stomach that is all consuming when something is encroaching that you simply cannot bear to do, eat, watch, experience, or lose. The feeling that, if empowered enough, prevents humanity from fulfilling its dreams, falling in love, facing our fears, painting masterpieces, or going to graduate school. The obsession that sits in the pit of your stomach when you know that you must confront someone about something they’ve done… that you’ve just found out about. The same heavy stomach that comes with confessing great atrocities, and small ones. The feeling that permeates dreams when we fear the death of the people we love, or ourselves. The sound of a whining dog at 4am who you did not take to the bathroom knowing full well it is raining outside. ‘Gut-wrenching’ by definition. In many cases (my own included) the inability to eat or drink due to the total incapacitating-ness of the impending fearful future.

The opposite of dread:
The feeling of delicious confident anticipation. The positive reinforcement that an individual needs (and often imaginatively creates) to perpetuate actions like- sending love notes, opening Christmas presents, falling in love, cooking great meals, (or in some cases, growing great food, or in my case hours spent grocery shopping in preparation for cooking the perfect meal). The emotional embodiment of umami. The warm feeling that swells up in ones chest when they catch a glimpse of someone they may one day, but can not yet, wrap their arms around. The small positive reinforcements that so outweigh the feeling of dread that we cannot help but wait for them, hope for them, dream about them, invent them, and relish them, even when in reality the instance that is inspiring the moment is miniscule. Delicious delicious waiting. Staring at unopened letters. The idea of what the letter will say (though not what is actually does say, which is never enough to encompass the feeling of what it might say).

The opposite of dread: the space between texts messages
The opposite of dread: getting ready for the date
The opposite of dread: two people and the same full moon
The opposite of dread: the promise of a vacation
The opposite of dread: an imaginary puppy
The opposite of dread: almost falling in love

It is the opposite of dread that inspires us to move forward to the things and spaces and relationships that are the object of our creativity- the same creativity that makes up “the opposite of dread.” It is felt with the same intensity as heartbreak. (In fact one may call it the opposite of heartbreak… though that implies the feeling of being in love- which though close is not the opposite of dread. Indeed it is more like the feeling of falling in love, rather than being in it). It is enjoying the pure unadulterated potential of it all.

A good window

A good window may not aid in inputting all of this data. It does not help me to focus to watch the snow turn to rain turn to snow. Like a cat, or a bird, or my own sweet Vista, I look out and imagine the green grass on the either side of the glass.

And yet... something it helps. I wouldn't leave it and haven't left it all day.
Save of course for the moment or two (or forty-seven) when I ventured out to the other side to see if the wind howled louder in my imagination or in the real life out there. Real life usually wins in these situations and I assure you it won today with howling snowsleetrain.

Now I am back behind the glass. Watching water poke holes in the white ground so the earth can stare back at me. I am surrounded by living plants that could not survive without a good window to protect them from the cold harsh Alaska. Living plants that could not survive without a good window to let in the scant light from the cold harsh Alaska.

I am nose deep in whale tails that may or may not still be in the cold clearing waters just past the trees. I'm told if you stand outside at night you can hear them breathing from the porch. But I have on soft slippers and they get wet if I stand outside so I trust the boys who heard it themselves keeping company breath for breath with the whales. Each exhaling visible breath into the air- only one is steam the other smoke.

There is even a light underneath this window. Giving me reason to stay past here past the 3 p.m. sunsets that might otherwise herd me toward the warmth of my bed. After all, Vista's in bed. She's been there all day (save of course the 47 minute interlude mentioned above- where she ran and ran. Though you wouldn't know it from looking at her that any energy lurks within the pile of blankets she hides under). So here I sit.

Rough Draft... thoughts on the future

Everybody wants to work with whales. To look into their grapefruit sized eyes and see something of eternity in them, a relationship between man and nature proving the existence of inter-species communication. And even though I count myself one of the masses who wants this, who looks at the open ocean with the same sense of adventure that the naive boys bound to the enslavement of industrial whaling did- I find the whole thing a bit nauseating.

It is hard to hear the words "I want to work with whales" without somehow- consciously or sub-consciously- envisioning the marketing genius who spearheaded the "Save the Whales" campaign and giving her a good hard pat on the back.

Despite this I stand proudly before you and say straight faced and sober- I want to work with whales. I have spent the past four years as a Marine Naturalist observing the intricate behavior of humpback whales in Southeast Alaskan waters. It has been both my privilege and my job to interpret this behavior and find a way to make sense of it for the ten thousand cruise ship passengers who make their way to our waters annually because secretly they want to work with whales too.

There's more. I don't just want to watch whales. If I did I would continue to be a Marine Naturalist. I want to actively participate in understanding the behavior of these animals and link that to human activities modern and historic. That is why I am applying to your program. My background in anthropology, in the arts, and as a lifelong public speaker, push me into the realm of social science. My unabashed passion for the natural world as well as my work experience marine sciences pushes me toward the biological sciences. The delicate line balancing between the two fields is Environmental Science.

My research goals include examining the migration patterns of humpback whales and determining, through both biological analysis and ethnographic study, how human technology changes the migration patterns and social behaviors of humpback whales. I prefer to work with the Northern Pacific Humpback population and to study the history of industrial whaling in both Hawaiian and Alaskan waters. Additionally I think a valuable to study of Alaska and Hawaiian native people's relationship with humpback whales would provide insight into the historical changes of Humpback whale migration. This ethnographic information will provide insight into patterns of behavior in humpback whales....

The weddng story

The sun broke the waters edge evenly and in lavender. It was subtle enough that they didn't notice the shift from the cloudy sedges of the milky way turning into the crisp edges of 4:30 dawn and the sleepy five, sweatshirted and toddied hardly knew the night was over as they ended their conversation on infinity and impermanence. The moment was made all the more ironic by the presence of a lobster fisherman just out of sight behind the islands culling in the shellfish with a cynical thought about the wedding the animals would be sacrificed too and how intensely the two in love had scoured the waterline for sight of the midnight boat. They were water people in the company of responsible charmers and the night party made a joyous ruckus to the stars in celebration of the upcoming ceremony. They jeered the couple on knowing that the anticipation of the event would far outweigh the exactly six and one half minutes that it would consume.

In the house with butterflies for bellies the parents restlessly and joyously watched the lavender turn to periwinkle to pink and they prepared to rise just as the vagabonds laid their heads down for sleep... It was a happy meeting unfortunately avoided by moments when the paths did not quite cross in the stairwell of the old Maine house. When wisdom woke and enthusiasm slept and one energy eeked into the other... as is meant for in weddings of this type.

This morning

Driving to work this morning felt like moving from life into art. As if the road itself grew smeared with the weight of it's own oil paint... and the clouds hanging low over the water and glancing coyly up to the mountains above them were the breath of water colors and imagination. Just for a moment she wakes up- this great something- to sigh gently with kindness and reminds me that it is no crime to have faith in something... even when I have yet to begin to imagine what that something is. The sky so long absent from the reality of this winter stretches her legs and yawns as if she has not been hiding maliciously these months, but merely napping through the lesser part of a harsh wet winter. And I, like all indulgent women, remind myself only in retrospect that I am not being punished as I want to believe, this is no martyrdom, it is simply life on a scale much grander than my own. My frustrations lies in my inability to raise my own awareness to the level of that sleepy monster, that coy compassion, which is the sky, the mountains, the glaciers, and the water. The art I drove into this morning when I momentarily forgot the importance of my life.

It is here that I skip ahead.

It is here that I skip ahead. I want to tell you of how the boy’s eyes grew when he saw his first whale thrashing about the waves. I want to tell you how suspicion rose aboard the ship as men left ranks to join the sea and the ambitious young cabin boy began to climb the shipboard ladder. I want to tell you of the ruddy faced young man who wooed the daughter of a ship builder in Bristol only to have her locked inside the tallest lighthouse on the Irish coast, waiting for her fair man to return. But each of these moments, incidents, has a history in its own right- belittered with nuance and detail- so that I have not enough time to address them all with the mystery and grief they are owe. Instead we will skip ahead to our crew, living underneath our sullied captain, with neither sight of civilized land, nor proper water to drink, nor a kind hand to fall upon, for the better part of eighteen months.

You'll see now how it is helpful to know something of whaling. Signing on with a captain required little skill, rather it required the foolery of a man in debt, a love for turgid waters, or a suicidal commitment to money. Each sailor signing on with Captain McKay read the clause-it was the only reason for the contract- stating that without consultation, without hesitation, and under no burden to increase ration wages or intent, a whaling ship captain may extend the duration of the voyage, indefinitely in six month increments. His only bound duty was to pay the men a share of whatever was caught in those six months. If the catch was low, so was the compensation. It sat low on the contract of every man boarding a whale bound vessel, hidden in the legal jargon and grazed through by those who could read. Few captains exercised the right if the catch was moderate, and nearly none if the catch was high. So sailors had little to fear in terms of slave labor, and much to gain if the takes were low. McKay’s ship always took high, the men never assumed another six months at sea. They were tired men, moving forward on the promise of riches and soft women. McKay denied them that.

He was a young man, even a boy, when ill-fate stumbled him onto the water.

He was a young man, even a boy, when ill-fate stumbled him onto the water. His mother dead and his father a stranger, the lad had no family to gather care for or from. All he knew of his past was a love-sick mother and a father’s affair with the torrents of a great ocean. All he knew of his future was the grime of the streets he was left with in her death. That he survived the plague ridden gutters of his youth with neither alcoholism nor the clap speaks well enough for his strength of character, and at the age of sixteen- as best any records from that time might show- he signed on as a cabin boy with his sights set on the water and what might remain of his family.

Or that’s how one version of the story goes. This story, after all, may or may not be true.

Some say that he wasn’t orphaned at all, that even as a child he was obsessed with the vastness of the ocean. The ocean in his child’s eyes was God’s Magnum Opus. Perfection carved by the liquid hand of the divine. Any man seeking to test his might and worth in the eyes of God must at least once set out upon the open sea- to meet Him face-to-face. His childlike piety grew from endearing to obsessive and where his well-to-do parents had encouraged religion in the boy, his watery version of a malevolent God did not fit with the daily goings on of a protestant household. When they sought to placate the boy with weekends at the sea shore disaster ensued. Nights better spent in bed the not-yet-captain would be found rowing a dory toward the eddies and waves. Father and mother screaming from the waterline would watch the pale face of young McKay begging for God to challenge his devotion. When one such night the boy failed to return to shore his parents were overwhelmed with both the intensity of grief and the guilt of relief. Perhaps it was not their right after all to keep the child from reaching his divinity. When they were informed some years later that their disobedient son had signed with a merchant ship as a cabin boy they let their memory of him fade away, and concentrated instead on the docile girl they had given birth to in his absence.

But that’s just another version of the story. Whether searching for his father or searching for eternity one thing remains true. He lost faith in the power of both God and man when he first set eyes on the Great Whale.

It started with a question about whales

It is valuable to know something about whaling, but it is necessary to know something about greed. The kind of greed which consumes a man beyond any shadow of humanity and pushes him into the well of indignity, cruelty, and obsession. Not all men are susceptible to it, few succumb to it, but for those who are lured b the charms it is well said that all is lost. It is the greed men are consumed by when they begin the hunt for the great fish. The greatness of this devilfish is well underestimated by modern men. If you cannot understand these things, my friend, you are better off moving on from this tale. For without that at least an awe for the great whale you will not understand how this one captain dredged his crew through such a misshapen adventure.
A history lesson. In the late seventeen hundreds the world reached the brink of a new age. A shift in human behavior arose that depended solely on the availability of light- artificial light. Invention, commerce, extended shop hours, and later bedtimes riddled cities and towns as for the first time lamps graced tables and counter tops. In the bulb of each lamp, oil from the body of a whale. Unlike the early parts of the century when families treated this phenomena as both privilege and miracle, with the influx of whales came something man has not yet since been able to tear itself away from- a dependency on oil.
It is with this in mind that I ask you to frame the following piece of legality. Come the late eighteenth century whaling boat captains had their crew members sign contracts. These contracts authorized the captain to extend a whaling voyage by six month increments at will and without the cooperation of the crew. With the money to be had on the bounty of the sea few sailors refused to sign, but this contract tested the limits of even the heartiest of men.
With that in mind allow me to introduce our crew. A ramshackled group of 37 men aboard a ninety foot whaling vessel named Misery’s Madame. Strange bedfellows the sailors. Some barely through with pirating, others green to the ocean’s seductive charms. Most with families tucked away safely inland so to remain ignorant of both the rough seas faced by husbands and fathers, as well as the rough women tumbled about the trade. Some good men, some foul-mouthed, and all with the roughness and blight of life enough to fill their own stories. And although without doubt this story belongs to these men- for some those months at sea dominate their biographies- it first and foremost is a story about a captain.
Captain McKay was as charming a man could be at port, to the reverend he was a dear friend, to the tippler a mate, and to the British council a gentleman who paid his dues- but ask any man who’d sailed beneath him and they will tell you the man was nothing short of a cunning beast set to dredge each man of his worth. When he wrangled his crew he saw nothing of the story twinkling inside each eye, he saw only an arms length closer to the belly of a whale. He measured the weight of his crew in barrels of oil, and any man who drained rather than filled would be noted under the watchful stare of Captain McKay. He disliked dishonest men and braggarts. Any man at port who overestimated his skills before the mast was unlikely to keep his post when discovered aloof at sea. Many accidents occur aboard a ship. Many a man disappeared under the court of the Captain.

Nature and Man

Dear Mr. Echoes,
From my apartment I hear wind. The room is small and I am grateful for the wooden stairs that lead into it from the harsh outdoors. I would not tolerate the sound of an elevator ringing in my brain. It would create incohesion, such a blatant contradiction between the world I’ve invested myself in and the one I tiptoe around to avoid depression. It is a constant battle, reframing the human world to more fully understand the essence of humanity.
I find myself observing the water, seeking out the reflections of Juneau as if I were the fish, believing if I step outside of myself and attempt to observe from their world I might understand this story. I tried to explain my human perspective to Odessa. When she did not understand she assumed there were quintessential differences between human thought and animal thought. I might agree. What man calls order, Mother Nature knows as destruction. Where man sees chaos, Mother Natures sees potential. We seek the same thing, but the earth is torn between two masters, one wildly more successful at symbiosis than the other.
Odessa… sweet Odessa… could not see how our worlds were at odds. She sighted the shipwreck, a meeting of our metaphorical minds. The world of man met the world of nature, Odessa claimed, and a new world emerged as a compromise. Men died so anemones might live! As she was sure that, from time to time, on land anemones died so that men might live. Certainly humans could comprehend that!
I did not have the heart to tell her that men would not see justice in dying for invertebrates. I don’t believe it would have been helpful- for either of us.
Imagine Reflections. You’re insight into the movement of water has proved helpful before. Any magic up that sleeve of yours Oliver?


Best,
Sebastian

The Whole Story... in one piece... so far

Chapter 1

This is a story about a barnacle. But like most good stories, it starts with something else. In this case our story starts with a fish. A flounder. A flounder who had lost the will to live.
Had she known how popular she was with the humans above she might not have felt so chronically morose. She was the single entertainment for a crew of six, who idly killed time between boat tours fishing off of the dock. To the flounder, who’s only goal in life was to end it, the continuous game of catch and release was too much to bear, and not enough to kill.

The barnacle, our barnacle, lived on this dock, amongst the many thousands of other barnacles who had been fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to have been spawned in the cool Alaskan waters of Auke Bay. This barnacle witnessed the attempted suicide numerous times before it began to acknowledge the event was tragedy instead of comedy. After all, none of the other barnacles found it strange, and without precedent for understanding death as morbid it took quite some time for this particular barnacle to form an opinion on the cheerless fish.

Barnacles are social creatures by nature. Prone to gossip and small talk with their ever present neighbors. The permanence of their geography makes it difficult for barnacles to politely bow out of conversations and most of them opt to embrace the constant company and keep up a near constant stream of belligerent chatter. The only Our barnacle, however, was not born with the gift of gab and having had all the meaningless conversations it could muster it took a vow of silence, swearing not to speak until it had something sincere to say. This barnacle, unlike its societal neighbors, looked forward to low tide more than any other time of day, the few precious hours when its world surfaced and noisy neighbors closed up tightly in their shells to avoid dehydration. In these precious hours of silence the barnacle had time to think. It was during one of these low tides that the barnacle decided it would speak to the fish.

“What’s you’re name?” the young barnacle asked. “I’m a flounder.”
“Yes, I know you’re a flounder, but what’s your name? What are you called?” “Nothing, no one cares enough about a flounder to give it a name.”

This puzzled the barnacle. For as long as it had been watching the moving world pass by, it had believed each of it’s creature had a name. It had comforted itself with this fact. The barnacle you see, desperately wanted a name, and had satiated it’s aching desire with the knowledge that once it managed mobility, a name would be soon to follow. It makes sense then, that in order to keep this worldview alive the barnacle approached the flounder’s lack of name not as a universal problem, but as the singular, and solvable problem of one very unhappy fish.

“Well, what do you want to be called?”
“Nothing. I want to die.”
“C’mon anything. I’ll call you anything you like.”
“Dinner.”
“Anything else.”
“Lunch.”
“I’m not calling you lunch.”
“Breakfast.”
“Stop it.”
“You said anything I wanted. I want to be called Breakfast.”
“I’ll call you Fast.”
“Call me Biff.”

There was no real reason to dislike the name. Yet something in the smugness with which the flounder picked it seemed suspicious, and unwilling to be the butt end of some joke the barnacle felt discomfort at dropping the issue with ‘Biff.’ So despite eagerness to name the fish the barnacle prodded on.

“That’s a boy name.”
“Can’t a flounder have a boy’s name?”
“Are you a boy?”
“I’m a flounder. “
“But are you a male flounder, or a female flounder?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Do you want to be a mother or a father?”
“Neither. I want to be Breakfast but that isn’t good enough for you.”

There was an awkward pause as the Barnacle looked at the flounder. Looked at Biff. Biff full of scars, rust marks on her chin, wanting so desperately to be bludgeoned and eaten. No one loved this pathetic example of fish. No one cherished its slimy scales. Biff was indeed a poor specimen of flounder, her eye not quite migrated over the top of her head was an indication of the fish’s status as a late bloomer. Her scales hung loose on her bare bones body, her flesh stringy and limp from repeated exposure to air. Abandoned as a small fry at the ocean’s edge Biff had no family or friends to inspire her to greatness, or to inspire her to anything.

The barnacle began to consider: maybe Biff would be better off as Breakfast, although given her current physical state it didn’t appear that any animal lacking a tetanus shot would be willing to eat her. With that morbid thought in the barnacle’s head another hook with a shiny pink lure dropped into the water beside them.

“Are you going to eat that?” The barnacle asked Biff. “It only throws you back.” The fish replied. The lure began to jingle in the water. Someone up there was jigging. The barnacle watched. Biff watched. The two entranced, as sea creatures are apt to be, in the strange dance. “Biff?” The barnacle whispered. No answer. “Biff…?” It whispered again. But it was too late. Biff, in a sudden change of heart, went dashing after the pink hoochie swallowed it hook line and sinker, closed her eyes and began the violent ascent. She cleared the surface. The barnacle sighed, counted to ten, and Plop! Biff came sinking back down in the water awash in a tragic sense of déjà vu.

Humans cry. Fish cannot. Their bodies are in constant symbiosis with the ocean. Their meticulous systems continuously assessing the salient permeation of the environment in which it lives. A body this connected with salt water has no knowledge of individual tears. But as close as a fish ever came to crying was Biff after her sixth failed suicide attempt that morning. No soul could be more tortured than one that cannot even properly die.

Barnacles are not known to be emotional creatures. They lack both heart and brain, but we’ll overlook that for the purposes of this story. For interwoven somewhere into its physiology this barnacle was different, and as Biff’s body awash with teary water began to sink the barnacle felt the most intense twinge. It had been overwhelmed with something no barnacle before had ever been faced with- compassion.

“I think Biff suits you. It’s a strong name. Which is awfully good for us because it will take a good strong disposition like yours to get us through this ocean.” “Pardon?” Biff replied, stopping her moribund decent, albeit briefly. “Well,” shouted down the eloquent barnacle “I’ve been searching all day for the perfect companion to carry my into this ocean, and you are easily more qualified than any of the other fish who’s passed by. You’ve been training, I see, in the fine sport of travel. And have been wildly successful, for a bottom feeding fish, in withstanding the great pressures of these waters. Yes, I insist that you accompany me on my journey; no other fish has your qualifications, or your strong name, or such tenacity in the face of death. Are you ready then? The tide is falling and we haven’t much time to get me off this rock!”

Biff, perplexed at first, attempted to resist this offer, but flounder are not bright fish and given an order, or a shiny lure, have a tendency to follow. The barnacle, meanwhile had not intended to leave its post, but the words rolled easily off its tongue because they were, in fact, quite true. Biff might have been the perfect ride for this barnacle. She was quite fearless of the dangers of open ocean. Many other flounder might have found resistance in fear. Yet as the barnacle had illuminated Biff did not struggle with cowardice, and with nothing to fear Biff had nothing to hold her back. Without much hesitation she agreed to go.
*******

Dear Mr. Echoes,
To write this book I had to become a sociologist of invertebrates. Spending long hours studying not merely the anatomy and physiology of the barnacle population, but of far grater importance, I studied their interactions with each other. It took some time to determine that it was in fact a barnacle who was charismatic enough to lead this story. Many others fought for Odessa’s position. One particularly charming character was a mayfly I met in my early twenties. He died quite quickly but was periodically and repeatedly replaced with his descendants, who had very little knowledge themselves of just how much life time they were wasting convincing me to center my novel around them. Sweet line of mayflies. I believe tenacity was a genetic trait with them, otherwise they’d have never found the time to spend on me and still successfully mate.

But it was, in the end, a barnacle who captured my heartstrings. I believe that it was due in large part, however, to the contrast between a stationary barnacle and my beloved Auke Bay Flounder. Biff- now identified and seeking treatment for depression with a very successful therapist aboard the Princess Sofia shipwreck- was a true inspiration for working on this book. Daily she would appear gasping for death, and daily we would throw her back. Hoping that she would understand that it was not out of malice that we turned her away, but out of sheer artistic potential. Any animal with that level of commitment was destined for great things. To be honest, if she were plump and healthy, and had we not been working at the time, it is likely that Biff's wish for death might have been fulfilled. My cohorts and I are not above tenderly roasting and eating a fine flounder in a light lemon butter and white wine sauce. Biff, however, was slightly less than succulent. To eat her would have been to choke on her, not to mention to invoke the premature end to what has the potential to be an interesting story.

Odessa and Biff were meant to leave Auke Bay. I was happy to create an adventure for them. The mayfly, after all, would never have survived chapter one.

Left Sincerely,
Sebastian


Gulls, ravens, the occasional bear or dog, have all attempted to pry unwilling barnacles from their roosts. The task is so taxing that the barnacle’s post in the inter-tidal food web is almost non-existent. Barnacles glue themselves to flat surfaces when they are young. So young that few barnacle remember the experience of being a free floating polyp. Their memories typically begin to form about the time they develop the sticky adhesive which they are constantly reinforcing with old age. It is in the life story of all barnacles, no matter how much ignorance they may feign on the issue, to undergo a period of wandering and uncertainty. A time period where their small pre-exoskeleton bodies are at the mercy of the tides and the luck of the ocean dwelling gods. They say- and by they I mean the higher ups in the barnacle world- that barnacles do not remember this stage in life because the skills gathered in wandering are unnecessary in mature life. The experience is traumatic, they claim, and the great Mother Nature has blessed them with ignorance of the experience.

Occasionally some poor soul comes along who remembers the dark nights of free floating. They are barnacles driven mad with memory, pariahs of the community for their constant raving during spawning nights. They live on the fringes of the barnacle world, with no suitors and few friends. Our barnacle, unbeknownst to her friends and family was one of those barnacles, with the memory of freedom.

I mention this now because it is pertinent to the little barnacle’s escape from the Auke Bay piling. Most barnacles would have been inexorably stuck to their homes. This barnacle was not. With the memory of free floating life still alive this particular barnacle had defied society and taken the greatest risk a barnacle could- save letting go entirely- the brave invertebrate had neglected to reinforce her glue, thus making it possible for Biff, with relative ease, to pry the barnacle free from its rusty home and resituate it delicately on her cheek, precisely where her eye might have been, had it properly migrated.

The barnacle, being quite crafty, had intentionally sought out his particular position. The two attempted to fool the dangers of deeper water by convincing them that Biff was as mature as any other flounder. With the barnacle perched atop the flounder’s forehead it looked precisely like a fully migrated eye. Happy to play the part of a living eye the barnacle would even flutter her shell slightly from time to time in an attempt to mimic a dilating eye. Unbeknownst to them, it was Biff’s immaturity provided for them a great boon, not their mimicry. While predators might have assumed she was blind to the water below, Biff’s eyesight was in fact quite keen in that direction. With Odessa’s additional attention to detail topside the two were more than adequately equipped to identify any struggles that lay ahead in open water- a journey both flounders and barnacles are typically hindered against by their anatomy. They did not know, of course, that their blundering attempt to cover up Biff’s “disability” brought them such a vantage point- but then there is a great deal of luck necessary to survive adventures at sea. The two at least began their journey with this.
********

“So, do you have a name?” Biff asked the barnacle. It had been nearly three hours since the two left the intertidal zone, and with the longevity of their situation sinking in Biff had opted to attempt some of the pleasantries she had abandoned in her bottom feeding life. The barnacle knew very little of the flounder’s former social life having only witnessed her attempted deaths, and she did not know that this moment represented an enormous therapeutic breakthrough for the dismal fish. Biff, like the barnacle, had avoided making small talk in her former life. She had believed that any information she gained would have been in vain given her impending death. What Biff’s question represented was a newfound believe that she might live out the day. A belief that Biff had not held since she was quite quite small.

Had the barnacle known this it would have certainly taken the opportunity to congratulate Biff on her breakthrough, it was after all one of the world’s unlikely sympathetic barnacle’s. But that conversation the two strangers were still quite some distance from.
They were, however, at the apropos moment to discuss an issue very near and dear to the barnacle’s heart- a name. Biff, just as ignorant of the barnacles life as it was of hers, had asked the magic question. The question that the patient barnacle had been waiting to hear for quite some time.

The water of Auke Bay is relatively clear compared to the glacially carved fjords of Southeast Alaska. It is a well named body of water- Auke being the Tlingit word for peaceful or tranquil. The Tlingits colonized the shores for many generations, fishing, gathering mussels and edible seaweeds. Had Biff lived at the height of the people her death wish would have been quickly carried out. They were, and are, a resourceful and shrewd people. No fish seeking death would want for a belly to rest. The water in the bay is protected from wind which keeps the silt settled and the crabs content with wallowing muck. Outside of the bay wind is a greater force to contend with. Mother Nature created a safe haven when she gave birth to Auke Bay, she created no protection for those who choose to leave it.

“My name is Odessa,” The barnacle said as the two passed out of the bay and, for the first time in either of their lives, entered into open ocean.
******

Dear Mr. Echoes,
Something amazing happened to me today. I was searching through Darwin’s texts and I found a block print plate of a group of flowers. I wanted to include them as some sort of artwork for our project… After nearly mutilating the book with copy machines and scanners the very simple, and haunting result was this-



It isn’t a finished piece of artwork by any means, but in the strangest way it- like this book- is the shadow of something real. It is entirely unique, having passed from the literal flower to the mind of Darwin, to the hands of the print maker and under the scrutiny of the publisher, and then one hundred and fifty years after the small treatise was written on this flower I revived its shadow on a piece of parchment paper doused in acetone. I resurrected it as an afterthought to a new text. Is not this story the same thing? Something real that has existed far longer than you or I have, embellished with curiosity and then infused with artistry? Isn’t that what we are seeking to accomplish by writing this story to begin with? Are we not through a rather simple and childlike plotline working our hardest to resurrect the shadows of a long forgotten history and a dull biology? We in that regard, are like the image of the flower.

Best in thoughts,
Sebastian


Chapter 2-

Barnacles are remarkably resilient creatures. Accustomed to the constant pounding of great waves against their fragile shells. They take pride in this fact, often touting it as a credo to the passing fish diving to escape a dangerous incoming tide. The brassiest of barnacles laughs at the scuttling crabs retreating toward the depths as the barnacles themselves are thrust upward toward the most dangerous of all elements: air. But for this barnacle, our barnacle, sinking closer and closer to the submerged shadow of the Princess Sofia shipwreck, she doubted the strength of her carefully constructed shield. The pressure of the ocean grew greater, and her nerves began to shake. Do not despair, for our barnacle was never a typical barnacle; and unlike her chalky counter parts she had prepared herself for an adventure greater than even the lowest tides, fortifying her shield, for reasons at the time that were merely dreams of an unknown future. This memory, of herself as a young optimistic and cautious barnacle, comforted her as Biff’s scaly body settled onto the deck below.

“This is an awfully big adventure we’ve started on,” whispered Odessa. But Biff didn’t answer. She was preoccupied, yet again, with the contemplation of death, and when the barnacle addressed one of the three thousand anemones on the wreck, they hardly responded, continuing instead to wave idly in the currents, subtly destroying the last remnants of what was once a very proud ship.

Although our bold fish knew very little about the shipwreck of the Princess Sofia the same was not true of Odessa. The world above had been inadvertently tutoring this ambitious invertebrate. The dock she had been lodged on for so many years was a small vessel port where vacationers met to travel the waters of the inside passage. Odessa often listened to the stories told by the passersbye and the guides. The world above filled her mind not only with the facts that any tour guide might spew toward an overgrowing industry, but also filled it with stories and mythologies of a land littered with inconstants.

Alaska is a temperamental land. The Princess Sofia is evidence of that. She sank on October 26th 1918 in the height of a winter storm and took 364 people down with her. Odessa explained this to Biff as they traveled toward the ruins on Vanderbilt Reef. Biff cracked an inkling of a smile when she learned of the devastation, and swam a bit faster when Odessa explained that more Alaskans died in the incident than in the greatest of their above ground wars.

The quiet at that depth is deafening. Odessa had never experienced such oppressive silence and was overwhelmingly relieved when Biff spoke. “It isn’t as eerie as I expected a shipwreck to be. Not like a graveyard at all.” Biff announced seeming downright disappointed. “There are no bones. No bodies. There is no devastation at all.” Odessa listened intently to this, eager to distract her mind from the pressure threatening her soft internal body, and she noticed the distinct change in Biff’s tone when she went on to say- “This place isn’t littered with death, it’s littered with Gone. Like death, only… afterward.”

The fish was correct. This shipwreck was almost unrecognizable as a vessel. The ship had long since split its bow from stern, the hull itself had peeled away becoming a reef for deep cold water animals. The anemones had so fully colonized the wreck that there was not a hard surface in sight. No rough decks for Biff to slide her fragile body across, no sharp edges to impale her pathetically morbid heart, despite her persistent scans for them. Long before our travelers visit to the sight of such tragedy men encased in metal suits, seeking breath from heavy iron diving bells, had stripped this wreck of her history. They had gathered up the jewels, the spoons, the chairs and cushions, even the numbers from the stateroom doors, and had carried them back to the world above to be scattered about the world. In an effort to preserve the memory of the ship and its passengers the men had only succeeded in scattering the tragedy into such frailty that it was no longer recognizable as a cohesive event. It was diluted by the world- a piece of petticoat sent to a relative in Montana, a diary to a bereaved widow in Vancouver, each artifact removed from Alaska failed to return. The remains of the Princess Sofia looked like the translucent shadow of a ship, bereft of any signs of her former life.

“What do you mean Gone?” Odessa asked, more in an effort to continue conversation than to gain insight. Biff may have been disappointed in the ghastliness of the ships remains, but Odessa who knew the stories was more thoroughly impressed with its memory. She was petrified. “There’s no carnage, no destruction left. I guess … I always imagined that death was permanent. But it isn’t. It’s only the Gone… the not being anymore, that is permanent. Death is short lived. “
“I see.”
“Odessa?”
“Yes Biff?”
“What do we have to live for?”
“For this.” Odessa replied “To fill the Gone.”

With that, in their moment of greatest sincerity, a moment when perhaps Biff might have been swayed to forsake this notion of death and find a reason to live, the moment, if there was ever to be such a moment, for Odessa and Biff to talk about Biff’s persistent obsession with mortality and to help her grasp a more hopeful life view, in this precious moment they were crudely interrupted by a massive school of sex obsessed sockeye salmon. They erupted like fifteen year old boys let out of school early and given free passes to a girlie film. They came flying through the anemone forest screaming with the stings as they demolished the gelatinous animals and yet hardly slowed down with the pain. These were fish on mission. That mission? Spawn till we die.

Odessa and Biff were hurled into the school bouncing back and forth between the salacious fish. They were smashed and beat, awkwardly rubbed and pseudo-violated, then ensnared by a group of rowdy males who demanded to know in almost choral unison “How far to fresh water, and how do we get your eggs?!” One lewd female even flipped Biff over once, twice, three times, trying to find some sign of gender, but knowing little of flounder anatomy came to the conclusion and loudly announced that “the weird shaped salmon has no genitals!” The salmon rolling and spasmodic immediately abandoned the petrified fish, and as quickly as the liquid orgy began it rushed on leaving our two travelers very very dazed.

Biff, her eyes bugging with violation, her heart screaming with embarrassment, and her body insane with jealousy, barely managed to whisper the words “I quit” before she began to violently sink toward the poisonous anemone bed below.

Odessa panicked. She began rapidly shouting to Biff not to do it, to find the reason to go on living, not to sacrifice them both to a painful end within the brutal arms of complacent anemones! Did she not understand?! Odessa implored as they sank. Did she not see that they were destined for great things! The words rolled from her passionate barnacle mouth, but even the most articulate barnacle could not, and did not, persuade this intransigent fish to forgo her attempt at suicide. With opaque arms outstretched the anemones seemed to be gesturing the fish toward their tiny mouths.

In the brief moment before contact Odessa, unable without the aid of Biff to release her firm grip on the scaly cheek, saw her life flash before her eyes. She saw her days as a polyp free floating through the sea, gleeful with freedom and daring. She recounted her life amongst barnacle society, and the friends and family she left behind. She revisited Biff being lurched over and over from water to air in her continued attempts at death. And she commemorated the moment, only days earlier when she and Biff began this adventure, and the moment she chose her name. By the time Biff made contact with the first anemone Odessa had made peace with life.
Biff’s body jerked and tensed with the stings. The anemone fingers grabbing her and injecting her with an unseen toxin, beginning the process of digestion. Biff lurched with pain ready for the end, and was immediately disappointed. The anemones managed, with some dignity, to spit her out.

“You are not food.” Their collective voice stated calmly. “Pray do not accost us until you have thoroughly decomposed to edible size. Do not tease us with the promise of food, or yourself with the promise of afterlife. ” Biff, crazed with the experience, turned a deaf ear the polite creatures. She thrust herself once more toward floral death, and forsaking her earlier drifting motion she swam full force toward the promise of paralysis. The sting ran through her body and the anemones, again with dignity, spit her out. “Our food is small and still. You are large and fast. We are not adept at killing, only digesting. Kind thanks for the donation, but we must return your gift of yourself… to yourself.” Biff and Odessa sat, hovering above the helm of the ship. Not speaking, not moving, barely breathing. Exhausted with the weight of it all.

“You are odd visitors to us” the voice said. “Such big opinions on such simple things. Life, death, fish, and men.” “Is it simple?” Biff asked. The anemones replied, “We sit, we eat, we live. When we are through we will die. We, like the passengers on the ship, will be forgotten.”
********

Dear Mr. Echoes,
I realize it’s been some time since I’ve written you. I apologize for the delay in letters, and in pages, but I’ve run up against a sort of personal dilemma. It’s a silly quandary really, and I know this, but it has none the less trained my eye far away from our dear Odessa and has me focusing instead on much more inane matters.

It began in the library. Libraries, at least in my mind, have always been sacred romantic places. Like museums. My love for the written word is only enhanced by the intensity of emotions I feel when my olfactory senses kick in and instead of reading words I begin to smell the ink with which they were printed. Its as if my imagination can distinguish the hormones sinking from the fingerprints of the man who typed the word “delicious” or “candid” as he left behind a trace amount of scent, colored by his very biology, in the text of the book.

That is why I love libraries. It begins with the myriad of scents, coupled with the sight of books upon books upon shelves piled high, and then marries to the textures of heavy grainy paper- thick paper is like heavy bread, healthy. This is what a library should be! Books should be sitting on mahogany! Or at least on wood!

But they are not. And that is the root of my troubles.

It is hard, my friend, not to grow cynical with the world for not living up to my visions of integrity. I feel so heavy with the sterility of it all! Museums are free from dust! Except of course the dust that is neatly packed into glass cylinders and labeled with plastic plaques. Why can they not let the dust at least live in the oddly shaped medicine bottles that once littered the apothecaries desk!

Biff’s greatest disappointment is to come to the sight of death and find no signs of mortality. My greatest disappointment is to come to a hall of records and find no signs of history.

I will find a way to reconcile my research and my romance, but I may need some time. I will write as soon as I can. Until then Biff and Odessa will remain perched on the verge of open ocean with adventure precariously looming.

Best in Actions,
Sebastian

The seal lion was following the salmon no doubt. I can only imagine he stopped at the Sophia for a snack when he saw Biff, but upon closer examination found her distinctly unappealing. The sea lion declined to give any details on his prior whereabouts, or his intended destination. And who can blame him? Sea lions are notorious for their precarious behavior, teasing young diving birds often to the point of emotional disturbance. One young alcid never recovered from the taunting he received in Gastineau Channel by a rapscallion pup. That particular bird migrated north and failed to return for three years, at that point too shy and inexperienced to find a mate. Because of this reputation even kindly and honorable sea lions are often discriminated against. Whether this sea lion belonged to the school of the honorable or the wicked remains to be seen. What is clear is that the sea lion was both precocious and wise. The conversation was brief. Who are you and where have you come from. For even a rowdy sea lion could identify the travelers were misplaced. When he heard the words ‘Auke Bay’ he enthusiastically, relayed the story of the storm. There was no need for Odessa to doubt the information, only the motivation behind such a gleeful and detailed recounting of it. On either account had the sea lion not arrived, she might have never known.

“Great tragedies befall those who cling too dearly, and often only the sea herself is left at fault.” The words echoed in Odessa’s ears for many hours as she contemplated the loss of her family. She had grown up knowing the dangers of travel; she had come to accept the air of fatality lingering about her as she roamed. But it came as a great shock to learn of the carnage that befell her home.

Odessa had grown up at the 12-foot mark of an intertidal piling. A large pillar as it were, the diameter at 16 inches was large enough to isolate westward facing barnacles from their eastward, and thus inland, facing neighbors. And even though the two never knew each other first-hand there was a certain rivalry between them. The westward facing barnacles gloated on their view of the sea and the sun, while the inland facing barnacles reveled in how few deaths occurred due to evaporation or predation. And while it was true that the westward facing barnacles lost a few each day to the terrors of exposure, they reassured themselves with the fact that a life well lived was worth the risk of death, while a life hidden away was in fact not worth living.

Odessa was a westward facing barnacle. I suppose she took the credo much more to heart than her neighboring community had hoped. It nearly destroyed her family the first time she merely mentioned the prospect of undersea exploration. In fact, it was the day she mentioned her eventual intention to travel that one of her siblings was devoured by a hungry raven. The family blamed her, tacitly of course, for stirring up bad air.

It had been rumored for years that one day a storm would come that would trouble the westward facing barnacles… though few, even among the inland community, put much stock in its validity. For barnacles are commonly the only survivors of the fiercest hurricanes. And it was certainly not the assumption of the barnacles that the dock itself, their home, would ultimately grind them into a fine dust tinged purple for mixing with the shells of the resident mussels. You see, the piling that the barnacles resided on plunged directly into the sea below, but it did so through a carefully instructed 24 by 24 inch square hole cut through the wooden dock. The dock was free to rise and fall with the tides, as was the ramp connected to it, so that it might be accessible despite the daily lunar tug. A typical Alaskan railing, wooden, mossy, guarded the hole around the piling, damp, but extremely durable. Never before in the history of barnacles living on this piling- and to ask the barnacles their history is to beg a very long story- had there been contact between railing and piling. The communities were separate, civil, but separate. The railing, being permanently exposed to air, was free of barnacles. Occasionally a crab would ride on it, and often it acted as a resting spot for cold beer and other human victuals, the banister’s only permanent residents were immobile, laconic, sea lice. So the barnacles historically viewed the railing as a danger only in that it provided an excellent perch for food-maddened sea gulls to pick off the blue mussels, an avian delicacy, and gobble them down. The barnacles were considered edible only in the direst of famines.

I digress. The October seas are dangerous in Southeast Alaska. Even the most nascent sailor has heard the tales of whipping winds and cruel maelstroms. This October proved to be an unusually tragic one for the small community. Under a 90 mile and hour gust, and at the height of an incoming wave the free floating dock was pushed off her normal course of rise and fall and made, for the first time, direct contact with the life encrusted piling. As the dock was pitched about in the torrential sea the heavy railing pulverized the westward facing side of the piling, scraping the metal clean of any creatures, young or old, and turning them into a silty powder to be blown about the pier. The communities living between the seven-foot mark and the eighteen-foot mark were in a single storm demolished.

With it went something of Odessa.

Do not let Odessa’s sentiment about the loss of her family distress you too much. It is important at this point in her timeline to give you a bit of information on why she was prone to leaving to begin with. Yes, her adventurous behavior combined with an ingrained pride in taking risks all influenced her desire to take to the sea, but for anyone who has taken an invertebrate zoology class you might remember a few shocking facts about the reproductive life of barnacles. For the sake of propriety I will omit the details and only allude to the fact that if all humans were as endowed as barnacles we wouldn’t need muscle cars or Harley Davidsons. In every species courtship is an issue- but Odessa was not prepared in her adolescence for the repeated probing her neighbors so unabashedly exhibited. Barnacles are stationary creatures. They keep their heads firmly planted on the ground leaving their waving feet to catch edible passersby, and keep their unmentionable region easily accessible for raucous nighttime behaviors.

Reality and Romance

Dear Mr. Echoes,
I realize it’s been some time since I’ve written you. I apologize for the delay in letters, and in pages, but I’ve run up against a sort of personal dilemma. It’s a silly quandary really, and I know this, but it has none the less trained my eye far away from our dear Odessa and has me focusing instead on much more inane matters.

It began in the library. Libraries, at least in my mind, have always been sacred romantic places. Like museums. My love for the written word is only enhanced by the intensity of emotions I feel when my olfactory senses kick in and instead of reading words I begin to smell the ink with which they were printed. Its as if my imagination can distinguish the hormones sinking from the fingerprints of the man who typed the word “delicious” or “candid” and he left behind a trace amount of scent, colored by his very biology, in the text of the book.

That is why I love libraries. It begins with the myriad of scents, coupled with the sight of books upon books upon shelves piled high, and then marries to the textures of heavy grainy paper- in my mind the paper is thick with goodness like heavy bread. This is what a library should be! Books should be sitting on mahogany! Or at least on wood! But they are not. And that is the root of my troubles.

It is hard, my friend, not to grow cynical with the world for not living up to my visions of integrity. I feel so heavy with the sterility of it all! Museums are free from dust! Except of course the dust that is neatly packed into glass cylinders and labeled with plastic plaques. Why can they not let the dust at least live in the oddly shaped medicine bottles that once littered the apothecaries desk!

Biff’s greatest disappointment is to come to the sight of death and find no signs of mortality. My greatest disappointment is to come to a hall of records and find no signs of history.

I will find a way to reconcile my research and my romance, but I may need some time. I will write as soon as I can. Until then Biff and Odessa will remain perched on the verge of open ocean with adventure precariously looming.

Best in Actions,
Sebastian

The Princess Sofia and what lay around her

Barnacles are remarkably resilient creatures. Accustomed to the constant pounding of great waves against their fragile shells. They take pride in this fact, often touting it as a credo to the passing fish diving to escape a dangerous incoming tide. The brassiest of barnacles laughs at the scuttling crabs retreating toward the depths as the barnacles themselves are thrust upward toward the most dangerous of all elements: air. But for this barnacle, our barnacle, sinking closer and closer to the submerged shadow of the Princess Sofia, she doubted the strength of her carefully constructed shield. The pressure of the ocean grew greater, and her nerves began to shake. Do not despair, however, for our barnacle was never a typical barnacle; and unlike her chalky stagnant counter parts she had prepared herself for an adventure greater than even the lowest tides, fortifying her shield, for reasons at the time that were merely dreams of an unknown future. This memory, of herself as a young optimistic and cautious barnacle, comforted her as Biff’s scaly body settled onto the deck below.

“This is an awfully big adventure we’ve started on,” whispered the barnacle.
But Biff didn’t answer. She was preoccupied, yet again, with the contemplation of death. And when the barnacle addressed one of the three thousand anemones on the wreck, they hardly responded, continuing instead to wave idly in the currents, subtly destroying the last remnants of what was once a very proud ship.

The quiet at that depth is deafening. Odessa had never experienced such oppressive silence and was overwhelmingly relieved when Biff finally spoke.
“It isn’t as eerie as I expected a shipwreck to be. Not like a graveyard at all.” Biff began seeming downright disappointed. “There are no bones. There are no remnants. There is no death at all.” Odessa listened intently to this, eager to distract her mind from the pressure threatening her soft internal body, and she noticed the distinct change in Biff’s tone when she continued to say- “This place is littered with Gone. It’s like death, only… afterward.”

The fish was correct. This shipwreck was almost unrecognizable as a vessel. The ship had long since split its bow from stern, the hull itself had peeled away becoming a reef for deep cold water animals. The anemones had so fully colonized the wreck that there was not a hard surface in sight. No decks for Biff to slide across, no sharp edges to impale her, despite her persistent scanning for them. Long before our travelers visit to the sight of such death men encased in metal suits, seeking breath from heavy iron diving bells, had stripped this wreck of her history. Gather up the jewels, the spoons, the chairs and cushions, even the numbers from the stateroom doors, and had carried them back to the world above. The Princess Sofia looked like the translucent shadow of a ship, bereft of any signs of previous life.

“What do you mean Gone?” Odessa asked, more in an effort to continue conversation than gain insight. “I mean that there is no carnage, there is no moment of death, no drama, no destruction! There is what happens when life has faded away. I guess … I always imagined that death was permanent. But it isn’t death that’s permanent. It’s only the Gone… the not being anymore, that is permanent. Death is short lived. “
“I see.”
“Odessa?”
“Yes Biff?”
“What do we have to live for?”
“For this.” Odessa replied “To fill the Gone.”

With that, in their moment of greatest sincerity, a moment when perhaps Biff might have been swayed to forsake this notion of death and find a reason to live, the moment, if there was ever to be such a moment, for Odessa and Biff to talk about Biff’s persistent obsession with mortality, they were crudely interrupted by a massive school of insanely sex driven sockeye salmon. They erupted like fifteen year old boys let out of school early and given free passes to a girlie film. They came flying through the anemone forest screaming with the stings as they demolished the gelatinous animals and yet hardly slowed down with the pain. These were fish on mission. That mission? Spawn till we die.

Odessa and Biff were hurled into the school bouncing back and forth between the salacious fish. They were smashed and beat, awkwardly rubbed and encircled, then ensnared by a group of rowdy males who demanded to know in almost choral unison “How far to fresh water, and how do we get your eggs?!” One lewd female even flipped Biff over once, twice, three times, trying to find some sign of gender, but knowing little of flounder anatomy came to the conclusion and loudly announced that “the weird shaped salmon has no genitals!” The salmon rolling and spasmodic immediately abandoned the petrified fish, and as quickly as the liquid orgy began it rushed on leaving our two travelers very very dazed.

Biff, her eyes bugging with violation, her heart screaming with embarrassment, and her body dying with jealousy, barely managed to whisper the words “I quit” before she began to violently sink toward the anemone bed below.

Odessa panicked. She began rapidly shouting to Biff not to do it, to find the reason to go on living, not to sacrifice them both to a painful end within the brutal arms of complacent anemones! Did she not understand, Odessa implored as they sank. Did she not see that they were destined for great things! That the were at least destined for things! The words rolled and rolled from her passionate barnacle mouth, but even the most articulate barnacle could not, and did not, suede this fish to forgo and almost certain attempt at suicide. With waving milky arms outstretched the anemones seemed to be gesturing the fish toward their tiny mouths. In the brief moment before contact Odessa, unable without the aid of Biff to release her firm grip on the scaly cheek, saw her life flash before her eyes. She saw her days as a polyp free floating through the sea. She recounted her life amongst barnacle society, and the friends and family she left behind. She revisited Biff being lurched over and over from water to air in her continued attempt at death, and she commemorated the moment, only days earlier when she and Biff began this adventure, and the moment she chose her name. When Biff made contact with the first anemone Odessa had made peace with life.

Biff’s body jerked and tensed with the stings. The anemone fingers grabbing her and injecting her with an unseen poison, and then… releasing her.
“You are not food.” The anemones stated calmly with their collective voice. “Why do you accost us?” Biff, determined, thrust herself once more toward floral death. Again the sting ran through her body and the anemones again spit her out. “Our food is small and still. You are large and fast. Until the sea has dispersed you, you shall not feed us. Kindly leave us be.” Biff failed to respond. Odessa, in a state of half-zen, waited patiently for her fate to be determined. They sat, hovering above the helm. Not speaking, not moving, barely breathing. Exhausted with the weight of it all.

“You are odd visitors to us” the voices said. “Such big opinions on such simple things. Life, death, fish, and men.” “Is it simple?” Biff asked. “Of course,” the anemones replied, “We sit, we eat, we live. When we are through we will die. We, like the passengers on the ship, will be forgotten.”