THE WHALE
As I drove home, the setting sun cast a colossal cloud over the bay—a pink behemoth suspended in twilight. Its weightless form hung between worlds, and I felt the edges of my reality soften. Below, headlights snaked through darkened hills, climbing the San Rafael bridge like bioluminescent creatures emerging from a primordial forest. In this liminal space, the act of driving and my persistent worries seemed to dissolve into the beautiful indifference; that airborne leviathan, suspended in twilight, gave way to stranger seas.
That night I dreamt of a minke whale stranded in a shallow pool, its body submerged save for its dorsal fin and the ridge of its back. The whale seemed content in the pool, splashing about as if it had found sanctuary. Yet its condition meant it was unable to go anywhere or move much at all. It could not link up with others or forage; it could not explore the sea and was utterly disconnected from everything outside the small pool.
Recognizing the whale's plight, I became desperate to help should the small pool dry up. Fretting about what to do, I realized the whale was small enough that I might pick it up and carry it to the open sea. As I attempted this, the whale’s head detached and remained in the pool, its eye blinking at me with a sort of dead stare—a look of shock. The whale's head and its body were not in communion but were held together by a very specific mechanism, one that came easily detached.
I put the whale back and fretted. The head stared at me, still, and the body no longer splashed joyfully. I debated whether to bring the body to the sea and return for the head, or if I could carry them both at once.
Opting for the latter, I tried again, but the head of the whale began gasping for air, in shock and with fright, its eyes bulging.
I thought, "This doesn't make sense; they breathe air." But the whale was panicking, gulping in fear, so I returned it to the shallow pool and fretted more.
As the whale appeared to relax, the body and head mysteriously reattached.
I contemplated the tide–might it rise enough to fill the pool? Or higher still to allow the creature to return to the sea? Clearly the whale seemed content in its limited world, embracing the grayscale comfort of warm water and sandy walls over the enormity beyond. A kind of womb. An earthy swaddle.
Later, I returned to find the whale gone, the horizon a memory of pink. The high tide had expanded the pool until it filled to such an immense size it merged with the sea, and the whale, whole once more, had ventured into the open ocean, leaving only the imprint of its tail in the sand. A beautiful series of shapes. Hieroglyphs of a journey, indecipherable upon the tide’s return.
Bears
The Sierra Nevada at 4am: monolithic giants against a void. My headlights caught fragments of rock face, then darkness, then rock. Doubt crept in as I navigated the narrow park road. The familiar instrumental I'd chosen for comfort turned tiny and strange against the scale of things. I was here to reclaim these mountains for myself, to find them more real than memory. Not escape, but confrontation - with altitude, with solitude, with whatever lay ahead. The indifferent wilderness offered both challenge and solace.
I'd spent weeks reading about bears. The facts were reassuring: no fatal attacks in California's history. Zero.
But facts felt thin in the darkness. I'd hiked these mountains before, but never alone. Previous bear encounters had thrilled rather than frightened, but the Sierras had dangers I couldn't quantify, and the map felt different in my hands now.
The ranger station emerged from the darkness, my vigil rewarded. I handed over my week’s permit and stepped into the wilderness, my resolve as heavy as my outdated pack.
By 10am I was spiritually fortified but physically depleted. “Paradise Valley,” my map suggested. A river ran broad and shallow, its cold shock against my feet sharpened my senses. I sat down on a rock, opened my pack for a snack. Then: movement. A dark mass in the water, rising. Sniffing. Coming closer.
A hallucination. No. A strange mirage. All my carefully researched statistics dissolved.
It was real. A large bear in the water, rising to its hind legs, pitching itself in my direction. Very close now.
I quickly stuffed my lunch back into my pack, pulled my boots onto my damp feet, and scrambled back toward the trail. A fallen tree limb became a perfect, heavy walking stick. I sang to the forest, warning other bears of my presence.
About an hour later, another aberration. One bear right in the middle of the path, and two much smaller creatures in the tall grass. A mother bear and her cubs. I inched forward, singing again, eyes locked on the mother bear. She raised her head, but turned away, moving her cubs deeper into the shade.
That night on a sandy butte above the river, great horned owls punctuated my dinner, their calls a counterpoint to the soft murmur of nearby hikers. Exhausted and comforted by these sounds, I drifted easily into sleep.
Morning revealed enormous tracks encircling the tent. Nearby, several large rocks lay uprooted and overturned. I shuddered, grateful for my oblivious sleep, then paused. My belongings were untouched. A visitation, not a violation.
That day the mountains opened themselves, and my earlier trepidation settled into quiet. At dusk, I snuffed out the fire, ready for stars. Sparks rose as wind lifted smoke from the ashes, drawing a momentary curtain across the sky. As it cleared, there they were: Ursa Major, with little Ursa Minor close by. The Great Bear constellation wheeled overhead, leading its cub across the night sky, silent and steady, mirroring their earthbound kin. The mountains spoke. This time, I listened.