From a Spiral Notebook: Orcas

Hi all,

First, a note about the monthly drop-in in Sidney BC: we’re pausing for summer, but plan to be back to write with you in September.

Guess what? Last Wednesday I was sitting on a bench on the seawall south of Sidney talking to a friend. I was making an excellent point, I’m sure, but I don’t remember it, because I looked up at the ocean and saw black fins. Yes, there were orcas in the water! My friend and I sat and watched as they dived and surfaced and dived again, surrounded by about five whale watching boats (who I hope were far enough away not to be bothering them). It was the closest I’ve ever been to orcas, having seen them occasionally far away from ferries. It was magic, as being close to wild animals always is. Somehow it’s easier to remember the magic when it’s a whale, though, that you almost never get to see.

I didn’t think to take a picture, so here is a photo by Tim Cole on Unsplash

When they were gone and I’d returned home I googled orcas, Sidney and the date, and discovered via a Facebook group that they were Bigg’s orcas. Bigg’s orcas are also known as transient orcas, and hunt other marine mammals, from seals to Minkes and juvenile humpbacks. There are about 400 of them on the West Coast, and they live in matrilineal groups. The ones I saw were the T49As. Nan is the matriarch. According to Facebook there was at least one juvenile among them (I thought some of the fins looked a little small at the time, and felt very observant when I read this). My googling suggests the youngest juvenile hasn’t been named yet, but was born in 2022.

Think about the birth. The amniotic fluid must have mixed with the sea, which in a way is all life’s amniotic fluid. I imagine a bit of blood diffusing into the water, unfurling, blooming as mother and babe swim away. Do I remember that image from a nature documentary or am I imagining it? So much of my experience of orcas (and so many other animals) is from TV.

The mother lifted the calf up to the surface for his or her first breath (her if it was in fact the one born in 2022), and that was the first time baby and clouds saw each other. Or are baby orcas nearsighted like baby humans? Do they have that slightly Mr. Magoo gaze as they peer upward?

Maybe looking isn’t even very important to orcas since they echolocate. Maybe she clicked at the sky and understood vastness for the first time when no clicks came back.

Probably breath was more important in that moment, and she concentrated on that: thinner than water but as vital. Do baby orcas cough when not-water enters them for the first time? I imagine the birth transition from womb to water is less surprising. The real shock must be that first surfacing, first not-water.

I am fascinated by marine mammals, because in my poet past I read once that in Jungian symbolism water represents the unconscious, and so marine mammals must be the communication between the unconscious and conscious. Dreams.

Also they’re really cool.

FROM THE SPIRAL NOTEBOOK

I searched my files to find a poem with orcas in it. I knew there was at least one.

Recurring Dreams

I stand at the end of a long dock.
There are seagulls and a killer whale.
Sometimes I pet him, firm
as a wet leather couch.
Sometimes he eats me.

My parents have started an orphanage.
Each child has a tiny room.
Sometimes one of the other children
has stolen my homework.
Sometimes I wash thousands of dishes. 

A baby, perhaps the stepson I lost 
long ago, crying
or cheerful in dirty clothes.
The baby is not a baby but a placeholder
for something unbearably precious
in the process of being lost.
Sometimes he drowns in the bathtub.

NOTES

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Yours,
Kelsey