Writing from
Future Memory
It was something I couldn’t anticipate. At one moment, there was water, seemingly endless off the starboard side of the boat. I was braced against the stern, my thighs pressed for balance. Waves rocked the tiny vessel mercilessly. I scanned the water hundreds of yards away and, closer, noticed two people in a small dinghy, one with an almost-comic telescopic lens on an expensive camera.
It was the summer of 1995, just before my senior year of high school. We’d just returned from our annual trip to the Oregon Coast and had taken a campus tour at the University of Oregon. I’d made up my mind; I wanted to study English there after I graduated.
But in the back of the boat, everything changed.
The spray of watery breath hit me, and I inhaled. For a moment, we were bound by air, water, life. An orca from J pod had just surfaced next to me. The boat kept bobbing. I heard ecstatic screams. Cameras clacked as users advanced film. The telescopic lens couldn’t focus on what had come so close. Then, the black and white disappeared underwater as quickly as it arrived. The superpod of the J, K, and L pods moved on.
We couldn’t believe it. Our first time whale watching in the San Juans. Our first time with orcas. We’d seen gray whales in Oregon, but gray whales were boring, sluggish. The most exciting aspects were my young brother’s cries about sharks in the water.
Back on land, we sped from the docks in Friday Harbor to the cliffs on the south side of San Juan Island. For hours, we sat on the mossy rocks and watched the open expanses of water. This was orca territory, and visitors often spotted them offshore. Soon, watery breaths, a repeated whoosh that filled the chest with anticipation and wonder. Then, the tell-tale dorsal fins in the distance.
I abandoned being a writer. Now, marine biology, researching the Southern Residents. During senior year, I dreamed about the whales while I excelled in English, looking forward to college classes in my new field.
When my admission to UO fell through, I was devastated. At my local community college, I took vertebrate zoology twice. These were signs I took to heart, and I got back on track, finishing my Bachelors in English at the University of Washington. Living in Seattle allowed easy access to the islands for day trips, weekends, retreats.
After years away from the Northwest, I’m now back in Seattle. I visited the islands this spring, but too early for whales. With the significant decline in the J, K, and L populations, I know that each visit, each sighting is precious, incalculable. I understand my role as writer, teacher, visitor. With each patient watch, each joyous anticipation before the whoosh of breath, I build a memory to pass on. A feeling of completeness. Because one day, I might sit on the cliffs, trying to remember a sound that is gone.