Waiting for Whales

Last week, I talked about place names and how mostly, they don't tend to live up to their actual names. This week, I'm thinking about how the same thing can happen with experiences, too.

Adventures. Travel. Summer camp. Dates. Weddings. Even theater and movies. We have something in our minds about the way we want it to be... and then it's different.

I remember going to a place because I had heard that whales congregated there and by the time my husband and I got there, no whales were in sight. Then we went to another beach and were told we just missed the whales.

I got up super early the next day - completely shocking my husband - and insisted we go back to the first place - and we did, waiting over an hour. No whales.

I still haven't seen any, except on one boat trip in Alaska, we saw the fin and partial side of one, adolescent whale. It looked almost like a dolphin to me, and didn't seem like a whale at all.

But the expectations and anticipation were huge, so much so that I almost think they were more than what I'd have felt seeing the entire whale. I don't know, but sometimes it feels that way. In The Beat on Ruby's Street, the Ruby character spends most of book one trying to meet Jack Kerouac, not realizing she's already met him. Her longing, for want of a better word, fuels and propel her (and us)? Yet, I'm not sure it fulfills her in any real way, though it does have a profound effect on her.

I guess that's what I mean by wanting. We want, and we try to get what we want. Whether we do get it or not matters a whole lot less than the journey we take in pursuit of it, which is, I guess, what every story is about.

In book two of the Beat Street series, Ruby spends much of the story in search of her best friend Sophie, who has disappeared. The obstacles Ruby runs into, and how she deals with them, are part of what makes her stronger as a character.

I'm thinking of this having moved into a new house, and remembering the day I moved into my first one. "This is what I wanted, and I need to stop and enjoy the first few moments of being here," I thought. I tried to do that moving into our new house, too. And if I forget to look outside in the morning, really stop and look at the world outside, I want to kick myself.

Because there's no substitute for really seeing whatever it is you came to see.

Whale photo: Rich Ellison