On the Marking of Years
16.
Everyone these days is very excited about narwhals.
In my day and age, I say (in my I’m-old-as-dirt voice), it was unicorns.
Narwhals are the unicorns of the sea, Sophie tells me. There are many books about this. Do I know the book about a narwhal and a jellyfish? Do I know the one where the narwhal eats so much peanut butter she turns a peanut butter color? And what about the one where the narwhal gives all the other sea creatures horns and turns them into superheroes?
I do not know those books, I say, but I’m sure I’ll find out.
I begin to research. I learn that narwhals can weigh over four thousand pounds and grow to over seventeen feet long. I learn that they are considered toothed whales but with a tooth at the top of their head, their horn, and no teeth in their mouth.
Females almost never have a tusk, I read.
They are difficult to study, these creatures, because they live in darkness, in places where ice covers the sea half the year. Their name comes from the old Norse prefix “Nar” meaning “corpse” and “hval” meaning “whale.” A corpse whale, they are called, since their mottled skin resembles that of drowned sailors. They are deep-diving animals and can withstand tremendous pressure. They do not appreciate civilization or sailing boats. They eat little in the ice-free summer and save their large appetites for winter. Their horn was likely the origin of the unicorn legend. It was a magical thing, to steal a narwhal horn, it was said.
It seems hard for you, a therapist once told me, to learn from your own mistakes. I told her she was certainly right, but inwardly I was making resolutions to myself.
I won’t make that same mistake with narwhals.
I’ll become a narwhal expert. I’ll learn their histories, their intricacies.
I’ll learn how they circle and dive and swim.
The problem is, I’m not so sure anyone will thank me. I doubt I’ll even thank myself. On the list of important things to be done, this is about number six hundred thirty-three.
But there will be a part of me that will feel satisfied, I think, knowing I’ve spent my time learning to love this creature. Watching it pass time. Hearing the dive-down of its depths. Knowing I will never know it entirely. Trying to understand its spiraling history.
17.
But then time passes, and I don’t become a narwhal expert, or much of an expert on anything. I sit and try to listen into the wind.
That wind pushes into my face as if it has something to tell me.