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Tag Archives: dolphin

To Whom It May Concern:

31 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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dolphin, feminism, first draft, freedom of speech, old boys network, open letter, opinion, reaction, reflection, The Letter, The Rebuttal, unihemispheric, Ursula LeGuin

I’ve been pacing for days trying to sort and decide what to say, if anything at all, about “The Letter” posted in the esteemed Harper’s magazine and the “Rebuttal” that made a little splash by the unwashed masses of social media. Does anyone care what these 153 suffering signatories think? Who asked their opinion on open debate, cancel culture, justice, and fear that their powerful voices will somehow be silenced, vanished from history? Frankly, I’m more interested in reading the responses of the unwashed masses who do not have a Harper’s or a platform of any kind to share their stories of being ignored, bullied, shut out, and surely underpaid for the fruits of their sweaty, wrung-out Word documents?

Chomsky, Rushdie, Atwood and…. Rowling? Who invited her to this “mighty” list of elites where she can shore up support for her (deeply unfortunate) views on transgenderism? In this very same paragraph I must examine my prickling view of The Letter against my bristling reaction to a group of male authors who yawned and called Ursula LeGuin overrated again. On one hand I defend Ursula and her right to shine with the lofty (mostly male) Sci-Fi / Fantasy writers of our time, while the other hides my snickering at JK Rowling’s fear of being cancelled. Both women endured their lumps in the writing “community” for their perceived lack of talent and their personal views, and here I am committing the same sin. In this paragraph I must re-examine my views on true freedom of speech. I must learn how to keep writing while remembering to use my Super Girl Powers for good, not evil, to keep speaking out for inequality no matter where it is found, especially when I find it in my own pages.

My thoughts are ungelled, imperfect, unready to share and certainly without authority. They are an open letter to no one in particular, written in smeared ink, carried away on the back of a rogue dolphin. (He reminds me to write about cultural appropriation in fiction next time, knowing I have a mind full of that and plenty of space to share my unsought, frightfully overrated opinions.)

Forced To Breathe

27 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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breathe, dolphin, human, sorting, Universe, waves, write soon

Something about the placement of the sun and moon and perhaps Mercury in retrograde had something to do with why I ran out of the house and down to the shore. I couldn’t put two thoughts together. I couldn’t decide whether to sit or stand or eat or drink or write or wash a dish or leave or stay. Just before the tipping point I put on sunglasses, left my phone on the table, and got the hell out of there. I really don’t know what it was that moved me to go in that second, was it the universe pushing me, it must have been because the dolphins were present in the bay.

I stumbled out through the dune path and bee-lined for “my” spot but a summer sunbather was there. I veered east (still not far enough away from her music playing) and dropped into the warm sand like Simba on the grassy hillside the night he needed to sort things out.

The dolphin pod was not passing through our little spit of the Chesapeake this time. They were hunting playing for croaker and mullet. Normally when I see dolphin their backs and dorsals seem black, probably because of distance, a trick of the light, presbyopia, or all of the above. Today, though, they were clearly sparkling gray and white. No sweet faces seen, just bodies and flukes. Some were in groups of three, one larger-bodied and two smaller-bodied beings huddled close and loping gently along. As for the hunting playing party, it was a foamy free-for-all.

In the space of a few moments four colorful jet-skis passed right through the dolphin patch, a small Coast Guard boat came flying out of the channel, and in the not too far distance a submarine was under way, all while the sunbather had her back turned from the water and her buddies were splashing around. I felt as though I was looking at a painting where someone said, “paint everything you will ever see ocean side.” It felt crammed and unpleasant, no rhythm or ease. I forced myself to wait out the desire to leave, so I watched the boats and dolphins and jet-skis disappear. I listened to the waves curl and release and it became easier to breathe. Whatever I wished for, hoped, or wanted became irrelevant as I let the simple hissing water mesmerise.

Hands in hot water washing a dish, I mused that dolphins don’t have to decide to write or sleep or interact. I cannot live unhemispherically because I would miss my dreams where mermaids tell me you exist. I like purple ink on my fingers after I write, and reading dog-eared pages filled with moody, conquering kings.

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