Let’s Talk! – A Dark Shadow on the Ocean Wave Behind Her

Have you switched off your screens to ponder or discuss another prompt from my friend Tyrean Martinson’s book? Well, here is my take on it.

For whatever reason, my first thought was humming the Jaws movie’s musical motif, tongue in cheek. My mistake. It would probably NOT be a dark shadow, as the beast in the movie is a Great White. And maybe the fin would betray it to be more than just a shadow. On a second note, the prompt has something sinister to it that is more than a dark shadow. It’s the tiny word “behind” that wants us to see somebody be badly startled and shriek, right?

Let’s take some darkness out of this, as this is not supposed to be a horror article. Let’s simply turn the person around and FACE the dark shadow. There, now! Much better …

Now, picture somebody sitting dreamily on a bench on a boardwalk. It’s a mid-summer day with a soft, landward breeze and clouds moving in the sky. Gazing out over the water, there are lighter and darker ripples, and then, as a big cloud is just moving over, a dark shadow lies on the ocean waves. The shadow moves at the same speed as the cloud does, of course. But the color of the water has changed, maybe from a deep green to a blue green or even blackish blue.

Or it could be tortoises moving in elegant curves. What a joy to see one of the glistening bends of their bodies appear on the surface, a short glimpse of the fin, and down they are again. Or a seal whose curious head appears out of the water, staring at the observer, maybe wondering the same things about the human being as the person is pondering about the animal.

Whenever my husband and I used to go to Fort Pierce in Florida, we went to a specific pier reaching out into the Atlantic. It is made of big rocks, and in one spot an “arm” turns off at a right angle, shaping almost a basin against the sandy shore. It’s there that we always looked for a dark shadow on (or would you rather say, below?) the waves. Without fail, at one point or another it became visible, then emerged for a deep breath and vanished below again. A manatee whose home this territory seems to have been for years. We don’t go there anymore. The pier with its maritime vibe and joyfulness has changed into a memorial for hundreds of people. There lies a shadow on the rocks now.

But back to shadows on saltwater waves.

The greatest surprise we had at one time, was the shadow under the waves that we discovered in Puget Sound, not far from Fair Harbor. I spotted the spout first, then the big shape underneath. Immediately, my husband switched off the motor in order to cause no distraction to what we knew must be a gray whale. The animal came closer, seemed to realize that this was a tiny boat, swam in a half-circle around it, and stayed under the water until it was about 30 feet away from us. Only then did it surface and spout again. It could have become a scary encounter had the whale decided to surface under our boat. Or to do so next to it. But it paid back our respect with mindfulness – and it has never been forgotten.