It’s only January and I’m already exhausted. How does that happen? I really love being on the road. Mainly because of all the cool people I get to meet along the way. I get to experience some rare gifts as well. Last weekend I was sitting on a pier at 1 AM in Key Largo, FL listening to some aquatic mammals swimming around just out of site. Schools of fish were going crazy, jumping all around out of the water to my right and then my left. I could hear 3 or more of the giant creatures breeching the surface and breathing through their blow holes just out of sight. They could have been dolphin or porpoise or manatee I suppose. Maybe someone smarter than me can venture a guess. They had come by earlier in the evening. Their splashing about was loud enough that I heard them from the living room of the home where I was staying and I had to go out and investigate. They were moving south from the everglades very slowly. They were swimming straight toward the setting moon. It’s thin crescent, like a cartoon smile stained the color of weak tea, dipped into the water to my left out in front of them at about 10:30. An hour later they were back and moving north now. I suppose they were moving up and down the shore line in an all you can eat seafood buffet.
What amazing sounds: their slow, labored movements, the echo of their breathing in the quiet of the night, the occasional splash of quick movement, a flashing tail on the surface of the bay. They were always just out of sight, just beyond the reach of my flashlight. I stayed out on the pier much longer than I should have. I was transfixed by the hope that they would come in a little closer, by the sound of a creature so large, so mysterious to me.
I suppose these days are like that for me. There is a stirring in me that something large is just out of my reach, just beyond the spread of my flashlight. How long should I wait in the hope of catching a glimpse of it? I never know. But there is so much joy in the waiting, so much mystery, such a rich hope that I can not help but turn my ear to the silence a little while longer.
“I know there is a sacred space between the singer and the song
I come alive inside that place. Catch a glimpse of it and just as quick it’s gone.”
Listening.