When I sat down after this incredible experience I was unsure! Should I write this in a dream journal or in a daily journal? 04-24-09 What had happened was no doubt as real as a breath is to the lung. Real as it was, looking back I still can’t believe it.
My friend’s wife calls me one night out of the blue. She was excited at the prospect of me meeting a girl that she herself had just met. She was convinced we had much in common . This girl and I spoke on the phone for a couple of days. It sounded as though we did have a lot in common . And so, naturally the next step in seemed was appropriate. We set up a dinner date. It just happened to be the day after my 32nd birthday. We met that Thursday night 8:30 pm.
The restaurant was this over-priced movie star hub called "Huston's" ; a place where star-struck Angelenos hang out awaiting a more fleshy experience of E-entertainment. It was a very different kind of stargazing than I was used to; Hollywood , what happened to looking up at the open skies on a dark night with Imagination !? This was a place off my general interest radar. In fact, it’s a whole two miles from where I live, and I never knew it existed until that night.Nevertheless, it was her place of choice, and I was open to that.
We arrived settled in , then ordered .
Whether it was the things that we decided to talk about, or maybe it was the only things we could talk about, Wither way. sitting across the table face to face with her changed our communication . I couldn’t relate to her. She was a sweet person but our priorities and interests were vastly different. Common ground slipped away, I began to find it hard to listen . I tried to imagine my way back to a more relatable place with her. What began as a hopeful meeting between two people turned into a conversation to fill the quiet as far as i was concerned . Small talk is not one of my personal strengths. The more she talked i became distracted !
Little things in the nearby surroundings took the center of my attention as her voice faded into the ambient restaurant noise . looking around i thought "we'll
the décor is surprisingly uninteresting for ratings as high as this place has". I noticed an awful lot of people looking in our direction . I wondered can everybody see me, cause i'm definitely not here LOL. by the look of it , they are all on uninterested blind dates as well?
Oh no , they are staring Beyoncé , whom I didn’t even realize was in fact sitting next to us. Thats interesting i thought ,without succumbing to the erg to stair like everyone else . Instead i dipped the asparagus in a spinach dip that apparently made this place "famous". I vaguely listened as she told me tales of much embellished trips to Europe, which she described by cost and not experience. I was here for the human connection, but instead i not only couldn't connect with " her royal highness " "so well accomplished" .
I also , Increasingly feel like a stranger to myself . Uncomfortable , i was never one to compare or measure myself so critically .
A feeling of anxiety crept in and before I realized it , i was standing at a real personal limitation ! Any "growth / Expansion " from here would require a very uncomfortable stretch of self .
I was not prepared to encounter or even comprehend such a matter. Im a full-grown man at this point, and in that moment I was a very specific kind of man. One who came from a specific cultural, political, economic, and social style/ circumstance. Common or not, I belong to a strata that very much defines me . It suits me thought to myself .
So why did this discomfort beg the questions: Was I enough? Was I in the right place? more importantly : Had I tried hard enough in life? Did I have enough schooling? Was I, in fact, socially adequate? More school, more money, more muscles, more height, more refined and more conventional ways?? would these things really be better for me??? It was clear that I was no longer the boy with ambiguity of the “future” on my side. My person was very much developed. Looking at the highest point on my chest slowly scanning down the rest of my body to my toes , in that moment it was illuminated . I was in fact matured and this is what "it", "I" was , period . My space as a man was filled . I couldn't tell if i was either satisfied with or ignorant to this reality BEFORE sitting across from her . But now i was just unsure of that reality .
My understanding, my perception of “it” had grown a new dimension and now i felt small
i visualized a gold fish kept for years in one of those small clear plastic bags, suddenly! dumped out into a huge tank and i imagined the gold fish franticly trying to figure out how to grow into all the extra space he now found himself in ! expectation comparison ! it was all too much !
From these thoughts , I slowly returned my attention back to her dispute the stuffy and hard to breath environment of my mind , I stuck it out . We finished dinner and with a smile and hug we said our "goodbye" . "talk to you soon- have a good night".
In a haste, I turned and deep inside I reached for the relief of a profound breath ; But only found the same stuffy cloud that loomed over dinner .
Square one ! again? That I have become something , a person now with much missing ! And this , simply by an expansion of my vision ; through her reality no less !! -- I looked around feeling lost as though everything on another planet .
I couldn’t go home. It was almost MIDNIGHT , i didn't want to drive around . Before i knew it and without thinking , "where to go"? I was already in the car ,foot to the peddle driving to the beach. upon arrival , I opened the door as though exiting a plane crash , from a cockpit filled with smoke , gasping for air !
Before i could blink , I found myself putting my feet into the cold beach sand. I rolled my pant legs up to my knees and walked into a frigid Pacific Ocean mist blowing at my eyelashes. One mile north of the Santa Monica Pier walking along the water breathing in the soupy sea air, listening to the ocean hiss and waves break in the distance. This heavy feeling i had was still there but falling away …
As i walked along , Out of the corner of my left eye I see something in the distance .
My first thought is, "wow that’s one large fish! Beached the way it is, it must be dead".
I start toward it, but long before I reached it, I could tell that this “fish” was no ordinary fish. And from that moment forth, the skycap in my mind would find itself in a fascinating storm that swirled worlds together !!!
. It’s a beached dolphin, a baby dolphin! The folklore behind this animal and its nature alone speaks volumes.
In the first half-second, i'm freaked out, thoughts race across my mind: How did this happen? What do I do? Can I touch it or will it snap at me? to my mind came one thought , it’s a dolphin! known for rescuing humans. Why can’t the opposite be true? There’s no need to be scared!
With that thought alone, before the first full second had passed, and without even looking at its condition: How am I going to return this dolphin the sea?
The minute I touched it, it began to communicate. At first he gave a weekend wiggled and blew from his spout much the way a human would blow through a nostril. He blew with skepticism but no fight … I turned him once. I looked at him and thought maybe I could pick up him from the middle portion of his body and over my shoulder. But when I attempted this, I realized, as small as he was, he was dense and extremely heavy ! Approximately 41/2 -5 ft in length, making him awkward to carry alone.
The beach was dark ,desolate , not a person in sight. Moving faster then i could think , never even taking a conscious look to verify if it was alive. I just had kept thinking , he belongs in the water !
What can i do ! I have to drag him ! I griped him by the tail. His skin was surprisingly human-like, just cooler.
He was very far up on the beach, at least 30ft from where the shore started . Being as it was low tide, he was at least 50ft from where the waves were breaking.
I grabbed him by the rear fin or “tail” and began dragging him toward the water. I pulled him down into the water where the first small wave came in.
I thought, this will surely take him out to sea. The water built up to my ankles and picked him up slightly.
The water carried him away from me but then the incoming waves brought him back like a rolling pin , leaving him right back at my feet again .
It needed deeper water ! I pulled it further down into the water . The same thing happened again!
The water picked him up, carried him away from me drawing him out toward the sea, but not far enough, not deep enough ! The water again subsided, leaving him beached. Again , I pull him further still into the ocean.
This happened three times, each time I pulled him further out waiting for the water to come and take him . The poor dolphin was dragged and rolled around like a ball . On the fourth try , I drag him till I was well over my knees in water . He was week , i felt his faint movement , and as i was letting go of him .
I sensed something and look up over my shoulder to a black wall of water at eye level . Before I could react--boom!!--the wave bumbled me down onto the dolphin and both of us were now under water now ! Cold shutter , I felt the dolphin swim out from under me.
I struggled to stand in the turbulent water but the ocean floor was gone. Treading water I was now facing the brightly lit coastal cliffs and buildings pressing through the nights fog.
I was being drawn down quickly. I got startled: Great, I save a dolphin and am going to die in the process. I began to fight swimming against the water’s pull.
I remember thinking that it was no use to fight. I floated in a standing position with my arms out to my sides in order to soften the waters draw on me. I would wait for the next swell . " It will push me back to shore ". Sure enough, I felt the waters build and I was raised up on the back of a shore-bound wave. I quickly positioned myself body board-style and before I could see clearly through the tumbling water, i was catapulted back toward the beach . I hit the shell-ridden shore with my knees. I stood up, my feet still in the water. Facing the shoreline, shivering in the cold wind, my knees cut up and burning . FINALY … a long quiet moment settled upend the night !!! I felt my heart race calming and with unfocused gaze on the empty beach sand before me…. silence .
as the swirling storm . The convergence of two worlds and a multiplicity of existential matter unraveled .
Compelled to look back to the water. Slowly I turned my chin over my right shoulder; I looked onto the black sea and dark blue sky and in all its vastness like a hard wire directly to his back fin sticking out of the water, I saw the dolphin i had saved that had saved me . with a final splashing wag of his tail-fin, he disappeared into the cold deep. ………………….Now that was interesting !
By Oziris Abdou
