I Saw Whales!

One of the coolest things I've ever done happened last Sunday, when my cool little brother and I went whale watching. I didn't want my view of these massive mammals to be on a camera screen, so I just held it and pointed where I thought I was looking.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I got pictures of the sky or I lopped off half the whale. BUT, we saw soooo many that I still managed to get a good collection, which I'm proud to present to you now. These are humpback whales. We also saw false killer whales, which are like Shamu only all black, and although they didn't do anything very exciting, they are very rare and so this was apparently a big deal. I don't have any photos of those, just picture a black triangle protruding from the water and moving kind of fast.

On the left you see a whale head poking up. I am told this is very aggressive man-whale behavior. The equivalent of getting up in someone's grill, usually over a lady-whale.

This is the lady-whale that started it all and her baby. She is on the left. Her baby was a boy (the guides told us, I couldn't tell.)

This is her baby. While mama and the two man-whales who were fighting for her affection are roughly the size of a school bus, baby here is only the size of, oh a suburban, if it were skinnier and had fins.

This is the baby again, he was showing off.

This would be an aggressive male. They got SO close!

This is mama and baby together. Mothers with young whale-kids aren't usually in the mood, but she must have been one fine piece of tail, because the two dudes fought for a long time.

This is half of a tail going underwater. I didn't snap in time to get the whole thing.

When a lady-whale is feeling frisky, she will wave one side-fin above water. I don't know why this is sexy to whales. But then, I also don't know what it looks like from under water. 

Okay, I don't know if you can see the shadow, but one of the man-whales swam right next to our boat, and then dove straight down, which is apparently uncommon. His tale was enormous.

This is another shot of a man-whale. See how close they came?

And this is even closer!  Blammo! This man-whale might have bumped our boat. He came up right under the bow. All the scratches on his back are from the fierce underwater battle for the fair maiden. They will head-butt each other, and sometimes one will lay on the other to try and keep them from coming up for air. But, these fights aren't usually to the death. 

Again, I don't know if you can see it, but that white spot toward the bottom is a marking on a man-whale's tail.

Both man-whales came up for air at the same time. That fuzzy spot in the foreground is the remnants of his spray...spout?...well, the water that shoots up when they exhale.

This is not a shark, it's half a tail. Again, I wasn't quick enough to get the whole thing. But it was big.

I had prayed to see at least one whale breach, and instead saw baby breach like five times and a mama-whale in the distance breach twice. I was so psyched and told God so. I just love his creation!  And then two days later while on a ferry, four grown up, school-bus sized whales breached in a row. It was like the marine version of the Rockettes. Sadly I didn't get a picture, but I was reminded how lavish God is.  

Thank you for the tropics, for Maui, for a great vacation, for blue whales, and for so many stellar experiences with them. All my love!

Hana

Me and my cool "little" brother in paradise.
This is pre frigid swim.

In my experience and my head, Maui was just one giant beach punctuated with luaus. This is not true. Over the weekend my brother and some of his friends and I went camping in Hana. If you are not familiar, the road to Hana is a circular trek around the island. The way to Hana is all lush, verdant green and waterfalls.  Once you pass Hana you are in The Beyond. Isn't that cool? The Beyond.

We hiked a bamboo forest (yeah, didn't know Hawaii had bamboo.) It was mysterious and made me feel like saying profound Confucius things, like, "This is so neat!"

Then we climbed ladders, and rope-climbed over rocks and even had to swim across a frigid pool to get to the highest waterfall. Yes, Hawaii has frigid pools, I didn't know that either.

"The Cliffs of Insanity!!" (Meniacal laughter!)
Not really, but that's what it made me think of.
Look at that tiny person just to the right of the
fall for some perspective. You might find
yourself saying something profound like
"It's so big!"

In Hana, we hiked up to a 400 ft. waterfall and once again I found myself spouting eloquent poetry, like, "Wow," and, "It's so pretty!"

The Beyond was different. It was like driving through African plains, if they grew on the side of a hill that ran into the ocean....and lava fields, and then this brilliant green high country of some land where people drink beer and leave pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

All of this was stunning. It was the kind of pretty that makes you feel cleaner, better, important. If the God of All spent time knitting these vast waterways, these delicate flowers, these abundant trees, these ragged lava beds, and now I'm seeing them, well I will carry a piece of that. A knowledge of Him I absorbed in the midst of the wonder and between photos. It has to change me. It must.

Seriously, even Disney couldn't come up
with some of this stuff.

Sunday was a truly cool day, too, but more on that later. For now, I am grateful for a God who doesn't just make beauty, who doesn't just revel in it, but who speaks through it. Who can take the nasty this world throws at us and from it draw glorious good for us and for his name, sure. But who chooses to speak joy through stunning colors, power through the spray of mighty ocean waves firing off of stalwart rocks, peace through the quiet of pre-dawn as the sun eases unrushed over the horizon, love that he made it all and lets me see and enjoy it.

Thank you, Lord, for your creativity that is always refreshing, for the endless wonder of who you are.  All my love.

Basking

There are two types of people in this world. Mountain people and beach people. Okay, there are probably some other kinds too, but it seems that most of us are more raptured by the beauty of either colossal craggy peaks, or by the endless rippling ocean, the soft and steady hush of waves on sand, the feel of a silky breeze dusting all the excess heat off your sun-warmed body...I'm obviously a beach girl.

For a list person like me, a fulfilling day is usually heralded by a long line of dashes through my list of things to do. But there are a few exceptions. 

1) Mission trips. If I play with kids and get nothing else done, its a day well spent.

2) Beaches.

It had been, oh, I don't know, maybe two years or so since last I settled in a beach chair, set my phone alarm for thirty minutes, and read in my own version of heaven.  So today I hit D.T. Fleming beach at about 10:30 and since I was by myself, figured I would probably stay, doing my thirty minute front/back rotations until 1 or 1:30.  Yeah, I stayed until 3. 

It was nourishing. Relaxing. Strangely fulfilling. I would like to say I pondered the vastness of a God who could not only create an unfathomable ocean, but then fill it with countless, wild creatures.  But I didn't. I did shout out the occasional thank you, but mostly I just basked.  Maybe tomorrow.

Thank you, Lord, for beaches, for water so pale and brilliant and for the prefect breeze, for waves that sing to pretty a song to drown out with man made music, for my kindle, and for sunscreen so I don't regret my day of rotating in the sun. All my love.

PS. Spell check just wanted me to change the word raptured to the word ruptured. Ewwww. Gross. I sincerely hope the beauty of the beach doesn't rupture anyone.

A New View

This is a view from my balcony that I recently texted my brother.

This is the view from his apartment that he texted back.

He wins.  Why? Because my brother makes his home in Maui. And as of tomorrow I'll be sharing his view for a week. In writing, the scene set up is intentional. It reflects the mood and promise of the scene.  While my life isn't exactly filled with the human equivalent of naked trees, I would like to think that stepping onto a scene in Maui will bring good things, not the least of which is time with my cool bro in his corner of the world.  

Thank you, Lord, for brothers, for beaches, for airplanes and new swimsuits and fake tans and that Maui has Starbucks. Mostly though for brothers and beaches. As amazing as the inventions of man are, they never can even fall in the same bracket as your own good ideas.  All my love.

God doesn't write in blue.

You know how sometimes you just need something new? I felt that way recently, and fought it. I don't want to be a person who needs things.  I mean, aside from food and shelter and clothing and baths and sugar.  But like the chickenpox virus, it would go dormant for a while, but it was still there. Niggling.

Fortunately for me and my bank account, my nigglings aren't for new cars or boats or designer anything. No, when I crave a new thing, it is most often pens. But not just your every day Bic, the fun brightly colored pens that normal people wouldn't use for business.

So, alas, I made an emergency chapstick stop the other day and found my way back to the school supply aisle, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but an 18 pack of fancy pens. Get this: neons, glitters, and metallics.

The fact that they're writing implements delights the writer in me, even though said writer would be better served with a multi-colored keyboard cover. And the brilliant array of sparkle and shine appeals to the six year-old in me.  Buckley likes them too.

I wonder if God gets that way sometimes. He just wants something shiny and new and brilliant and superfluous.  I mean, scientists are still discovering new species. This year they've found new Indonesian owls, Papua New Guinean shellfish, and spiders in South Africa. The owl is pretty exciting.

Obviously God could have, and I have no doubt did, create many a species long ago that we people just haven't discerned until now. But I wonder if also, just for his glory on an average Friday, he speaks a new creature into being.  If it flips out humans, so be it.  Creator is part of his nature, so the ongoing exercise of the aspect of God shouldn't be unexpected. He makes new stars--God likes sparkly things, too--so to add animals to his world that will make it more intriguing, beautiful and vast seems very much like him.

While I don't necessarily feel the need to justify my new pens, it does remind me in a very tiny way of God's bounty. He is not a minimalist or an industrial engineer. He's not an economist bent on shaving out the excess. He doesn't write in blue ink. No, he's lavish and rich and loves to surround himself with beauty and vibrance. It is an aspect I often overlook, and yet am so grateful to benefit from.

Thank you, Jesus, for being abundant and generous, and loving variety and color and texture and shape and plenty. Thank you for new owls, for colored pens, for colors in general. You are vast and creative and the more I know of you the more I want to know.  All my love.

Special. The good kind.

There are those things in life that get better with time. Like classic jewels, fine wine, comfy yoga pants, and friends. Recently two of my dear friends got in touch to say they were thinking of me. It was unexpected and wonderful. And then an acquaintance and I spent some time hanging out and saw a glimpse of ourselves in each other. That kind of recognition of a common soul, or a kindred spirit as Anne Shirley would say, innately recognizes the special. You go along feeling good, confident, enough. And then someone comes along and tells you you're special.

It's not a message the world will offer. You can be good enough. You can work hard enough. You can on occasion be accepted. But never does the world admit you are uniquely splendid.

But the thing is, you are. We all are. And no, that is not a contradiction any more than it would be to claim that each Van Gogh is special. We are masterpieces. And like all art, tastes differ. Not everyone in the world will love every piece. I, for one, don't really get modern art or cubism. But I love me some da Vinci and Thomas Kincaid.

So it is with people. Many will interact and appreciate. Some will actually say it out loud. And a few will recognize the great worth in the details and connect. These relationships are the glimpses of an eternity of being truly known. These interactions are a taste of what our Father intended. They are like prisms in a black wall through which the light of day can be seen, and they paint the world with color that is true.

I'm so thankful for these people who are rich prisms in my life, and who have reminded me what it means to be me. I'm so thankful for friendship and for the One who created it. I'm so grateful that I will die friends with these people (hopefully long from now) and yet we'll still hang out in Heaven at the heavenly equivalent of Starbucks.

Learning from Frasier

I recently returned from a week long writing retreat in Florida. I know, I’m jealous of last-week-me, too. There is something soul-nourishing about spending time with people who share your passion. The kind of people who will talk to you about writing for hours without getting that glassy-eyed look or edging for the nearest door.

Writing is mostly a solitary thing. You get a story spark, you build on it, you give it bones, flesh, you make it beautiful. But then what? How do you know if this story you’ve built is up to par?  Contests. Contest season is upon us.

For those of us who are writers, this means, polishing the beginning of your novel, polishing it again, and then polishing it one more time. Then you choose what contests you’ll enter. I’m entering the Frasier this year at My Book Therapy. It's a great contest for some specific reasons I'll get to here in a minute, but also because it's named for Frasier Crane. How cool is that?

Contests season means you let someone else look at your work. This is good, but terrifying. On the list of scary things, it generally falls somewhere between running naked through a cloud of angry bees, and getting mowed down by a Zamboni.  But the Frasier is different. The people reading your work really know story. They know what you can do to make yours better, and they’ll tell you because they REALLY want you to succeed. They also point out your strengths, see in your work assets you might now recognize.

It also means writing a synopsis.  So. Not. Fun. But…this year my synopsis writing, while painful and time consuming, went better than normal. It turns out I’ve learned a lot about story structure over the last year, due in a large part to My Book Therapy, where all that stuff people tell you you’re supposed to do is explained in a way that teaches you how to do it.

So yes, it took me a while, but I managed to tell the story of my novel in a mere 500 words for the Frasier. I had to really get down to the structural basics. My physical, emotional, and spiritual plot. And you know what? I did it. It made me examine the story I’d told again, and when I made pass number eight-hundred-twenty-nine this week, I drew those out, emphasized them. My story is better for it.

So writer friends, give your story that one last pass, see in it the beauty you have to share, then take a deep breath and enter. Let someone who knows story read it. You’ll definitely learn something.

And friends who are not writers, go hug one today. We can always use it.

Today I'm thankful for my story, for the fact that my synopsis is done, and for other people who love story. For the opportunity to see growth in my own work and room for growth. For a chance to spend time with writerly friends and that I will never be done learning, hatching, or growing better stories.

Entries for the 2013 MBT Frasier Contest for unpublished novelists will be accepted through Sunday, March 31, at 11:59 p.m. The contest is open to Voices members. The winner will receive a scholarship to a My Book Therapy coaching retreat ($500 value). Final round judges are award-winning author Susan May Warren; literary agent Steve Laube; and Shannon Marchese, senior fiction editor for WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group. For more information, FAQs and to enter, visit www.mybooktherapy.com.