I want to write about the most beautiful thing.
We traveled south on Highway 101, making our way along the Oregon coast after coming west from Portland to Tillamook – a long day’s meandering drive before heading east in the pre-sunset evening, over the Cascades, to Klamath Falls. We traveled the road, soon hugging the wild shore, stopping here and there, as we pleased, Lisa and I, to stretch, walk, look out over the Pacific, visit a shop, sit over coffees and cliffs. Unplanned.
The one place I had planned to stop was Depoe Bay, a small charming town situated around the world’s smallest natural navigable harbor – a hotbed of whale activity. Holding tight to the cliff over the bay itself, three stories, one below the entrance and one above, Run by Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, complete with a ranger and wide, glass walls, Depoe Bay Whale Watching Center sees over one hundred thousand people a year looking out into the Pacific for gray whales, humpback whales, blue whales. We spent some time on the bottom level looking out into the blue, talking to the ranger. It was empty when we arrived, sometime around 4 pm, and began to fill with visitors as we decided to move to the emptier top floor.
It was quiet, and beautiful, to look out onto the vastness. To hear the waves, scan the seas, wait, watch. Lisa stands to my right, silent.
It wasn’t long before Lisa points to what she believed was a rising whale, breaking the water, maybe, but still covered by the surface-tension skin of sea. Then, to the right, a sudden fluke high from the water, black against the blue sky. Then down, then the dorsal hump as the gray whale’s back broke the surface. Do you see that? Do you see that? And, yes, I do. I did.. No, it is not your imagination. Beautiful. So truly beautiful. One of the most. But, then, I look at Lisa, and she is crying. To see the whale. To be in the presence of that beauty, magnificence. Her awe and gratitude. Her tears. “I saw a whale,” she cried, my hand on her shoulder, her hands to her eyes, then to her heart. “I saw a whale.” and that, even more than the whale, was beautiful.
Adam Byrn Tritt 