When Friday evening arrived in all its underwhelming glory, Nila collected her laptop, coffee flask, and other sundry belongings scattered on her work desk. As she was about to get into her car, the phone rang.
“Girl, whatcha doin'?” Daphne’s perpetually perky voice greeted her from the other end.
“Just getting out of work,” Nila said, morosely.
“Beth is so flaky!” Daphne complained in her cheerful tone.
Nila couldn't remember who Beth was. Maybe Daphne’s sister-in-law?
Daphne continued, “Beth and I were supposed to go whale watching tomorrow morning. We booked tickets in advance. But she bailed out on me just now! This guy she likes invited her to the movies!” Daphne paused to catch her breath and added,“I was thinking, you and I should go whale watching tomorrow. Whadya say?”
Nila sighed in response.
“Do you have any other plans for tomorrow?” Daphne asked, sensing her hesitancy.
Nila was planning to sleep in late and lounge in her pjs in front of the tv all day with Nyx by her side. There was a docu series on unsolved murders that she might watch. But Daphne wouldn’t consider it to be a plan fit for a weekend. So Nila didn’t answer her question.
“Where’s this tour?” Nila asked, instead.
“San Francisco. The tour begins at Pier 39. Whales are usually spotted off of Farallon Islands.” Without waiting for an answer, Daphne continued, “I’ll pick you up at 7 in the morning.”
The next morning, when Nila was getting ready to leave, Nyx meowed and looked at her mournfully.
“I don’t want to go either,” Nila whined, scratching behind the cat’s soft ears. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.” Nyx rubbed against her legs.
“I would have said no if it were anybody else,” Nila explained to Nyx. Daphne had been patient with Nila’s penchant for reclusiveness and her dour attitude towards life. Plus, Daphne was the only one in Nila’s life who never in the past three years ever asked Nila to move on after Adam died in a surfing accident: brain hemorrhage due to fatal head trauma, as the death report so succinctly said.
“This is my way of saying thanks to Daph,” Nila said. Nyx seemed to agree and walked away to sit on her perch overlooking the window.
Daphne showed up impeccably dressed as always in a crochet peplum top under a stylish windbreaker with a drawstring waist.
“You’re looking gorgeous,” Nila said earnestly.
“You too,” Daphne returned the compliment. But Nila thought she didn’t sound convincing.
The highway was drafty, and by the time they reached the pier, the wind was howling. They were greeted by the news that the tour company had canceled the expedition due to inclement weather conditions. The woman at the reception said they had called Beth’s number and left a message.
Nila decided to loaf around in the gift shop for a few minutes, while Daphne chatted with the other miffed customers.
“Nila, meet me at the dock when you are done shopping,” Daphne called out to her, sprinting out the door.
After staring at the I-heart-SF mugs for some time, Nila walked towards the pier. Daphne waved at her from the dock. She was talking to a young guy tanned bronze by the sun and the sea.
“Nila, meet Hugo. Hugo, my dear friend, Nila,” introduced Daphne excitedly. “Hugo has agreed to take us to the edge of the outer sea in his sailboat. He swears we are bound to come across some mommy humpback whales and babies because this is the season!”
“It’s so generous of you, Hugo,” Daphne continued, lightly bouncing up and down clapping her hands. Her high pitched voice was shaking from the cold wind and anticipation.
Nila laughed nervously, “It's not safe, Daph. Our trip is canceled because of bad weather.”
“Hugo, is it safe to go?” Daphne paused for a moment and answered her own question. “Hugo wouldn’t take us if it’s not safe. Would you, Hugo?” she drew her left shoulder towards her cheek coquettishly.
“It’s safe, if we turn around in half an hour.” Hugo said valiantly, pushing his chestnut brown hair back.
‘Married with kids or not, Daphne could still cast that spell on men,’ Nila smiled to herself.
Nila could stay back and let Daphne go on the boat ride with Hugo. But the gray sea was tempting with fog shrouding the outer edges.
Hugo led them down the dock. His boat was small with a sail that had merry stripes of yellow and red. Hugo situated himself in the cockpit, and there was room for 4 more people. He gave them life jackets and quick instructions to avoid tipping over the edge of the boat.
“What do they eat, these humpback whales?” Daphne asked, as Hugo steered the vessel out of the dock. “Definitely not humans, right Hugo?”
“Planktons,” Hugo said lovingly to Daphne. Nila could never have imagined the word to carry so much love.
“Ummm…” said Daphne, looking impressed.
The sailboat gathered speed, and it navigated the mildly rough seas noisily. Nila looked over her shoulder in a full spinal twist. The receding dock was behind a thin veil of fog.
The boat bumped jaggedly over the small waves. Nila groaned. “I feel nauseous,” she said weakly.
“You are seasick. Keep your eyes on the horizon. You’ll feel better,” Hugo suggested kindly. But Nila ignored him and covered her face with her hands.
A few more minutes later, he reduced the speed and then finally turned off the engine. The boat bobbed, as waves sloshed on its hull.
Nila looked at the great canvas of the sea in front of her. It didn’t just look like a great expanse of water filled in a big cavity on the face of the Earth. The sea was a mighty presence. An emotionless, detached cognizant presence. Heaving. Watching.
‘Ocean is infinity on Earth!’ Nila observed. Her mind was humbled beyond measure. The humility soon became fear. ‘This is how death looks like,’ her mind whispered. Fear cleared her head, and she forgot she was extremely nauseous a moment back.
“Time to turn around,” Nila checked her watch and said.
“Just one more moment,” Hugo whispered under his breath, as the boat was propelled by the gusty winds a little further into the sea. "Let me get the sails down," he said, getting up.
As Nila surveyed the immenseness of the ocean with unease, she remembered a story her grandmother once told her--about a wise boy-sage born with eight deformities. In the story, the boy explained to the king of the land: “Let the waves of the universe rise and fall as they will. You have nothing to gain or lose. You are the ocean.”
Quietly, Nila witnessed the dance of the waves--rising, falling, rising, falling. Rising again, gasping to hold on to its impermanent yet chronic self-identity as a wave, helplessly giving into the oneness of the ocean, and finally knowing a kind of timeless peace free of bounds. The tidal waves, and baby waves, and ocean swells were only on the surface. "Deep down," Nila said to herself, "there's only the indivisible oneness of infinite waters."
Maybe that's what Adam was trying to tell her when he said, "Surfers are beings, and the sea is the beingness."
"Are you a surfer or a Sufi?" Nila used to make fun of him.
"I want to be a Sufi surfer," Adam would say, tucking a wanton curl of hair behind Nila's ear.
Hugo’s voice woke Nila from her reverie. “There…” he pointed at a distance. Nila and Daphne turned their heads in a synchronized movement to look at a rippleless flat circle of water a few yards away from them. He started the engine and turned the rudder towards the glassy spot on the sea.
“That’s called a footprint,” Hugo yelled over the engine noise, “A whale has deep dived. It will resurface within 4 minutes, not too far from the footprint.”
As the boat neared the glassy spot, Hugo turned the engine off again. They waited in breathless suspense. Three minutes crept away. A fountain, and a huge humpback leapt out from the gray waters and pirouetted against the foggy horizon. Its giant tail flipped as the rest of the whale disappeared underwater. A small tail flipped next to it--the baby! They gasped in unison.
Hugo turned the boat around and headed in high speed towards the dock.
“It was so… surreal. Thank you.” Nila shook Hugo’s hands at the pier.
Daphne hugged him like one would an old friend.
“You guys should come back when it’s sunny. No two whale expeditions are the same,” Hugo said, smiling shyly.
On their drive back home, Daphne breathlessly talked about how amazing the sight of the breaching whales was. Then she too fell quiet. Nestled in that calm comfortable silence, Nila was--for the first time in her life--no longer scared of the immensity of emptiness.