carcharodon carcharias

most of technology is a pain, i think. sure we have more time, but more time for what? to be isolated in our own painfilled worlds. no thanks. i think sometimes, communal clothes washing at the river's edge to be a dream. so much community in those times. where is it now? i can shuttle my girl and myself back and forth through our week, even attending church unscathed by the prying eyes of community.

i understand the hester prynnes of the world will be strung up, i, likely among them. but what i would give for some true community. not just a forced banding together, though i often think that is what it will take in this day and age to get people to come together, real tragedy. but a union of souls. a joining of hearts as well as hands. the idealist in me dies hard. i guess that is a good thing.

so i kept telling my beloved,

i want to see the shark movie.

the first essay i wrote in high school, the first anything i did in high school, seriously, was write a paper for my senior english class called carcharodon carcharias, the thesis: the great white shark does not intentionally attack man. i got an A on that paper. i loved writing it. i loved researching it. it was the paper that told me i was a writer. though i would wander several years before looking back to that tell tale paper.

i tried real estate in college, the money making scheme and dropped out.

when i went into the work place and found it tedium beyond compare, i finally went back to school. the app asked, what major?

looking back through the years to the one thing i did well and actually enjoyed. writing that term paper. the A in red ink over the title. i loved that paper.

i knew writing was a language i could excel at even if i had to work at it.

another dream i had was to be an oceanographer, and growing up in los angeles, then torrance (the south bay), it was a realistic occupation. but i hated school and never had anyone really say, what do you want to do and push me that way. so english was it for me.

i remember cradling a shark book i had purchased, and selling it at a garage sale we had to raise money for a friend whose brother had died unexpectedly. i sold that book but i'm certain it will be on my bookshelf in heaven. it is so vividly etched in my mind, every page with a glorious picture of a shark on it.

this movie was that for me today. an experience unlike i shall likely ever have in my real life. i won't go deep sea diving and see them in their natural element. so to sit there in the theatre and have those ancient beauties swim by was just a dream come true for me.

the whale shark, 3,000 pounds of wonder. polka dotted for good measure.

gotta run, my kid is hungry.
peace.