A Whale of a Century

from Jacqueline

Don’t know if you saw the news item this week, about a whale caught up in Alaska, that had embedded in its shoulder bone an arrowhead fragment, part of the type of harpoon used back in the late 1800’s. This meant that the whale, a bowhead, was well over 100 years old and might well have been pursued by whaler of the type commanded by good old Captain Ahab. I thought it was sad, really, that the whale had managed to get by for a century, and yesteryear’s harpoon head was found when they were using chain saws to cut up the leviathan. I know the Eskimo feed on this whale, and that traditionally they use every part of the animal, but there was something so sad about that whale’s ending, as if he deserved to go on and on until nature took care of his end. I feel like that about most animals, particularly whales, though I am glad I can count on veterinary science to help me out with my domestic animals.





The idea of living through a century, especially the last century, just boggles the mind. It was only a couple of years ago that the man who had led the last cavalry charge by an American mounted army, passed away, in Menlo Park, I think, or somewhere like that, in an area that is now known for its tech industry. Cavalry charges and iPods, just a couple of degrees of separation.






Years ago, the author Howard Spring wrote a novel about a woman who lived one hundred years. He said he wanted to write such a story, just to explore history’s passing in the life of one person. I thought about that a lot – I think I must have been in my teens when I read the book, and I wondered about my own life. Can’t say as I think living to 100 would be all beer and skittles, what with researchers now saying the oil will begin to seriously run out in four years time. Solar power is looking very, very attractive, and thank heavens I can drive a horse and cart.

I’m only just over the half-century, and the changes I’ve seen astonish me, at times. As a child only one person owned a telephone in the hamlet where I lived, and that was the shopkeeper at the end of the road. We also had a telephone kiosk, but if your relations needed to get hold of you in an emergency, then they called the shop and Fred Cooke would send one of his kids down to your house to give you the message. And because we didn’t have a car, we couldn’t go anywhere until the London coach went through the next day, if we had to go to London in a hurry, because that’s where all our family lived. The "coach" by the way, was just a bus, but because the service had started in the days of horse-drawn transport, people still called it the coach. I thought about those times yesterday, when I announced to my husband that I thought I might like an iPhone, entranced by the idea of having my entire media world in an almost paper-thin do-dad at my fingertips – which was a surprise, really, because I am not what you’d ever call an “early adopter.” All a bit different from Fred Cooke’s black bakelite telephone.





I worked on the local farms as a child – the big advantage of being a country kid, you could always get outdoor work throughout the school breaks – and one day while gathering spent hop bines, I found a pin from the uniform of a First World War Land Army girl. I had that pin for years, and even used to wear it. I was crushed when it dropped off on the London tube one day. I love the idea of being in this world and having some connection to the past, some memory that gives me only a degree of separation or two from history.



I wonder how much that whale had needed to compensate for our oceans becoming more polluted, and warmer. Had he changed his territorial habits, or had he thought, “I’m too old for that!” There he was, a whale who had been born at the time of the sailing ship, and lived long enough to see his kin deafened by the navy’s sonar. And ever since I read that story yesterday, I’ve wished he was the one who got away.



Now, on another note, you may recall that a few times over the past year, I’ve asked that question, “How do I raise the bar on myself?” The question has mainly been in connection with who I am as a writer, but as we writers know, everything about who we are is part of being a writer, otherwise people wouldn’t write or read blogs. I flirted briefly with the idea of doing an MFA in writing, however, I kept coming back, in my deliberations, to a course I had been fascinated by for about ten years that, essentially, delves into what it is to be human, through the lens of mythology and depth psychology. The MA/PhD program in Mythology and Depth Psychology at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in California, is the sort of thing I would have loved to do when I was younger, but not only do I think you need a few miles on you before you open a lid like that, but someone would have said, “You’ll never get a job with that for a degree!”



I finally bit the bullet in early April, having already attended two open days and several of their short courses, and spoken to numerous ex-students (many of whom are writers) – and sent in my application. I knew I could handle my studies along with my writing - the fact that it’s low residency and not far from where I live helps – and hoped that one would inspire the other. People come from all over the world to this particular seat of learning, which also houses the Joseph Campbell library, so I wasn’t overly confident when it came to assessing my chances. My interview was scheduled for just a few days after I sustained my shoulder injury, and I decided to go ahead with it, but not take the painkillers, otherwise I might have been way too interesting – to myself, anyway. And at the end of last week I heard that I had been accepted. So, in September, I will be going back to school. I’m more than a little scared, but that particular emotion is outweighed by excitement, and I’m happy to report that a significant number of the students are of the “mature” variety. I’ll keep you posted!

Have a good weekend one and all, and if you want to share this post, you can use the envelope icon below.