You’ve set your timer on the meditation app, rolled out your mat along the riverview window. You haven’t meditated in months, and when you’ve tried, you can’t stay present more than a minute. Bell pings keep your eyes darting back to your desk, and you’re reminded to pause all notifications. You hate you’re still holding your phone but maybe this app will help. One more try.
You inhale deep and try to close your eyes but find yourself scanning the river. A bobbled head dips up far to the left. A seal – your seal. You’ve seen him before but it’s been months. He’s the only one that makes his way from the sea into this city river. To hunt, to explore, to seek safety. Maybe he wants to be alone. Maybe he wants to be seen. And that thought calms you. You’ve made the time to see him, and here he is.
You’re starting to check your phone. To find old photos of him, to verify how long it’s been, maybe take another shot when he passes, or a timelapse. You could catalogue it, build a timeline of sightings. Instead you spot the fourteen muted messages coming in, and you want to throw your phone out the window.
One deep inhale, then an exhale. The seal’s slick head gurgles up for air, just a little closer along the dockline, still to your left. You think about timing his dives with your breaths. Seals are expert breathers. You couldn’t compete, but maybe with a handicap. How far does it swim on each breath? You guess six inhales until the next sighting.
No, it was nine. Still to the left, angling slightly in his course. Perhaps he got distracted. A small bite, a shiny tin can, the scent of a mate. He’s making good progress regardless. When he dives again, you trace the three dotted points of his path and try to estimate where he’ll surface. Nine inhales more, and any moment now, he should appear directly before you. Closer than ever. Should you take a video? No, phone away.
Twelve breaths, your eyes grow eager. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Your eyes begin recalibrating to a new estimate. Where will he show? Scanning left to right, you feel a frantic vertigo against the infinite points before you. Seventeen, eighteen. Your gaze softens on the whole of the tide-waning river.
Nineteen. You exhale, resolutely. He’s not coming back up. Whatever brought him here – to hunt, to hide, to seek company – he’s had his fill. He’s on his deep plunge out the channel, returning to the far, vast sea.
You sit in silent uncounted breaths for God knows how long. Your meditation alarm sounds, and you switch it off. You continue to sit in silence, thinking only of that seal. Not counting, not seeking, not wanting – each breath held as its own perfect pursuit.
Ten minutes have passed, then twenty, maybe thirty. You take one last deep breath and return to your desk. Phone still muted, tasks far from your still mind. You begin a shallow dive into the keyboard. Into the held pursuit of something fluid.
Paul Carreo 