My wife is unlike any other person I have ever known. She is an artist in her bones and soul, she is a witch and a pagan, she is a farm wife and a mystic, she is an animal lover in every way. We are plotting a brief September vacation, and we are thinking about the ocean, and I went off on my old riff about Whale Watches. I don’t like them, I tend to get seasick, it takes hours of cruising around to find the whales, and they seem boring to me sitting out there, like floating sofas.

I was in the middle of this rant – we took our morning walk together – and I saw my wife’s face, she had her hood on to keep the bugs off and she look at me in the most direct and innocent way. “I would love to see a whale,” she said simply.

So our plans will change. We will go on a whale watch and i will adjust my thinking about it, open my mind to the beauty and wonder of the whale, the pleasure of a boat ride out into the wind, the chance of some beautiful photographs, the opportunity to see Maria’s face light up when she sees one of those magnificent and storied creatures out on the ocean surface.

“I love animals,” she said. It is true, enough said. I love whale watches.