Senor Cinco and I

I took a step back into my old life last week – I did my Thursday afternoon volunteer shift at the aquarium. It felt strange and good. I love the aquarium, I find the dim galleries relaxing and the exhibits mesmerizing. Things are both familiar and new every time I visit.

I haven’t done a shift in over three months – my plate seemed full enough coping with life at home; first the sickness, then the death, and now the mourning. I’ve had my hands full.  Getting used to the new world I have been thrown into has been all consuming. 

Things don’t stand still just because you are not there to witness change even at the aquarium. I discovered two new wolf eels and a new octopus inside the galleries and I met a new friend named Senor Cinco outside.  It seems I haven’t been the only one navigating a new world lately, they are all getting used to changes in theirs as well.

Senor Cinco is an adult male California Sea Lion and I felt drawn to him immediately.  He was rescued, emaciated and sick, and moved to the aquarium last week after spending a year at the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre. 

I feel like Cinco and I have an unspoken bond – we are both navigating new surroundings with a disadvantage.  Where I am coming to terms with widowhood, Cinco is coming to terms with blindness.  Neither disadvantage is obvious, Cinco appears to be a healthy sea lion, yet he is awkward in his new surroundings, tentative and a little cautious, much like I am in mine. 

I spent considerable time watching Cinco explore his new digs. He seemed a curious adventurer. He has a home base on a rocky platform in the center of his habitat – I watched him take several small excursions from there. He is using his willingness and whiskers to chart his new world – he explores and rests and then repeats the process in the dark. He is making headway. 

I’ve been taking excursions from my home base too, venturing a little further all the time. My world is expanding to include people who don’t know my story, who have no idea I am coping with darkness even in the daylight. I am being quietly brave like Cinco and I too am making progress. 

I suspect Cinco and I will eventually succeed and become confident in our new surroundings.  We will explore and then rest and repeat the process until we can navigate our new worlds even in the dark.