Nature – Page 18 – Nourish-n-Cherish

When summer 🍃 collapses into fall 🍁

It was one of those mornings that Oscar Wilde described as “And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.”
Oscar Wilde

All around us were the signs of a long summer. The hills were brown, the flowers drooping, the earth parched and the rivers dry. Mornings came on bright, blue, and sunny; swiftly following dawn.

But one beautiful October morning last week, the clouds rolled in: the colors of sunrise streaked the skies, and we were gleeful for we got up early enough to catch it. There was a nippiness to the air, and we practically danced our way to the coat closet in the morning.

You see? I have mentioned Californian summers before. They linger on just a month or so after their time. You’d think October would bring the temperatures down nicely – they probably do in the rest of the continent. (Remember Anne of Green Gables saying she is grateful for a world with Octobers in it.) , but here in California, we just braced for another all-time high heat wave. Anyway, where was I?

I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers
Anne of Green Gables – L M Montgomery

Yes. The beautiful cloudy day bearing a hint of much-needed moisture in the air. I decided to take a little stroll around the son’s school after dropping the fella off. The children bobbed along noisily in the playground despite the chill, and the Brownian motion of their movements were a joy to watch from afar. As they made their way into their classrooms, a quiet descended – previously even their chitter and chatter seemed to penetrate the fog, but now the silence enveloped one. I pulled my jacket a little tighter, and relished the cold air, the first hint of fall in temperatures.

It was then I saw the birds. Right above me, flying between the pine and eucalyptus trees in the park was a beautiful woodpecker. A streak of red against its black and white spotted body. It attracted my attention with its swift movements and obstinate call of duty against the tree.

A little further on, a raven flew swooping triumphantly with food ( some sort of nut) in its beak. Just as I watched it swoop past me, it dropped the nut in its beak, and the pesky thing rolled underneath a parked car. I stood there feeling a little sorry for it, but within a minute, the raven had craned its neck, hopped around and retrieved the nut from under the car. Looking proud of itself, it took off again.

A short while later, it was the seagulls and cattle egrets flying overhead. I wonder: all of this birding activity is always there, I was just glad that the cold morning allowed me to catch it.

My spirits soaring just a but higher than usual, I made my way back to the old work spot, and like the woodpecker taught me that morning, hammered my way through the day.

The Spider’s Vision

The son and I had embarked on a lovely bike ride. The autumnal equinox means that the sun sets earlier and earlier in the day. It was still early enough in the evening and we biked along amicably talking of this and that.

When we finally decided to take a short break by a lake, the son climbed a nearby tree, while I sat myself on a park bench. All was tranquil. The pelicans went about their ballet dance of coordinated fishing in the distance, the hawks and turkey vultures circled high above in the skies. Out in the distance, a dog ran on the shore chasing the birds and squirrels. Overhead, hundreds of ravens were flying and making their way home.

It was in this world that I called out to the son and pointed out a visionary at work. We sat side-by-side in awe. For it was obvious, from conception to creation this would’ve daunted most competent engineers to undertake a project of this size alone, and here was this lone spider doing so : competently, peacefully and apparently with engagement.

In spider terms, it was the equivalent of building a bridge across a bay. From one tree to the next on the other side of the looming lagoon, a large suspension thread held the intricate web forming in the middle. How strong must the thread have been to sustain and hold the weight of the structure in the middle? Not to mention its prey.

When finally the spell was broken, the sun had set further and the spiders web was now bathed in a golden light. In those few moments of magic where nothing but weaving and creating was happening overhead, the earth around had changed its hue. From a bright blue sky, the pinks and oranges were thrown with abandon. Pretty soon, it would be getting ready to cloak itself in the inky blues of the night.

The son and I got up – a sense of reverence and humility restored in our proud human spirits of achievement. Here was a lone spider, envisioning a humongous structure, creating a web of art and material integrity to withstand prey probably three times its own weight and going about it in a symmetric and beautiful light of the setting sun. What’s more? It was a design that was biodegradable and all the earth could be covered in this soft, silky web with nothing the worse.

Whether as materials for clothing, or structural integrity such as design of bridges, or the bio degradation of our products, a spider’s web is an inspiration for biomimicry based designs.

Biologically inspired materials could revolutionize materials science. People looking at spider silk and abalone shells are looking for new ways to make materials better, cheaper, and with less toxic byproducts.
Janine Benyus, Biomimicry

Sometimes, a bike ride is all that is required for perspective to take its throne.

A Heron’s Lessons

A day or two after the Navarathri season, the husband & I headed out on a walk by the riverside. All was quiet. The husband and I were not.

The most common ailment of our times: busy times were ailing us both. Our days were packed, and our minds full. Corporate fortunes and misfortunes played out on the global scene. The husband, more stoic than Yours Truly in matters of life was nodding as I rattled on.

Should I do this?
Should I do that?
Which course of action seems to be the most prudent?
Most effective?

Finally, I slowed down enough to make a comment about the trees and leaves. The earth was parched – California’s drought this year has left a dry riverbed, and I felt sorry for the numerous creatures that lived here.

The blue herons, great white egrets, cattle egrets, and hundreds of blackbirds, wrens etc are a welcome sight on walks. My eyes involuntarily scoured the riverside for the marvelous creatures, even though the sunset skies were gift enough.

The deer, fox, sheep, cats are all admired too.

As we were talking of this and that, I spotted a blue heron standing on the river bank. It was probably a baby (an ornithologist on the trail told me that the grey coloration of their feathers, and the thickness of their necks are indicators). I tugged the husband’s hands and said, “Look!”

We both stopped. Admirable creatures, herons.

“You know? Herons teach us to remain calm and observe life without taking too much tensions of the comings and goings around them. But when swift action is merited, you can’t beat them. We must be like herons!” I said.

The husband gave me an amused look and I laughed “I know! I know! Nice talk – but where’s the application you ask?”

We both laughed, but the image of herons never fails to calm me down. Maybe that’s what we must have in our calendars – heron time, hummingbird time, tree time, star time.

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night . . . I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. . . For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry

The Joy of Cloudy Days

Summers in California are true and long, lingering summers. The grass becomes hay, the green hills become brown, lawns boast of signs that say ‘Brown is the new Green’, and birds and animals alike droop from the sun. The flora though thrives – vegetable gardens burst forth and produce in the bountiful rays of the sun, flowers bloom everywhere, and in the midst of all the heat, there is beauty at every corner. The weather sometimes heeds the arrival of the autumnal equinox but has no qualms about ignoring it either.

This year, the summer has been excaberated with the drought. The riverbed that gives me so much joy was dry, the lake beds were parched and all the creatures gone.

This year, even the cloud cover seemed scant. Sunsets were less than spectacular, the skies were a brilliant blue and slowly turned pinkish before becoming a deep ink-ish blue.

My sunset photographs from yester-years seemed magnificent in comparison. For clouds – scattered, wispy, thick, grey, white, fluffy, dense all make for brilliant sunsets.

You can imagine then, the joys of seeing the clouds rolling in. We were traveling and to see the clouds from the flight was magical. The son & I sat mesmerized by them. As the aircraft dipped in altitude and made toward the Earth, it was pure magic to see the clouds around us – the aircraft was literally flying through the clouds.

A lover of clouds is called a Nephophile.

In the book, A Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan writes about how he could probably identify which planet on the solar system he was in merely by looking at the color of the sky. Our home, Earth, is a characteristic blue sky with white clouds. The absence of these day-to-day marvelous wonders, that Carl Sagan calls as the signature of Earth for the past few months, made us truly appreciate the beauty and grandeur of cloudy days.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath Tagore

It is why you saw me with my face upturned and beaming at our heavenly companions as if they had feelings and needed to be welcomed.

A Question of Time

The past week has been an interesting one in many ways. Emotions aside, what this meant in practical terms was that the nourish-n-cherish household ran on a clock.

The map says it takes 45 minutes at peak traffic, but surprise of surprises, it took 62 minutes, neatly shaving off the buffer we had baked in for grabbing a snack.

At 10:45, we would have to be there at Y parking garage so that we could get to X building at 11:00.

At 4:45, the flight leaves from Airport Here. That means, the time at Airport There would be x-12.5, but there is x+7.5 stop-over in between.

By pure chance during this time of frenzy, I had with me a slim book, Longitude – The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dave Sobel.

It made for an interesting read on how we managed to get time down to a science. Dava Sobel creates an excellent narrative around the problem of Time and Maritime navigation.

“Time is to clock as mind is to brain. The clock or watch somehow contains the time. And yet time refuses to be bottled up like a genie stuffed in a lamp. Whether it flows as sand or turns on wheels within wheels, time escapes irretrievably, while we watch. Even when the bulbs of the hourglass shatter, when darkness withholds the shadow from the sundial, when the mainspring winds down so far that the clock hands hold still as death, time itself keeps on.”
Longitude by Dave Sobel

While many astronomers tried to solve the mystery of keeping time using the astronomical events in the sky such as mapping Jupiter’s moons and their eclipses etc, one man, John Harrison set about solving the problem mechanically with a superior clock design. Clocks of the fifteenth and sixteenth century lost time because their pendulums lost their swing with the swaying of the ships, the internal mechanics rusted with the moisture at sea, and numerous other problems.

Reading about Time and how difficult it must have been to measure, has always fascinated the son & myself.

I suppose Time has become such a cornerstone of our existence that it makes for a refreshing read to hark back to the times when time was an indicator and not as much of a martinet as it is in our over-scheduled lives today.

I was reading Mrs Pringle of Fairacre by Miss Read – every time when life demands a slowing down and it is physically hard to do so, a dip into the lovely village green of Thrush Green or Fairacre does the trick. In the Fairacre books, Mrs Pringle is the competent school cleaner who is also a bit of a virago. Her scatter-brained niece Minnie Pringle is often featured – incompetent and maddening as she is, she helps(or hinders) Miss Read out now and then. In this snippet, Miss Read learns that Minnie Pringle, a mother of 3 and stepmother to 5 young children, never really learnt to look at the clock and read the time.

Mrs Pringle of Fairacre: About Minnie Pringle

I had not really taken in the fact that she could not tell the time

‘Well, I never sort of mastered the clock”, she said vaguely, implying that were a great many other things which she had mastered in her time.

‘But how do you manage?’ I enquired, genuinely interested.

“I looks out for the Caxley’, she replied. ‘It gets to the church about the hour.’ (The Caxley is the local bus)

‘But not every hour.” I pointed out.

‘Yes…but there is also the church bell.’

‘It still seems rather hit and miss,’ I said.
Mrs Pringle – By Miss Read

When I read the above snippet, I threw my head back and laughed. Almost subconsciously, I glanced at the various apps on my smartphone to remind me about the day : there were calendars synced with my meeting schedules, alarms to remind me of certain events and classes for the children, timers to help the rice cooker turn itself off, the world clock app to let me know when it is okay to call my friends in the different corners of the globe.

Maybe John Harrison (The man who came up with the design of a clock that could hold time during maritime vagaries such as storms and tidal waves without rusting or losing momentum in the sixteenth century) did not quite anticipate the extent to which the world would adhere to Time, but it is refreshing to think of a few people who are not ruled by the ticking of the clock.

Maybe we should have Do-Nothing Days in which neither the phones, nor the passing of time intrude. It will be a refreshing change for sure.

Note: The obsession with Time is called Chronomania and those who live in perpetual fear of time ticking, time passing have Chronophobia.

What do the Seasons look like?

Out on a walk today – I thought it would be a good way to start the cooling down from what turned out to be a heat wave of the likes that set new records in temperatures.

While on the walk, I stood befuddled below some trees from which the leaves were falling. There was no cool breeze, and the sun-baked earth looked heavily in need of rains. But the leaves were gently starting to drift earthwards. The dissonance was loud, and the stillness louder. Falling leaves, changing colors, should all signify cooler temperatures, a move towards cozy indoor expectations et al.

When that thought flitted into my mind, I smiled. For the clarity with which the thought came, belied the fact that for half my life, I had never known the beauty of Fall. Yet, once the brain knows, it does, and how unexpectedly this expectation of seasons took root in me was baffling.

I do not remember when I started observing the seasons – for they are not as stark in California as in the East Coast.

The next day on a bike ride, the son & I took a moment to recover. For the lakes we had seen brimming with water and teeming with fish and birds just a month ago, was now barren and dry. It has been one of the driest summers California has experienced, but even so, the shock of the dry lakes are hard to bear. What would the seasons be like on other planets?

While the rhythm of the seasons is hopefully predictable, I could not help looking for old pictures of the same ponds and lakes from a few weeks ago,

I stood there thinking of the deep comforting voice of Frank Sinatra

“Fly me to the Moon

I’d like to see Spring in Jupiter and Mars!”
Frank Sinatra

How marvelous it would be to get a glimpse into the different kinds of beauty in the universe? Are there other seasons in other planets? What is the music of each season?

Feeling Blue?

Fascination with the color blue I realized on picking up the books, BLUE – In search of Nature’s Rarest Color – Kai Kupferschmidt, is not a nourish-n-cherish household trait, but a universal one, and what a lovely revelation that was.

Blue – In Search of Nature’s Rarest Color – By Kai Kupferschmidt

There are blues that are particularly attractive in clothing. For instance there was a deep sea blue nickname M S Blue, for the famed singer, M S Subbulakshmi first stylishly wore saris win that rich blue to concerts. Then there was the copper sulphate blue, turquoise blue, peacock blue, sky blue and navy blue.

I understand the yearning to write about the color blue. Who hasn’t been uplifted by the blue waters of a lake or ocean, or the sight of the blue skies first thing in the morning? Blue seems to assure us that we are here. We Belong on Earth – on this Pale Blue Dot.

Nevertheless, the book has many interesting aspects to the color blue. Starting from ceramics to precious stones and textile colors, the color blue has always enamored artists and patrons alike.

I found myself gleefully reading about the color, YinMn (pronounced yin-min) blue created by Dr Mas Subramanian that was later honored by having a color of its own created by Crayola the Crayon company. Made from Yttrium, Indium and Manganese, the color created a blue wave in the world of colors.

The chemical formula of YInMn Blue is YIn1-xMnxO3.

You can read about its serendipitous discovery here: https://chemistry.oregonstate.edu/content/story-yinmn-blue

YinMn or Oregon Blue – Image from Wikipedia link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YInMn_Blue

As I sat watching the son in his swim class, I felt a forced sense of ease settle upon me when I opened the book to read. The swimming pool was tiled with light blue tiles, the white lighting overhead made it a calm enough locale even though there were about a hundred people in the pool area. Waters do have a calming influence if you let it. This summer, we have been swimming a little so we could appreciate the wonders of the underwater 🗺 world 🌎 in the Pacific Ocean. Closing my eyes, I can still visualize the vibrant school of fish and the large turtle in the blue waters.

I always imagined the creatures of the ocean having an even higher frequency range of light perception than humans. So I envisioned them swimming and living in a brilliant world of coral reefs and kelp forests with the myriad shades of blue contributing to its beauty. Imagine my disappointment then that the book while explaining the cones that are present in our eyes to detect color indicate that whales, seals and many denizens of our blue seas cannot perceive the color blue and may well see the teeming coral reefs as grey on grey.

Image from the book as given on the Amazon page

That made me feel blue – I am not going to deny that. (Though I must admit the color blue has never made me feel blue, so I wonder where the expression comes from.)

This book has re-awakened a dream of two science-based books that I have been meaning to write for children. One on colors and another on how different creatures perceive our world.

When can I become a mermaid?

To explore the forests of kelp

Or a butterfly

Or a blue jay or a hummingbird

So I can see the gardens of life abound through their wondrous roving eyes.

The Woodpecker & The Tree

I am enormously grateful that I am moved by the beauty and strength of a tree. I have spent many (but not quite enough) tranquil moments watching and admiring trees. Trees provide an unassuming, grounding presence for restless spirits such as mine.

I remember one day not too long ago when spring had turned to summer, and I stopped short and quite abruptly in front of a gingko tree. The tree was now fully covered in green leaves – when did the bare winter transform to full grown summer? I don’t remember the quiet miracle of life marching on though I passed the tree almost everyday: The efficient leaves photosynthesizing and nourishing the tree.

I am reminded of William Blake’s quotes on trees:

“To some people a tree is something so incredibly beautiful that it brings tears to the eyes. To others, it is just a green thing that stands in the way.”
William Blake

How sagely they bear the scurrying squirrels, the boisterous monkeys, the birds who make their homes in them including birds like woodpeckers who must be a noisy presence, the army of insects, and so much more? Even in my most whimsical moments, I cannot envision an angry tree or even an annoyed one. A tree is always what it is: steady, useful, beautiful.

I was watching a woodpecker peck steadily at a tree branch one day.

Tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok

I stood there taking in the beauty of the suns rays, the straight angle at which the woodpecker was perched on the tree (really – how was it holding on like that without ropes, and banging its head against the tree all day long?), the beautiful red of its feathers glinting against the rays of the sun, contrasting with the light green of the trees leaves.

Tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok

I remember wondering why the tree didn’t just shudder a bit to shake the bird off. But it didn’t. The woodpecker for its part seemed to be so happy at yammering at the tree like that it shocked me. For such a small bird to absorb the waves created must be quite high even if it was self inflicted.

Musings like these are music to the soul. For I came back and the internet gave me plenty to read up on woodpeckers. Coming from the human world, I assumed a design structure such as shock absorbers for the woodpeckers to endure the yammering. But nature surprised me yet again. Biomimicry as a discipline continues to hold me in awe. Woodpeckers really do not have shock absorbers. Instead their skulls are designed to endure the impact much like a hammer takes the impact of a bang. Given their size, the impacts they make are just enough for them to absorb throughout the day.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/woodpecker-skulls-dont-absorb-shock-like-previously-thought-180980426/

About 12 thousand times a day, woodpeckers drill their beaks into trees to search for food, make nests or communicate with other birds.
Article linked from the Smithsonian Magazine

When pecks arrive through the day, I think of the tree, and the happy woodpecker. Even though all those who knock and peck at my attention are not exactly happy to do so, I assume they are happy like the woodpecker, and I try, poorly, to act the part of the sagacious, gracious tree and all is well.

The Peace Tree from Hiroshima

When I picked up the book, The Peace Tree from Hiroshima, I felt a familiar flutter of hope. The title promised a story about the best aspects of humankind. But little did I realize how moved I would be by the book. Published by Tuttle Publishing, which was set up to promote Asian stories in America post World War II, this is a heartwarming tale of a tree that became a symbol of peace between Japan & America.

The Miyajima or pine tree was handpicked in about 1625 when Mr Yamaki’s great great … great grandfather, Mr Itaro, went hiking in the mountains of an island, Miyajama – nicknamed the Island of the Gods for its scenic splendors. Ever since the pine lived in the home of the family: carefully tended for and handed over as a legacy from father to son. 400 years later, when the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, somehow this family and the bonsai tree survived.

From sample image on Amazon for The Peace Tree from Hiroshima

I had heard of Bonsai & Ikebana art, but did not truly understand what went into creating and preserving such magnificent specimens. When it comes to art forms with flowers and trees, the Chinese and Japanese have such a rich heritage.

In what is the most moving gesture of humanity, on America’s 200th anniversary, Japan gifted America with 50 bonsai trees (one for each state). The bonsai trees were special ones including 3 from the Emperor’s collection. This 400 year old Miyajima tree from Hiroshima was also part of that gift and now lives in the Arboretum in Washington where it has been christened The Peace Tree. This tree that saw humankind go through industrial revolutions, technological advances unseen before, and the worst blemish in warfare is now a Peace Tree. I hope I can visit the Washington Arboretum one day and be in the presence of this little 3 ft tree with a powerful message of hope, resilience and forgiveness.

It truly became The Little Bonsai with a Big Story

This little bonsai’s story along with the Cranes of Hope, will hopefully be a reminder to us on the horrors of war.

I hope I can send these books along with the Butter Battle Book by Dr Seuss, to the current world leaders to remind them of how hard the world has worked towards maintaining world peace. A Course for World Leaders #ButterBattleCourse.

Towards the end of the book, the author writes a note indicating which parts of the story were fictionalized and which parts were true. They also include pictures of several bonsai trees including one that contains 11 trees in one arrangement, created by Bonsai artist, John Naka. Apparently, one of the longest living bonsai, Fudo, lived over 900 years old. It was bought by the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, but unfortunately this one did not survive the new conditions and died.

How could the miniature version of the magnificent large pine tree outside our house live as a bonsai tree for upwards of 400 years? Wonders never cease and artistry comes in so many forms.

The Comedic Snorkelers of Kauai

Previously, when we’ve dipped our senses into another world, it was while being firmly rooted in our own. Peeking into the aquariums and viewing areas so painstakingly built for us by the ecologists and marine scientists, I always sent a wave of gratitude to those who enabled these magical moments.

Snorkeling for the first time in an ocean was mind boggling.

It was with excitement and trepidation that we stood there listening to the instructions from our guide. Contrary to most snorkelers in the region, we were not experienced swimmers. As we slipped our feet into the paddles, a gurgle of hilarity hiccuped its way up and the children & I exchanged glances and started laughing. We did look ridiculous.

Getting a peek into the world of the ocean has always been a dream. Reading essays such as the Enchanted World by Gerald Durrell made the desire stronger.

Any naturalist who is lucky enough to travel, at certain moments has experienced a feeling of overwhelming exultation at the beauty and complexity of life

But there is one experience, perhaps above all others, that a naturalist should try to have before he dies and that is the astonishing and humbling experience of exploring a tropical reef. You become a fish, hear and see and feel as much like one as a human being can; yet at the same time you are like a bird, hovering, swooping and gliding across the marine pastures and forests
Gerald Durrell – Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons

While it had been so easy to slip our flippers on and off on land, the moment we had gentle waves lapping against us, simple tasks became a comedic trial of incompetence. I was glad to see that experienced swimmers struggled just as much as we did with this task. I may have smirked, and if I did, who could blame me.

As we moved on looking into the waters and observing the fish, there were moments when the flippers propelled us forward, and moments when the lungs rebelled with the excessive sea water that we were drinking in with each breath.(It takes some time to find the right degree, adjust the valves etc).

Whether we were watching the fish, or they were watching us was a philosophical question for I felt the fish swim by in delight and make several loops and gags around us. Schools of them – probably curious, and laughing at our inefficiency with the waters.

The fish frolicked, the humans shuddered; the schools of fish glided and gurgled happily while we sputtered and choked; the fish changed direction seamlessly while we struggled. If we entertained our piscine friends, I am happy.

Several minutes into our dip and frankly embarrassing foray into the ocean, our guide came gliding up like a fish himself and signaled us towards a large turtle (she-turtle he said), and we nodded. “It is illegal to touch a turtle these days, but you can see it from afar.”

We changed course (which is to say we all spat out some sea water, gulped some air and water, sputtered some more and set out in the approximate direction) flipping those comical looking flippers hard. And there, right in front of us was a large turtle with elegant fins swimming graciously in the waters. For those brief moments, we weren’t bumbling sea-water drinking sputterers lost in the ocean, but mesmerized and equally graceful spectators to one of the most elegant creatures on the planet.

This was magic. Days afterward, I can flash back in my mind to that clear image of the turtle with its large fins swimming on by us. A face structure that enables it to look like it is smiling and amused with life, the turtles smooth motion as it cut through the choppy waters of the Pacific Ocean was amazing.

How do bone structures, ligaments, tendons, and all the things that hold an organism together evolve by design to function thus? What marvelous creatures sentient beings are? Nerves, neurons, cells, tissue, blood, ligaments, flesh and bone- but all of this coming together to become thinking beings with intent.

I obviously have been looking for pictures of all that satisfies this marine curiosity ever since. My curiosity was rewarded by this book :

The Art of Instruction – Vintage Educational Charts from the 19th and 20th centuries

The pages indicate the anatomy of many marvelous creatures.

The Anatomy of a Sea Turtle isn’t in this book, but the pictures of jellyfish, cuttlefish, herring fish, starfish, whales and numerous other fascinating creatures makes it a marvelous book to peruse.

Starfish anatomy

For the Sea-turtle anatomy: This is a useful link

Smithsonian Sea-turtles

What an enormous wonder it is to be a sentient, logical, and functioning being in this complex world? For that one marvelous dip into the world of the sea creatures, I am grateful beyond words can describe.

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