Maybe it’s because I get so thirsty, but the sight of dolphins playing in the ocean fills me with an almost nostalgic happiness. I want to be right down there with them, swimming for the fun of it, surfacing every so often for air and going right back under, darting in and out of the path of the big, lumbering boat.

My manager and I were in San Diego two Saturdays ago, along with my manager’s lovely fiancée. We went on a whale watch, and this is part of what we saw:

Why ‘almost nostalgic’? I don’t know. It’s as if, somewhere deep in my nephrons, my overgrown-kidney body knows what my conscious mind has long forgotten — that once, long ago, I too was a creature of the sea. I too was wrapped in the constant embrace of water that never let me go. I too communicated with glances and approaches and withdrawals and the occasional sonic blast rather than words. I too could live without thinking about cysts, or gravity, or hydration. I too could move like they can. And maybe I someday will again.