The Blue Whale Spoke to Me on My Birthday
A Love Letter to Democracy

No one would believe me if I told them, “I’ve been a loner all my life,” but I have. Maybe you know that. Maybe you’ve seen it in my eyes when I’m in a crowd and want to be invisible — to move through unnoticed, without stopping to exchange platitudes, to talk about things that don’t interest me, or to listen to people discuss politics while making no effort to create change.

The blue whale spoke to me on my birthday.

I have a long history with the largest animal ever to live on our planet. Some young girls fall in love with horses. They say a horse represents power and compassion, and that the love of a horse stays with them throughout their lives.

I fell in love with the idea that I could save the whales.

Fifty years ago, I began my small journey to become a nuisance to the great powers that controlled our seas — to help people, young and old, understand that we had no right to deny this gentle giant its place in the vast oceans that cover our planet. We needed to understand that if we allowed greed to prevail, we would rob future generations of ever knowing that this magnificent creature once swam the deep seas.

The week of my 70th birthday, I saw a blue whale off the island of São Miguel in the Açores. I never thought it would happen. I knew how powerful humans had become in placing a dollar value on this extraordinary mammal, and I feared it would succumb to extinction.

But it didn’t.

And standing there, watching it rise from the ocean, I realized I must return to advocating for the next thing that now feels endangered: democracy in the United States of America.

I hope this is another extinction that never occurs.