Postcard from Mendocino

Carol Bensimon

Translated from the Portuguese by Carol Bensimon and Melissa Fonari

Just a late afternoon walk. I take a stroll down to Big River Estuary and sit to watch the cold-water swimmers.

They are all women. I know this because they meet here every day, put up their grey hair, fit it into red swim caps, and jump in the water as if nothing that cold is going on, which is certainly explained both by the thermal suits and by a mental state that seems to me to be permeated by mystery.

The swimmers slide up the river until they are no longer within my view, but now I have a harbor seal to look at, lying on the other bank with that massive laziness of seals on land. Melissa arrives later bringing sushi and binoculars. I do not know if one day we will overcome this feeling, this awe of being in such an unlikely place for two Brazilians who inadvertently escaped a country in collapse just in time.

There is a huge blood stain right beside the seal, coloring the rock. It was probably underneath the seal before. What first crosses my mind is that it got hurt, but we cannot intervene, the signs say leave the seals alone, no selfies with seals, evoking the most despicable behavior of human beings—selfies with seals!—the type of warning that makes you think, Hey, do we really need a sign for that? But the sign is always necessary, and will always be insufficient. I get the binoculars again and I see a pair of little eyes. A pup. We have either just witnessed or missed a seal delivery.

It is beautiful. Life that goes on in spite of us. If our day needed more magic, there it is. We are grateful for the seal and its pup and the involuntary epiphany they created. We are about to leave—recyclables in one bag, non-recyclables in another—when we see a seagull suspiciously approaching the mother and the pup. Soon after, two vultures arrive. Coming from the city, it takes a while for us to form an understanding: they want to attack the pup! The scene is filled with drama. We suffer; we have already defined who the good and the bad guys are. We exult every time the mother seal threatens the seagull, pushing it away a few inches, only for everything to start over.

Little by little, the drama is replaced by resignation. This is because we finally understand: the birds want the placenta, not the newborn seal.

This is the week Melissa decides to become a cold-water swimmer.

Carol Bensimon is the author of We All Loved Cowboys.