Fourteen events and counting since last Tuesday’s official
release of THE SUMMER GIRLS! What a
wild, wonderful book launch week it has been.
I just left Chicago where I received a heartwarming welcome at
the ALA conference, attended by 15,000 of the nation’s librarians. Wow!
Today I’m in Pawley’s Island, SC for the Moveable Feast Author
Series hosted Litchfield Books. The
crowd is always lively and it really feels like a homecoming every time I
go. Then I’m off to another favorite
book tour location—the Silver Coast Winery in Ocean Isle, North Carolina. Then book tour brings me back home for the
July 5th book launch party at Wild Dunes Resort on Isle of Palms, SC
and everyone’s invited! We’ll dance to the
sounds of steel drum music, enjoy Lowcountry-inspired nibblers, and talk about
some behind-the-scenes details of my new novel THE SUMMER GIRLS. Tickets are $10 per person. But you must RSVP by tomorrow, Wednesday,
July 3. Call (843) 886-2020 to make your
reservation. I can’t think of a more
perfect place to celebrate the release of The
Lowcountry Summer Trilogy. Click here to see complete tour schedule.
My longtime readers know that nature is the backdrop of my
novels —sea turtles, sweetgrass, monarch butterflies, and now the Atlantic Bottlenose
Dolphin. And one thing people have been
asking for during this tour is my own personal experiences with dolphins.
The dolphin scenes in THE SUMMER GIRLS are not necessarily
my own experiences, but they are inspired by the hands-on research I’ve done
for this trilogy. I have worked with the
Charleston division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), which has been involved with a long-term study of resident dolphins
here in South Carolina. The situation is
not good-- 48% of Charleston’s resident dolphins are sick. The stats are even worse in Florida. I’ve been with them on their watercrafts as
they zoom across the water, identifying dolphins and their pods at dizzying
speed. I’ve had the honor of working
closely with the Dolphin Research Center (DRC) in Grassy Key, FL where they’ve
allowed me to get up close and personal with their resident dolphins. That is where I’ve witnessed remarkable bonds
and connections between dolphins and humans.
Oh and the stories that have been shared with me!
I’ve learned that dolphin mothers are just like human
mothers. There are the good mothers, the
very strict mothers and the more laid back, easy going mothers. Tursi is one of my favorite dolphin mothers
that I got to bond with at the DRC.
She’s very strict, keeping her calves close and with her for a long
time. One morning, I was helping feed
the babies and all of a sudden there’s Tursi giving me the hairy eyeball! It was a look of who are you and why are you feeding my babies. I spoke to her, offered her a fish and after some
contemplation, she must have approved of me because she swam off without taking
her babies away. A couple days later, I
was in one of the DRC’s ocean lagoons, floating in a raft as the enrichment toy
for the baby dolphins that day. The
little ones were having a rambunctious good time, when suddenly, here comes
Tursi zooming over and steers here baby away, then comes back to disperse the
other calves. She pauses in front of me,
gives this look and glances at her dorsal fin as if she wants me to grab
hold. I do. And she tows me clear across to the other
side of the lagoon and leaves me there.
It’s as if she put me in time out!
My best experiences though weren’t necessarily ones
involving me, but instead moments I witnessed between dolphin and child,
dolphin and war veteran.
The first involved the Pathways Program at the DRC for
people with special needs. I got to see the
unique relationship dolphins forge with autistic children, connecting with them
in ways that perhaps no one or nothing else can. Dolphins are known for having a complex form
of communication. The autistic children
taking part in this program cannot express themselves in ways that we normally
expect or understand. Yet, the dolphin can
elicit emotion and response from them.
It’s truly beautiful to observe.
On another day I met a young man, an injured veteran, now
blind after being shot in the head by a sniper.
He had been in the hospital for eight months when he arrived at the DRC to
participate in the Wounded Warrior Project.
The program’s goal is to promote a healthy transition to civilian life
for those severely wounded during war, left with traumatic brain injury and
PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
His guide was a former Navy Seal, so they seemed to share the same
language. He helped ease this obviously
nervous blind man into the water. What
was so powerful to witness was seeing how he looked entering the water—his body
was clenched, shivering and so tightly closed—and then again after spending
time with a dolphin, for his first time ever.
The dolphin with the war veteran recognized his fears or needs and just
grazed against his feet, very gently at first.
Then gradually, the soldier did reach out enough to touch the
dolphin. And the dolphin was so patient,
letting the soldier take all the time he needed to relax. Eventually he held on to the dolphin’s dorsal
fin, and with his guide by his side, this blind, injured veteran was being
pulled through the water by the dolphin.
The smile that spread across that man’s face conveyed so much emotion,
revealed so much freedom—from his pain, his disabilities, his obstacles. And that’s what dolphins do. They force something out of you to make you
happy. It’s powerful. And I’ll never ever forget that man’s
smile.
You know you’re being looked at when you look a dolphin in
the eye. And anyone who has had the
opportunity to be that close with the species knows what I mean and
agrees. It’s a magical feeling, an
unexplainable connection similar to the unspoken bond you might have with your favorite
pet, but this surpasses that. And even
more remarkable is that a dolphin doesn’t forget you!
I hope that after you read THE SUMMER GIRLS, you’ll find
this saga unforgettable and feel a deeper sense of appreciation for and
connection to the bottlenose dolphin, whether you see one for yourself or
experience the species in the pages of my trilogy.
