Walrus Bones

Being Walrus

What does it mean to be a walrus? To have an integral identity beyond a human body, beyond a concept or achievement. To have a foundation of self, rooted in a creature whom I have never been nor ever will-be? I often question this myself. I have spent hours rolling in bed trying to compact this concept of self into an easy explanation. Perhaps it was a past life that still plays its role on me, perhaps watching too many elephant seal documentaries as a child poisoned my chances at a normal human experience, perhaps the walrus simply represents the animalistic human side of me that has long been domesticated through modern culture.

Defining the whys behind my identity is far more complex than I can ever explain. It is a study which has many dead-ends and paradoxes. Because of this, I try not to focus so much on the whys. Instead of spending countless hours coming up with a complete theory as to why I feel the way I do about my core self, I like to explore the hows. How do I experience my essence? How does this identity intermix into daily life?

Being walrus for me isn't about trying to physically match my identity. I do not need some sort of object or gear to make me feel more like my theriotype, as my theriotype is already the very essence of myself. I don't particularly see the appeal of dragging my body against the floor to mimics the movements of the odobenidae like the youngins do. Nor do I practice sounds on end and record them for the world to hear. It is little mannerisms; my desires, the way I experience the world, my responses to life. It is what I would consider me. Not my body, but me. Though I am vesseled (quite comfortably I may add) in a body, it is my soul which I believe truly experiences my essence. My identity is not formed around how my body feels in this world, but how my soul experiences living through this body.

So what is being walrus?

It is the need to brush your skin against those around you. A primal desire to feel, to touch anyone nearby. How just pressing your body against a peer as you wait for your cues to come on stage can instantly satisfy every craving and nerve that eats at you. To be walrus is to feel like a ballerina, graceful in your tiny body despite how large and clumsy you feel you should be. Regardless how your aura wraps around you like a thick layer of blubber, it still experiences the tiny soft steps of a lithe primate and rejoices in it's grace. This is only amplified when your body hits water. Soul rejoicing in it's familiarity, limbs freed from both the heavy ties of land and of your essence's perceived concept of weight.

     It is the small moments that make an impact on you. Like the opportunity to go to New Orleans, the way the taste and textures of the raw clams and oysters satisfy two types of hunger. It is watching the water atop a luxury cruise ship, champaign and sea air twisting into something beyond anything you ever experienced. It is the overwhelming desire to return to the water, regardless of the consequences that would ensue.

     The feeling of tusks and vibrissae when a man presses his mouth against yours, the hot breath of his nostrils sending make-believe memories of a sleeping herd cascading through your mind. Your need to surround yourself with other women, to be close to them and to help them raise their young. The way your skin bumps up in the cold, a constricting blood flow to make your skin pale in the winter air. Like a walrus coming out of arctic waters, eyes bloodshot from the cold.

     The way you react to fear. The safety in groups, the waters which provides both comfort and dangers. The way your heart beats a little too fast during orca shows, or how your breath catches at the enormity of a polar bear. Lungs inhaling, exhaling sounds that only your soul can hear. Broken by the soft tapping of your stilettos on the ground.

Twisting waves, sharp rocks, and piercing tusks cutting into the thickness of your essence. Face pressed up against the glass of a jewelry counter, opals catching your eyes like the way the ice catches the sun. Pearls encasing your neck with promises of oceans and an abundance of clams. Scars dancing across thick skin, dominance and power in your tall stature.

Being walrus is your senior year of high school. A winter on the Cornwall beaches, clambering atop a sharp rock. Blood oozing from where mussels and stones have sliced your skin. It is your friend's calls of worry when they see the crimson red. But you don't care. The salt burns your cuts as the ocean mixes with your life force, the large boulder under you feels familiar and more real than you've ever felt. Your long, manicured nails broken and aching from grabbing at solid rock, your flank covered in scratched and painted with a now browning red, your expensive jewelry is as soaked as your deep brown hair. But no amount of gold is worth the feeling of your cold nipples pressed against the ocean stones, and the way the salt burns it's way into you as your laugh echos through Marlin's cave.

Being walrus is standing at the edge of a rocky cliff, leading to the ocean. And knowing that you're so, so far from home.