The Music Of Dolphins

“She leaned forward and studied me with one eye, then slowly turning, she studied me with the other. It still amazes me every time I think about it—the way she connected with us.”

When Mila is found by other humans, she has all the dolphin mannerisms that a person could adopt: She even looks at the other humans as though her eyes were on the sides of her head. Although Dr. Beck believes that she is making a deep connection with her, ultimately Mila is a stranger to humans—and remains forever so.

“Dr. Beck says, Yes. Girl. Good, Mila. You are a girl.”

When Mila begins her lessons in language and human life, Dr. Beck asks her to write journal entries each day. These journals begin with an extremely simple format, and their language indicates that she has little understanding of human words. Mila is consistently and insistently told by the researchers surrounding her that she is a human girl; for a time, she believes it. Deep down, though, Mila knows she will only find real Family and Connection with the dolphins.

“I am looking in the face of Shay. Shay is not showing. Shay is not saying. But I am hearing Shay with no words.”

Alliteration appears here—a sign of Mila’s musical sensibilities—as Mila reflects on the limited capacities of her new friend, Shay. Mila connects with Shay despite her lack of speech because Mila has grown up around animals and has therefore developed an intuitive sense for others’ emotional states. She can tell that Shay is in a deep state of sorrow.

“A promise is like a mother dolphin going away, then coming back with sweet fish for her baby. A promise is a good thing.”

Dr. Beck takes Mila to the local swimming pool. Mila wants to stay and live there, but Dr. Beck promises they will come back. Mila uses simile to compare Dr. Beck’s promise to the devotion that a dolphin offers her young. Mila often compares human actions with those of dolphins as she seeks to discover What It Means to Be Human.

“I say, The sea is a big home where all the time is swimming and all the time is singing and all the time is touching in the big wet.”

In this repetitive sentence, Mila describes what the sea means to her. When she lived with the dolphins, Mila’s days were filled with connection, freedom, and joy. For Mila, the sea is her home, and no amount of time spent living among humans can change that.

“I have another family too. Dolphin family. The ones who love and care for me. The ones I love and care for. Can they see me again?”

Mila observes that everyone gets to go home to their family except for her. She questions when she will get to return to her family, and it is in this moment that she starts to realize that she does not have the same rights as the other humans around her. She is treated differently, seen differently, and is the only person in the research house (other than Shay) who is expected to cheerfully accept that she can never see her family again.

“Making progress is when I talk words. Making progress is when I write on the computer. Making progress is when I wear clothes. Making progress is when I sleep in a bed and eat the dead fish.”

When a government official comes to observe Mila and comments on her progress, Mila lists what progress means. She arrived at this definition after hearing the researchers use the word “progress” after she completed certain tasks. Mila therefore comes to equate “making progress” with becoming “more human” (which in itself is an artificial ideal prescribed to her). She did not ask to make progress, nor does she ultimately agree with the philosophical premises underlying mainstream human society’s conception of it.

“Sandy says if I live in the sea for thirteen years, I am a miracle.

I am Mila.”

Mila’s name is the Spanish word for “miracles,” and when Sandy tells her this, Mila has a moment of self-celebration in which she realizes how unique she is. Although her differences are a source of much suffering—and cause her to be seen by others as being less worthy of dignity than “regular” people—Mila also feels that her life among the dolphins is not one she would trade for anything. It is what makes Mila, Mila.

“Each sunset, each wave is something to see once and never again. Is that not special too?”

Upon being exposed to music and learning to use language at an advanced level, Mila’s thought processes take on greater depth. She also begins to philosophize. Dr. Beck tells Mila that their work together will create a legacy that will last forever, and Mila wonders why Dr. Beck cannot take pleasure in present-tense joys instead. In Mila’s life with the dolphins, nothing was permanent, but that was exactly what made it beautiful.

“The recorder is so pretty. Like the sea when it is white with foam.”

The recorder that Mila is gifted is her source of music. It offers her a means of expressing those thoughts, experiences, and emotions that she could not otherwise express. The recorder acts as Mila’s connection to the sea, and its characteristics bring back visions of sea foam and seashells. This simile also illuminates Mila’s need for The Freedom to Be True to the Self.

“I feel sad for humans. Humans go only where it is permission. In the sea there are no locks or switches, no doors or walls.”

Mila’s experiences with humans are characterized by confinement and limitation. Hence, she learns that being locked up is what being human means. She feels sorrow for the way that humans impose these limits upon themselves, and it makes her long even more for the freedom of the ocean. She expresses this here by creating a metaphor about the lack of oceanic locks, switches, doors, and walls.

“I feel the music inside me. It says something more than just the notes, more than just the sounds. It is hearing with more than the ears. Like the way it is when I am with the dolphins. Or when I see Justin and Dr. Beck together. Or when Sandy talks about her father who is dead. There is a way I feel when Sandy hugs me so good and long and her stiff hair brushes my ear and her good smell fills my nose.

The music makes these different feelings inside me, too.”

Mila feels the multitudes of emotions that music can inspire in her all at once. She quickly develops a deep attachment to human music. It is something that allows her to experience everything in a totally unique way. For Mila, music penetrates the very core of her being. She comes to consider it the most positive aspect of her time with the humans.

“When I am not playing [music], I feel a tightness inside me, like when the sea grass catches my feet and I cannot break free.”

In this simile, Mila describes the difficult emotions that take hold of her when she does not have music available as an outlet. In an effort to rid herself of overwhelming feelings, she begins to play her recorder constantly: It is the only way she can feel better while trapped in a life she does not want. Music is her last remaining connection to the sea, and thus it is what keeps her going.

“And although I cannot stand on my tail or jump the waves, although I cannot catch the fish or slide in silence through the sea, although I cannot understand the fast voice or the deep stories, I am a part of the long song. I sing my own funny clicking, chirping, squeaking story, and the story is good.”

Here, Mila describes her life with the dolphins. She always knew that although she was different from them, she was nevertheless accepted as a full member of her dolphin pod. This is not the case among the humans, who do not accept her precisely because she is different. Instead, they exploit her as an object of study. Mila lists the many differences between herself and dolphins, but among these is a much more important similarity: She is part of the same song. Her life with the dolphins was one of family and connection, and she was part of a continuous story of that ocean life.

“I don’t know what I am thinking. But I am alone. I am trapped in the net of the room. In the net of humans. I think maybe I am drowning in the net of humans.”

Mila starts to feel lost within herself the longer she is with the humans. It is not where she is meant to be, and she is living in contravention with her inner self. When Mila compares her experience living with dolphins to her experience living with humans, she concludes that human life is a trap. She fears that she will become increasingly like other humans the longer she lives among them. She metaphorically compares this experience to that of a dolphin trapped in a net.

“They think they own you, Mila.”

Sandy explains to Mila that the government sees her as its property, which is why it insists on holding her. Although this statement is short and simple, it embodies the larger problem that Mila has living with humans: She is not free to be herself. As a result, she eventually rebels by choosing to forget what she learned from humans.

“If Justin Beck was dolphin, I think he will be my mate. But he is not dolphin. And I am not human. Not human enough.”

Mila’s life with humans is full of inner conflict as she is constantly torn between her ocean life and instincts, and a human world that believes that she should become part of it. Mila connects most with Justin, who empathizes with Mila and feels that she deserves better in her life. Still, Mila intuitively knows she cannot be with Justin, as their worlds will never truly intertwine.

“Human anger, human fear, these things get in the way for humans to feel good.”

In Mila’s view, being human means imprisonment within negative emotions such as rage, greed, and terror. Mila observes that the people around her want to use her: They see her as an object of curiosity rather than as a human being with an inherent right to autonomy, self-determination, and dignity. Mila never felt negative emotions like anger when she was living with dolphins. Yet the longer she lives with humans, the stronger such sentiments become.

“My music is not like Mozart. It is not like the music in the radio. But it is like the sound I know from the sea. I make a long song, all night, one song. Like the whale who is looking for a mate, I make a song that grows and changes and grows longer. The story becomes different stories, different patterns, making one big pattern.”

Mila uses a simile to compare the song she composes to that a whale makes while searching for its mate. She is in a state of longing, she feels lost, and she is constantly searching for a way home. While she is held captive, Mila’s only connection to her home is through music and the stories she can tell with it.

“If to be human means I can no longer hear the good rough music of Shay, then finally I am human.”

When Mila first heard Shay’s awkward music, she enjoyed it because it meant that Shay was happy inside. Mila was initially free from judgment toward others. Now when she hears Shay attempt to make music, it irritates her, and she realizes she has become particular and judgmental like the other humans. She believes that this change in her signifies that she has finally become human enough.

“All my life with humans it will be this way. I will always be this dolphin girl. The humans will be curious the way the dolphin is curious about a piece of garbage floating on the sea. A thing to play with, a thing to drag and toss around, but in the end a thing to leave behind.”

Mila senses that she can have no future with the humans, as she knows that she will never be fully seen as human. While she is not a dolphin either, the dolphins accepted her differences and adapted to them; they did not cast her out. Mila metaphorically compares herself to a piece of garbage floating atop the ocean to highlight her disposability to the human world. Indeed, this is what the researchers did to Shay when she stopped performing and “progressing” the way they wanted her to.

“I need the roll of the sea, I need the gentle touch of the dolphin. I need home.”

In a mantra-like fashion, Mila repeats what she needs to feel whole again. The simple, comforting life on the sea with her dolphin family is what she considers home. No amount of conditioning by Dr. Beck or others can ever change that.

“The dolphin, they live for today. But I am human. To be human is to live for tomorrow. Why does tomorrow matter? What is important is now.”

Mila never understands humans’ preoccupation with the future, including the concept of leaving a legacy. Her life on the ocean focused only on fulfilling the needs of the present moment: finding food, a place to sleep, or a game to play. To be human, in Mila’s view, is to be preoccupied with future-focused things that do not matter now—and may not even matter in the future.