A Good Thing
I only have a single meeting this morning at 6:30 and then I walk my dog, do a little more work and I am out the door just a little after 8:00. It’s cloudy skies today, but that could change at any moment. It definitely will change at some point today I am sure. If that happens to be during my swim then hurray!
I get to the beach and the surf looks a little smaller than yesterday and it looks like the sand level is a few inches higher. Like yesterday, I take a few steps in the water and immediately start to swim because it’s a lot more comfortable than walking on cobble that I cannot see. So I dive under a couple approaching waves and then head south.
As I move down the beach, I can tell that the clouds are reconfiguring themselves in wonderful ways. There are small patches of blue sky appearing randomly here and there. My favorite patch is the one where the sun is peeking out. Hello sun! There are moments where it feels like the sun is winning some war it has waged with these clouds and it is dominating the surface of the water and then the clouds gain ground and things grow a bit more dim for a while.
The water is bouncy but smooth. I like it. The buoy temperature has been coming down ever so slightly over the past week. It was 68 degrees when I woke up and then 70 an hour later. Any way I look at it, these are comfortable temperatures. Once things climb into the mid 70s, it almost feels a little too warm. Almost, but not quite. I don’t want to be sending any mixed signals out into the universe here. Hey Universe, let me be clear - I like the mid 70 temps!
Over the coarse of the swim, it feels like the water becomes just a little less wobbly and the sky becomes much more blue. These are all positive developments. I am thinking about love. I am leaning a bit more eros than agape but there is definitely some agape in the mix. This has been quite the summer in the most delightful way. I became romantically involved with this amazing woman, we will call her Tracey (because that is her name), who I had become friends with two months prior. We met for coffee and immediately started texting. I had no idea at the time just who or what I was dealing with. Now I have not “dated” since the invention of the cell phone. We are talking before the turn of the century! So texting has always served as a strictly utilitarian communication tool, but let’s just say in those first couple months, I think I gained some additional finger muscle. This woman, Tracey, stole my heart in these texts and the few outings we took on walks at the harbor with my dog. Then there was a sushi dinner and then there was a lot of thinking - A LOT. Then there was a second sushi dinner and then things “changed.” Suddenly the colors became brighter and my heart became warmer. I did not expect this to happen, and this is proof that sometimes the most wonderful thing that can happen to you is completely unexpected. My life is filled with so much more joy now. I am constantly looking forward to seeing her. It’s a good thing - to look forward to something.
