I have the day off. Yay! So I wake up a little before 6:00 and linger for another 45 minutes. Nothing quite like a little lingering. We have the expected June gloom outside. Whatever.

I don’t want to swim too late. I’d like to get in the water before the wind picks up and while I still have a good part of the day ahead of me. As I walk out the door at about 9:15, it’s still completely overcast but there is that special tint in the sky that makes one feel like this could all clear up within the hour. The luminosity feels like it is moving in the right direction. By the time I get to the beach, the stage definitely feels like it is being set for a mass cloud exodus. Now that’s my kind of exodus! It’s funny because I know for a fact it was totally cloudy when I got out of my car, but when I think back to that moment in my mind’s eye’s memory, it seems like it was sunny. I have pictures that document it was not.

I head down the stairs and the sledge hammer guy is on his way back up from his workout with music blaring. This would normally super annoy me. Maybe his earbuds are damaged? I know he has some. Anyways it doesn’t matter because I have taken a liking to this guy which somehow grants him immunity from my annoyance. He just has a good energy about him that I appreciate. We say hi and I continue down the stairs.

When I get to the beach, I can see the jr. lifeguards running about up at the far end of the beach. There are a couple boats hanging out relatively close to shore. One has quite a few passengers on board and it is obviously a commercial vessel. A set of waves rolls in that has pretty nice size. While the size has come down to acceptable levels, it is still larger than what the surf report posts - 3 - 4 feet.

I wait for the larger waves in the set to pass and then I head forward through the white water. I’m planning to swim north today since I am not at all time constrained. The water feels about the same as it did yesterday which is pretty close to perfect. The Capistrano buoy says 66.

As I get closer to the north end of the beach, I intersect with a group of jr. guards who are swimming out to one of their named buoys (this one is Big Bob) and back. I can also see another small group hanging out at another buoy a bit further offshore. I can see the surfers in front of the Ritz and I see birds, terns I think, dive bombing the water just to the west of those surfers. I think there must be fish about. Then I put my head down into the water to resume my swimming and see several fish in the cloudy water below me.

I keep moving and I make it to the surfers and I am almost parallel to the group furthest outside. Just as I pass them a set of waes come and they start paddling east in an attempt to catch them. The break right here always seems somewhat forgiving. What I mean by that is that it’s not one of those waves that comes in super steep and then crashes (more of those are south at Strands). Rather, they seem like they sneak up very gradually and it doesn’t look like they have the power to launch a surfer onto them but then all of a sudden they crumble over and carry the surfer with them. Maybe a surfer here would disagree. I’ll definitely defer to them but that is how it looks from my vantage point.

I keep swimming north and I start to see this collection of dots in the sky. The dots grow in size and I realize it is a flock of pelicans. I stop to grab my camera as fast as I can and I manage to get one ok shot I think. My camera is doing this weird thing where the display that shows the image is rotating 180 degrees back and forth. It’s done this before and it doesn’t affect the captured image which is what I really care about but it’s super annoying. I just try to ignore it knowing full well that all I can do out here anyways is aim and click. The rest - cropping, zooming, straightening, light and color adjustments - is taken care of on shore.

Onward I go. The water is super pleasant and my vibration is high today. I don’t know how to talk (or write) about this. It is sort of too soon to disclose but someone has entered into my life in the last few weeks that makes my heart warm. I mean that literally. Have you ever felt that? I have gone through the majority of my life being completely unaware of those feelings. I’m sure I have felt them, but I just did not take the time to really examine and inquire and articulate them. I do now and I feel things in specific parts of my body all the time. Usually in the classical energy centers of the seven chakra system. Oh sure, call me woo woo. Never mind that entire civilizations have developed an intricate array of beliefs and practices around these energy centers that endure to the present day.

Anyways, I can’t NOT talk about this because first, it’s the dominant inner theme of the swim and second, I have made a vow with myself to use this blog to be open and vulnerable with myself and the world. So this warmth has been growing in intensity and frequency over the last couple of weeks and I like it. I want to connect with its source but I am very much out of practice. I often over think all of this and psyche myself out or put up an invisible force field around myself. I wonder - am I just artificially creating this sense of warmth as some kind of delusionary projection or is this something real? I then realize I am just playing head games with myself and I grow sad because these games dim that warmth. Then I feel an inner voice telling me to relax, be vulnerable and soften. Focus on what I am feeling right now and not on my ideas and theories of what might be happening.

So over the course of the swim I imagine that warmth in my heart and I imagine the person who is making me feel that warmth and I imagine my warmth and their warmth merging and it feels good. It feels really good. I believe that what we imagine in our mind’s eye has the power to become real and it is through our imagination that we can wield our greatest magic. And if you have no idea what I am talking about right now then that’s fantastic because this is all a little embarrassing.

Well I finish the swim and as I come to shore a set of waves break and I enjoy being tossed about by them. I reach the sand and head up the stairs and I cross paths with an older man who looks like he could have been my Dad’s age and he also looks like he may have recently stepped off of a golf course. He asks me, “how was that water?” I reply as genuinely as I can that it was super good. Then he says, “well that’s great.” He says this is a truly sincere and almost fatherly way and it touches me and I feel yet another touch of warmth in my heart as I continue up the stairs.

A Little Embarrassing

Like a Good Dream