A Wandering River

I left at 9:45 today. Skies are completely overcast and it doesn’t look like that will be changing soon. As I drive down Golden Lantern and look out on to the water beyond the harbor, I can see light shining on the surface way way out in the distance. So it looks like the cloud bank must stop about a mile offshore. I actually have no idea exactly how far out it is but it is much further than I will be swimming. Always good to know there is sunshine somewhere.

When I get to the parking lot, the ocean surface looks very smooth. I stare out onto the water as I walk down the stairs and watch my mind create stories about the water temperature. These stories have no happy ending but I know they are highly fictional. Every day this week, the surf report says that water temps have dropped. I didn’t swim yesterday and I don’t know if that info means that they drop every day or if Surfline just keeps that line in there to alert folks that things are generally cooler this week than last.

I figure whatever the temperature is, I need to start adapting as soon as possible. It’s all a matter of adjusting one’s “set point.” As the temps change over the year, my set point moves along with it. What was warm and cozy in April is absolutely not warm and cozy right now. Well, last I checked April will show up eventually so lets get that set point headed to the left. Then again, you just never know. Things could warm up again in October. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve stopped trying to predict what the water temperature will be in the future. It’s kind of like predicting the rapture if you are into that kind of thing. You are always going to be wrong.

I get to the beach and the surf is still basically flat. Surf report said it is nudging up but you have me fooled. The water temp feels the same on my feet as they have the last week but my feet are not a good judge. My belly button on the other hand is pretty adept. One thing here certainly hasn’t changed: everything is beautiful. It is incredibly peaceful. There are some playful terns flying over the water just parallel to where I am walking now. There is also this hypnotic expanse of light emanating out from the headlands and extending north a ways. It’s that same light I saw driving down behind the harbor.

I get in the water and my belly button tells me things are a little colder today - not much though. Overall, things are pleasant, and I swim south. By the time I get in front of the little lifeguard station on the wooden boardwalk, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m preoccupied with this common theme in my head here in the water (not to mention what feels like every waking minute for the past couple years). It’s the theme of surrender vs. action. It’s a constant wrestling match. Do I just “let God” (or whatever you call that thing that I feel breathing here in the water and keeps me afloat) guide me or is there some key thing that I need to do that I am not doing now. I fluctuate between these two poles.

I get all stressed out that some thing in my life is not exactly as I would like it to be and start theorizing about what I am doing wrong or what I can and should do differently. Now granted, there might be some circumstances where the path is clear and it may be obvious what changes need to be made. This is not so nice and neat. I want change. I really want change. So I struggle to discover what levers and buttons I might be able to fiddle with to make the proverbial things happen. Eventually I tire. The levers and buttons look like I have just walked into the cockpit of the space shuttle and I have no idea where to begin and grow nervous about moving the wrong knob in the wrong direction. Then what?

Eventually I realize I need to relax and trust and allow and this works to calm my nerves until I grow impatient and frustrated with my present circumstances and I’m back in the cockpit. I do believe there is a dance to be had between surrender and action. It is a “both and” kind of a thing. However it is far more art than science. There is no manual. I kind of think we are all here just to experience this life and become better dancers.

I’m trying to look back on my life and remember the times when I was able to pivot from one place to another. From a place where I felt stuck to a place of flow or a place of agitation to a place of more ease. I honestly can’t pin the blame on the fact that I started to surrender or, the opposite, I hunkered down and worked and thought my way ahead. As I remember these pivot points, it’s like a door suddenly appears in front of me that did not seem to be there before and I walk through it. Sometimes these pivot points are preceded by a crisis. Things implode and there suddenly seems to be only one direction I can sensibly take. I’d really like to avoid another crisis even though I suspect I have not seen the last of them.

I’m thinking of two crisis episodes in particular. In both cases I took a bad path because I went off and did something I thought I was “supposed” to do instead of following the path I really wanted to take in the first place. I think destiny runs like a winding river and we try to find bridges and straight paths that we think will lead us from point A to point B in the most efficient manner to simply find that Point B was not what we thought it would be.

How can I follow the river and work with the energy as it flows from where I am now to where ever it is that it wants to carry me? How can I discern river from wind from fire from storm from warm sun. Well I guess I will start by swimming to the end of this beach and feeling the water on my skin and the sand beneath my feet as I head to the stairs before coming back to do this all over again tomorrow.