All Of These Wonderful Things
Another beautiful day in Dana Point. Just how much longer can this possibly last? Forever? Probably not, but I will take all of the sunny days I can get. The high today is 70 degrees, and there is nothing not to like about that.
I leave for the beach just a little bit before 10:00. Oh that sky and that water out there. These things are life giving. Seriously. Not gonna be a whole lot of life without water and sky. I can feel the life flowing from the sky and the water and it’s on a collision course for my heart. I look at all the Dana Point homes here on the edge of the Lantern District and I just feel so fortunate and grateful to call this home.
I park across from a truck that I regularly see here. It’s owner lies in the truck bed like a sea lion anesthetized by the sun. All the parking stalls close to the bathrooms are taken and I park just a little further from the stairs than usual. Not a problem. This just means I can enjoy a longer walk to and from the beach. The sun feels great as I walk down the stairs and I wonder if, instead of swimming, I should just be lying in the bed of my truck.
I get to the beach and the shore just in front of the water is scattered with seagulls and sand pipers. I love those sand pipers. They are so darn cute. There is still no surf. The morning surf report mentioned both a NW and SSW swell “nudging up” but I think that means nudging up from 12 to 18 inches by the looks of things here. Just like earlier in the week, there is a bed of thick seaweed hanging out in the first several feet of water. I have to lift my feet over the water with every step because it is so thick. Finally I make it past this vegetation and it is just a lovely sandy bottom.
I soon start to swim. I see fish, or are they just shadows, on the ocean floor as I make my way past the shallow water. Normally I would say as I make my way past the surf but there just really is no surf of consequence here. The water is cool. I feel the coolness mostly in my forearms and I know that soon the intensity will mellow and the cold won’t be quite so “in your face” but just a natural part of the background here.
I don’t quite know what to do with my thoughts today. They are dark and churning like a brewing storm encased in the confines of my skull as I swim through this exquisite sunny and bright day. This is not a puzzle that I can just figure out and solve. I need silence. I just need to look at the water and the line of the horizon and the sun just above me and the ocean floor and kelp below me. These things hold the answers to my riddles. There is occasional music that plays in the background of my mind and that’s good too. I feel like there is a beast inside of me that wants to eat me alive. There is no way I can kill it. The best I can do is to not feed it and hope that it wastes away into dust to be washed away by the water all around me. I choose not to honor it with my attention, which seems to be the source of its power.
So I go all in on what is right in front of me. There are cliffs of rock and dirt and brush. There are buildings and surfers and boats and blue - lots of blue - pretty much blue where ever I look. It’s bright - so bright. The brightness sanitizes the edges of my perception. The water is moving. There is more surf once I pass the point into Salt Creek and I watch the small waves roll beneath me and break not far inshore of me. The blue water turns suddenly white. The bottom below me is mostly sandy and looks like the concrete bottom of a pool. The cold in the water settles my attention in my body. I feel the cold vibrate against my skin and it reminds me that I am here and in relationship with all of these wonderful things before me.
The storm in my head feels far away. It feels not quite real. The intensity of the nature that surrounds me drowns out the tempest and before I know it I have swam all the way to the Monarch Bay Beach club and back to my entry spot here just in front of the Niguel Shores homes. I swim in a line towards the ramp that leads to the stairs and just before I end the swim, I see a pelican sitting close by on the water. This is a small (or maybe not so small) miracle happening right here in front of me.
I decide to head back out to sea to get a little closer to the Pelican and trying not to disturb it. I sit here wading and staring at it and then I see another pelican flying in the sky just above. THEN that pelican dives and hits the water probably only three feet away from me. It’s amazing. It all happens so fast and it is so mesmerizing that I did not get a picture, but oh man it was so cool. The pelican resurfaces and hangs out with the other pelican. I notice how their colors differ. One is more brown and the one that just dove in has a neck that is more white and a more colorful beak. I have no idea if this indicates gender, but they are both beautiful and large and majestic and they make me forget everything else that is in the whole wide world and for that I am grateful.
