All of Us

The day started off like most of the other days this week - overcast and dreary, but by the time I am ready to head to the beach a little before 10:00, the sun is starting to pop out, and from what I am seeing on the Salt Creek web cam, there is golden sunlight shining on the sand. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Yes.

My head is sort of buzzing this morning from something quite dumb and silly and kind of embarrassing. I was walking my dog earlier and this thought popped into my head to post this silly reel on Instagram. I’m usually posting these deep and serious captions on my dramatic ocean photos and recently I have started sharing my rather emotional piano music. It’s all a bit on the heavy side. It’s a huge part of who I am but I am also pretty goofy and really try (maybe not so successfully) not to take myself so seriously.

So I post this silly video on Facebook and Instagram and I think it’s absolutely hilarious. I get it in my head that it won’t be long now for the likes and comments to start streaming on in. This is certainly going to go viral - perhaps life changing. Should I quit my job now?

Crickets.

Whew. Good thing I didn’t hit “send” on that resignation letter. I wonder, maybe it’s just not funny - VERY possible. It can be difficult to anticipate what it is people will like. I remember there was this piece of software I created a while back that gained some popularity in certain circles. I worked for weeks on this one feature that I thought was so cool. No one really used it. Then someone else contacted me about this idea they had for another feature of the same software project. It was an easy to implement feature that I wrote in a few hours. It ended up being one of the most popular features of the software.

Anyways, I’m trying to release this silly little video from my mind and move on. Pretty sure I can do that and I think a swim will provide just the kind of reset I need.

As I approach Pacific Coast Highway, I’m just so excited to see how much blue sky is over the water especially on the northern end where I plan to be. This all looks great. I park and get out of the car and feel that direct sunshine on the back of my shoulders and it follows me all the way to the shore. It feels so good. I’m also thinking about the fact that the buoys are reporting 67 degree water temperature and unlike yesterday, it was still 67 when I left my apartment.

There is still a solid cover of cloud to the south but I’m going to be going the other direction. Also, I’m sure that cloud cover will only decrease. The waves look to be about the same size as they were yesterday. I get to my usual entry spot and walk out past the surf and then start swimming. This feels so good. I am loving the sun and blue sky. I can feel both piercing my epidermal layer and entering my core.

I pass the primary surf break in front of the Ritz. It looks like there is a surf competition underway. There are tents on the beach and someone is talking over a loud speaker. I am noticing the waves rolling under me as I swim much more so than the last several days. I’m a good ways out and as I feel myself float down the backside of a wave, I stop to have a look at the magnitude of these things. It’s actually pretty impressive. Ok. Things have definitely come up a notch from yesterday.

I keep swimming and the water feels good. I’m trying to pay attention to my mind and my entire body. I don’t want to miss anything, but I feel like I am missing something. Surely there must be something I am missing. I do absolutely believe that everything I need to to know is right in front of me. God doesn’t keep secrets. Or maybe he does, he probably does, but those secrets are not in the “need to know” category. I think there is a lot hidden from us at a human level that we try really really hard to figure out and seem to think it important that we do and also important that others do too and even more important that others come to the same conclusions that we do. If they don’t, then they would be wrong, and if they are wrong, well then certainly they are NOT going to the good place when they die. Thanks for trying folks. Gotta hand it to you all - you really made a solid effort to figure this all out. Some more so than others, but you just didn’t try hard enough. If you had tried hard enough, you would know what we know because we got it right. I mean just look at us.

Oops. Getting off on a tangent there. Anyways, I feel like there is truth all around me. I believe this truth has the power to set me free. Perhaps the truth is that I am already free. I’m trying to find something that just isn’t here. I don’t seem to understand that what is here is all that I need. If I could truly get that into my head, I could soften and relax and understand that not only all that I need is here but also all that I want as well. It is here for me and it is here for everyone. We are all free.

I am swimming here in the water of the open ocean that spans over thousands and thousands of miles and connects the lands of so many people and cultures. We are all connected by this water. We are all made of mostly water. We think we are different but we are not. We think so many things. Things things things. They are all illusions of our own making and that we use to build cages to contain our limitless selves.

I’m sitting here as I write and remembering the swim and I can see that blue void below me. It changes in levels of brightness. I see blue sky out above the horizon set on top of the darker blue ocean surface. I see surf and sand and white water on my other side. I see the sun above all of us. All of us. The sun and the oceans sustain all of us. I see all of these things in my memory. They blend together and leak their colors on to each other and form just this mass of a vision that is good.