As If For the First Time
What a wonderful Sunday morning. When I got to bed last night around 10:00 I just knew that my usual 4:30 wake up time was not going to work out for me today. I disable my alarm and figure I’d skip church and swim later in the morning. I’m feeling very good about these decisions right now.
I slept in until about 7:30 which was much needed and very luxurious. It’s nice sometimes to wake up to the sun. That said, I do love getting up before dawn and getting shit done. But sometimes, shit’s just gotta wait.
It is a beautiful day out. I look out my bedroom window and can see blue sky everywhere. The sky is still orange to the east and is blue over the small little patch of water exposed to my bedroom and living room windows. This apartment is about $500.00 a month more expensive than most of the other apartments I looked at with similar amenities. I wasn’t even going to look at this one and couldn’t imagine why I would choose to pay the higher rent. Well, I stepped inside on a sunny afternoon and looked out the window and suddenly I couldn’t understand why I would NOT pay it. You just can’t put a price on certain feelings that enter your body. Sure there are your opiates and alcohol and sex that can all be purchased for a certain price but you end up paying for all of those things with more than just the money you parted with. They suck the life out of you. This sun and water that I see looking out my window, however, gives life that provides dividends off the rent I pay for it.
By the time I walk my dog, the warmth of the sun is already palpable and finally I am out the door at 10:00. My only concern is the tide that is just now cresting at about 6.6. However my concern is pretty minimal considering the size of the surf which is super small.
I get to the parking lot and everything looks pristine. This is a theme that continues all the way to the water. Actually it doesn’t stop there, but you get what I mean. When I get to the bottom of the stairs where it turns into an asphalt road and you can start to see the shore, I can see that there is still plenty of beach regardless of the high tide. You just never know. It all depends on the sand level really and the size of the surf plays a role too. There are times of the year, albeit brief, where you lose the beach once the tide rises over 5 feet. Well not today thankfully.
As I approach the water I can see there is lots of seaweed gathered in the shallows just short of the shore. I walk in and am mesmerized by the small waves of extremely clear water that exposes this mass of vegetation below. It makes the water look so dark and as I stand here staring, I notice the kelp rushing out to sea as a wave builds and my legs are standing right in the thick of this and it feels like it wants to pull my legs out from under me. It makes me laugh with the novelty of this sensation. I just love how I can come here nearly every other day for years and years and still encounter things as if for the first time.
I start to swim south. The water is cool in the lower 60’s. I give my body over to it as a sort of sacrifice to pay homage to what the water has to give me. I exhale and feel my insides metamorphize into something new and wonderful. I let the chemistry of this experience do its thing and very soon those feelings I had that were intimidated by the impending cold are transmuted into joy. The water on my skin and these patterns of light and land hitting my retinas explode in torrents of joy.
Something catches my attention not far into the swim. I think it was a bird. I stop and look around and then hear and see something out of the corner of my eye. Something dark and leathery rises from the water. It’s a seal or sea lion (I can never tell the difference) about 40 feet away. I wait to see if it will come close, It does resurface about 20 feet closer and it looks pretty large and then I never see it again. I continue south.
I’m beginning to think that today might be another good day for swimming out to the edge of the point below the headlands. The surf is so incredibly small and the tide is high. The water is cool but not hypothermic. I’d like the water visibility to be better but it’s not terrible. So once I reach the end of the beach I head west to just past the edge of Dana Point. Oh my God it is so beautiful. Everything here looks crisp and bright and lovely and as that cobble beach that borders the western edge of the headland comes into view, I feel like I am looking at a picture and then proceed to take several pictures of this picture.
I don’t go any further. There are waves breaking not too much further south of me and I don’t have the ambition to swim around them. I head back towards the beach and then veer north towards Salt Creek. Like Friday, I have music again playing in my mind. I like this very much. It’s something I was improvising with at my keyboard just before leaving to come here. I try not to control the direction of the melody and just let it play through my head. I really don’t have much in the way of thoughts outside of the music which is very refreshing. I begin to hear lyrics. The frustrating thing, and this happens often, is that I can barely make out the words. There are a few that I can decipher but it’s largely mumbled voices. I try not to try too hard to capture the words. I figure if I am meant to hear them I would hear them and maybe someday they will become more clear.
Before I know it I am just in front of the bathrooms at the north end of the beach and I turn around to finish my swim. It’s beautiful and amazing and I emerge just in front of the concrete ramp before making my way back up the stairs. Just as I reach my car, I hear Sam who is parked just on the other side of the grassy divider say hello. He was swimming as well and we never saw each other. We talk for a good long while. I feel so lucky to have met him and others randomly on this beach. I am quite the introvert and it amazes me how this happens. How is it someone like me can find human interaction with others where in other contexts I might go out of my way to avoid such interactions? I think of my bedroom window again and the apartment that I would have never paid the extra money for had it not been for the feeling I feel when I look out that window and I think of the feelings I feel when I talk to others about this water and things start to make sense.
