Chimera

I leave at 9:00 for the Strand. It’s the first morning in a few days where Strands has not been completely submerged in thick fog so I plan on taking advantage. It’s warm out. It was over 60 degrees when I walked my dog at 7:00 and by the time I leave it is about 68. Nice. There is some thin cloud cover coalescing and beginning to gain dominance over what was a mostly blue sky. There is still plenty of blue sky to be seen but it’s starting to feel not so sunny. It’s still quite pleasant.

I park at the Strand and head down the stairs. The tide is a moderate high and surf looks like it is on the smaller side at least right here. Salt Creek looks like it may have some bigger sets rolling in.

I put my feet in the water and it is cool but the kind of cool that you just know is going to soften once you start moving your body. While I’d prefer more luminosity here, the cloud cover has this wonderful perforated pattern to it and it is soothing to look at.

I head out into the water and through the small surf which is smaller than the surf report claimed it would be. It is supposed to be 4-5 feet but I’m not seeing that.

I start to swim north and into Salt Creek. The water is pleasant but it doesn’t feel quite as warm as it felt yesterday - at least not on average. I am beginning to suspect that Capistrano Beach might be warmer than it is here? It’s so close and seems like it should just be the same but I have noticed this before. It’s like the water there matches some of the warm pockets here as if Capo and south Doheny might just be one large warm pocket. I don’t know. I have absolutely no scientific data to back this up with.

My goggles are perpetually foggy today and I can’t quite make out any detail in front of me except for the few seconds after the multiple times that I wipe out my goggles.

I pass from cool to warm to downright sultry to cold water. It’s like playing an album on random mode and not knowing what water is going to materialize on the next stroke.

Just past the point I see this pattern in the clouds out of the corner of my eye and I have to stop and stare at it and take a picture of course. Everything is calm around me. I can see the surfers not too far ahead and the mood seems very different where they are. I can hear hoots and hollers and see white water exploding and rolling.

I keep going and I begin to sense more sunlight coming through the clouds and feel my heart open in response. Oh yes. Please. Sun. Please oh please sun. I need you.

I’m in this funk of self-loathing here today and feel like I am chasing after anything that will tell me something other than what my mind seems to be broadcasting. I know these feelings are saturated in lies and false beliefs. I know there is a voice that speaks truth and I am struggling to hear it. There are whispers here in the water. Whispers of unconditional love. I chase after them. They are so muffled. How do I know that I can trust them? Maye they are lies too? What is real? I’m struggling to find that out.

All I can know is that this water surrounds my body and it moves over my skin and it fills me with a cool rush and then a warm delight. I know that the sky is filled with beautiful clouds that gather and disperse. They form beautiful patterns that remind me of the shapes of the stray pieces of seaweed that gather here on the water. Then the vapors soften and allow some sunlight and that sun somehow gives me comfort and shifts the hue of my inner perspective.

I am getting close to the Monarch Beach Club and I’m in front of the sand traps of the local golf course here. I want to swim just a little farther. I eventually stop and stare at the end of Monarch Bay and look at the few prominent trees that are always at the top of the ridgeline there and I find so elegantly beautiful.

I start to swim back and I drift toward shore and suddenly find myself just on the edge of the surf and well inshore of the bigger surf break that lies not too far in front of me. It is a cool perspective. I do need to start to swim a little further out so I can make my way around the point and not get pummeled by the surf.

I do this and am soon where I want to be and there is that lifeguard tower just ahead of me with the Ritz standing high above it.

It does feel like the water is warmer now than when I started. Or is this just another of the many illusions that seem to be floating on the water today. I swim through shoulds and oughts and then shouldn’t haves and ought to haves. All the while there is a whisper speaking a kinder narrative and I try to swim towards it but keep losing it.

There are beliefs and then there are Beliefs with a capital ‘B’. I know that now I am surrounded by beliefs. They are an illusory chimera but man they sure look real right now. My Belief is resting on the ocean floor. It’s solid and unmovable and holds a truth that seems to be at odds with all of these other beliefs bobbing about on the surface. There is a red tide obscuring my larger Belief and I can’t hear its words or see its vision but I know it’s there and I know it is true and i know what it feels like. And I know what it doesn’t feel like.

Well here I am in front of the same house that I started from. I swim towards shore and suck in all the sunlight that seems to be stronger now than when I was last here. I stand myself up and the air feels good. I just put my mind to rest on the rays of this sun and let it penetrate me with all the goodness I can find.