Ease

Super early start today. I leave at about 6:15. It’s no longer dark, but its also not quite light. I can tell that the skies are cloudy but its just a vast mass of emptiness. I can’t complain about the temperature though. It feels very comfortable outside.

By the time I am parking my car in the parking lot, there is more light and the surface of the ocean looks smooth. Things look pretty sleepy here. In fact there is someone sleeping on the lawn in front of their car as I am looking for a space. I assume its their car and I sure hope they are sleeping. A handful of surfers look like they are getting ready to head down to the beach.

I don’t see anyone else on the stairs and no one is in the water yet. I only see one walker on the beach once I reach the shore. The water is calm. At first it looks like a lake but then a set of waves shows up. They are not big, but just enough to prove that there is something going on here in the surf department.

I get in the water and it feels nice. After I put my goggles over my eyes, it feels as though it is almost dark. Another set of waves come and break right in front of me. I’m wet now but delighted with the warm water. I mean it is cool to the touch but it’s the kind of cool that I know will turn to warm in the next couple minutes. It won’t take long.

I start swimming and indeed it does not take long at all for the water to grow quite comfortable. I just want to settle into these spaces between the ripples in the water and travel with the current where ever it will take me. Where will it take me? I really don’t know and I never will unless I give myself to the water and let lead.

I really don’t know where my life is headed right now. I have no grand plan or even a not so grand one. It seems like the plans I make lately don’t really take off. So maybe I should take a break from plans for a while. I have some vague notions of where it is I want to go. I am starting to wonder maybe I should focus less on where I want to go and and more on who I want to be when I get there. I think whoever that is is already here.

So I just let myself glide over the water with ease. It is easy here this morning. I place my attention on how very pleasant it is just moving in this water. The water is like some kind of amniotic fluid sustaining and nurturing me. I swim through gently cool patches and then into spots that is like crawling underneath a warm blanket. The water is so smooth and the clouds look almost translucent. It looks like the sun could just pop out and melt this cloud cover away in an instant, but that instant never comes.

I can’t see the sun but it’s presence is here. I can feel it. Maybe it is because I am swimming closer to shore than normal but I don’t swim by any kelp trees today. The water looks almost barren except for the bits and pieces of stray seaweed and strands of seagrass floating on top. That seagrass likes to get tangled around my ears. It eventually frees itself but sometimes i need to help it loose.

The swim seems to go by quickly today. Eventually I find myself right back where I started. There is a group of swimmers about 40 of them gathering near the base of the ramp. This is the third Saturday in a row I have seen them. I spoke with someone from their group last week and he explained that this is a swim club team. They usually swim in a pool but have been practicing here the last few weeks. I suggested they stay. Why would you want to go back to the pool after swimming here? I didn’t actually ask him that but it’s what I was thinking.