Exercise Some Imagination

The surf has been up along with my work load so I have been away from the beach the last couple days but conditions are favorable to swimming today both in smaller (but still decent) surf and less demanding (also still decent) work schedule. I finish my meetings and crucial work tasks and I am out the door a little after 9:00.

I often have a craving to get in the water after going two days without swimming. Any more than that I start worrying that I am forgetting how to swim and I feel like there is this thing inside of me slowly dying like a plant without water. The moment my foot lands in the soft sand, it feels so good. It wraps around my skin as if it is giving me a welcome home hug. It is good to be home. There are waves in the water today and I can see a good group of surfers pretty far out in front of the Ritz. From here they look super far out but I know it’s not necessarily as far as it looks.

I get in the water and the next set of waves starts rolling in. I’m in that precarious spot where it’s too shallow to dive under but I’d also rather not have the wave break right in front of me and also, this water still feels cold. Can’t these waves just wait one more minute? The short answer is no.

I start swimming and head north towards those surfers in front of the Ritz. Skies are almost entirely overcast, but if you look closely and perhaps exercise some imagination, there are hints of blue sky to be seen. I am really really hoping they expand enough where I can use my imagination for other things.

Water visibility is nearly nil and my goggles are fogging up and I can barely see where it is I am going but I can sort of make out where water meets sand by the contrast in colors enough to make my way in the general direction of the Monarch Bay Beach Club. I soon get close to the lifeguard tower at the point and I can see those surfers just up ahead and they sure do seem awfully far out. I change trajectory so that I pass in front of them. A good set comes in just as I do and I watch them try to catch one. I think they are too far outside.

The rest of the swim is nice. I feel a couple jelly fish stings and one feels like it has just a little more bite than they usually do. I imagine those Australian box jelly fish that can kill you or at least provide a burst of excruciating pain. Ok, this is not where I want my imagination to dwell. That seems like it would be pretty terrible probably because it would be.

I like feeling the water temperature fluctuate from cool to warm and back. It’s all fairly comfortable. I enjoy how sometimes my legs can be in the colder patch and feel much cooler than my upper body. This water truly provides a full body experience. I love it so much. It always has something to say and our tactile sense of feeling becomes our ears. I like to look all around at the horizon and the beach and down below and inquire as to what it is I am feeling when my eyes fall upon all of these sites. There is indeed something to be felt. What is the feeling saying? It’s not always easy to tell and sometimes the message lies in the effort we expend to hear.

Somehow I am able to glide over the surface of this water and make it all the way to the beach club and back. How does that happen? I think of how I managed to get to where I am right now through the many lives I have lived in this single incarnation on the earth. How did I make it through high school to a squalid apartment in La Habra to UCSB to San Francisco to the Inland Empire to Seattle and then finally to here? I can tell you this, there were no straight lines or direct routes. There was a lot of meandering. I wonder where I am going now. At this point it’s anyone’s guess. However this I know that I did not know in high school - it’s a good place. Sure there will be suffering and perhaps lots of it, but it will all be taking me to a better place. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to high school with the knowledge I have now. I wish I could have had the sensitivities I have now to the textures and temperatures around me and a better understanding of how to use them to navigate. Perhaps I can carry just a little bit of this with me into my next incarnation.