Here I Am

I wake up at 5:30 and reach for my phone to check the web cams on The Strand and Doheny. Yesterday heavy fog dominated the coastline. Strands was not even visible until 4:00 PM and you could not see Capo Beach from the Doheny river mouth web cam. So I look at strands - just a grey sheet of nothingness. I think I might be able to make out Capo from the river mouth cam but it’s hard to tell and I really feel like I could use more sleep so I set my alarm for 6:30.

I get up feeling more refreshed now. Still no visibility at Strands but I’m pretty sure I can make out Capo and I’m thinking this all might just happen. I take my dog to Pines Park and YES. It’s all good here in Capo Beach as I stare over the bluff onto the water. It is more than good in fact. The water is smooth and fairly calm and there is absolutely no threat of fog even though I can clearly see the edge of the bank wrapping around Dana Point to the north and Cottons to the south. Right here we are in a clear pocket of wonderfulness.

I do have to be somewhere at 10:00 so I skip my morning meditation. I mean I am about to be in the ocean for a good hour or more and I’m pretty sure that will more than suffice for meditation. I’d run to the beach but jacked up my achilles AGAIN and am trying to give it a good rest. I manage to drive to a parking spot right in front of the water in just 5 minutes.

A set of waves rolls in just as I am approaching the water. It is a mid to high tide and the wave peaks up just as it reaches the shore and then there is absolutely no water between the wave and the sand. It is just a shoulder high wall of water that collapses onto the pebbly beach. That’s the thing about Capo. It’s all about exit and entry. I try to wait out these few waves and then I jog through the shin deep shallows and just as another wave is rising I dive through its face and then I am free.

The edge of the surf here is only 5 to 10 feet from shore (today) and I am well past that already. I start swimming north and OH…MY…GOD - this water. All the buoys I typically scan - Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, and San Pedro read 62 degrees, but I swear this feels like 66. It’s nice. If someone were to tell me, “I’m sorry Matt, but we just cant afford to run the heater like we have in previous summers. I’m afraid this is as warm as it is going to get.” I’d be like, “not a problem. I’m good!”

As I continue to swim towards the main Doheny lifeguard station, I am taken by this all encompassing sense of well being. I am so so glad that I did this. Another day on the elliptical machine would be like hell compared to this heaven. Ok, it would be like hell compared to just about anything but ESPECIALLY this. It is so beautiful out. I just can’t wrap my head around what it must look like north of the point - all socked in with heavy fog. That fog feels a universe away right now. It is just so beautiful. The harbor comes into sharper view as I swim further north. That new parking structure is clearly visible. When I look behind to the south, I can see the mountains south of San Clemente shrouded in cloud.

I can’t believe how cloudy the water is here compared to the beaches north of the point. I can barely make out my hands as they pass beneath me and I never see the floor. Well at least the water is blue now and fully recovered from its coffee complexion after the rains we had a couple months ago. I don’t feel like I am swimming through muck. No not at all. I am swimming through pure goodness.

There is something in this water that accompanies me through the whole swim. That’s really not unusual. In fact it would be unusual if it was not the case. But today I am particularly appreciative of this presence. It is 100% benevolent. It has only good things today. It is projected from my heart out through the water and proceeds beyond the horizon. Do you feel it? Where ever you are, person reading this post, I’m certain it is with you too and if you look and feel closely you may feel it bound to your own heart as well.

It’s been a tough week for me emotionally. I am going through a divorce and while I would not call it one of those terrible rough divorces, it can be awful at times especially in regards to our children. There have been times when I though this awfulness might consume me and my family and spread itself out over the entire globe like the fog at Strands. However here I now see and feel otherwise. The stuff that is here in the water and in my heart assures me of the good things that are beyond the horizon and right here right now not just for me but for my kids too. There is always so many possibilities waiting for us beyond the horizon that we could never imagine. Five years ago I would never have guessed that I would be into swimming in the ocean and obsessed with taking pictures and writing about it, but here I am.

We have to find these pockets of sunshine and swim towards the sun. We have to reach our hands towards the clear blue sky and receive the goodness it has for us. I see that horizon. I see that sun. I see that blue sky. I have no idea where I am going. I have no idea how to get to where I think I want and need to be. However right now I can feel a pull in the air that is trying to draw me towards something that I do not know what it is but I DO know that it is good. It is good. I just have to keep swimming and feel that pull and head right into it.