Hijacked

I left my apartment a little before 7:00 to head to the beach. The buoys are reporting 70 degree water temperature. Mmmmmm. How nice is that? Skies are cloudy because it’s July. Welcome to summer in coastal Southern California.

By the time I set foot on the beach, things look super inviting here. Sure it’s cloudy and it almost looks like I am in a black and white movie, but it’s a good movie. The water’s surface looks super smooth and the waves have come down yet another notch from yesterday.

There is a man fishing right in the spot where I usually head out to swim so I start off a bit south of him. Small waves roll in as I walk out past the surf. They are smooth and clean. I start to swim and glide up and through their faces and then emerge out their back sides. The water feels good. Warmer than yesterday.

I head north towards the Ritz. The water is a rich blue green tone beneath me. Visibility is not clear at all and I stare into what looks like an abyss to nowhere. I raise my head and everything looks muted and grey. All I see is water and sky. Where are the birds? Some days I have these amazing sightings of pelicans and cormorants. Other days, like today, it just seems like everyone decided to stay home.

I have told myself that today I will make up for my skipped meditation time with meditation in the water. Often it seems effortless to spend my swims lost deep inside the darkness of my consciousness. It can be difficult to parse the boundaries of my thoughts from the shadows that lurk below me. Today not so much. In fact, for the last few weeks I have been entangled in thoughts of a particular subject matter.

It’s not at all my intention to make this blog all about my love life but right now, that part of my life is constantly front and center in my mind and I can’t just make stuff up or manufacture thoughts that I never had. How is it that a woman has completely hijacked my internal dialog. My life has been filled with all kinds of concerns, desires, worries, ambitions, and joys over the past several years that I have been writing these posts. Different events and obsessions come and go. Maybe one will hold my attention for several swims but eventually I move on to the next topic of concern.

This romance seems to have quite the staying power. It colors nearly every thought and you know what? I like it! I’m not complaining. These thoughts fill my heart with a warm expansiveness. Everything around me feels just a little, or maybe a lot, brighter. My objects of sadness and frustration don’t seem to have quite the sting they normally have. These thoughts embellish my perspective with a sweetness that others might find a little too sweet or down right annoying. I get it. But the sweetness is just perfect for my taste buds as if it was specifically designed just for me.

So for now I will simply make my bed in these thoughts and pull this blanket over my head and warm my feet beneath the covers and I will allow my present moments the luxury and decadence of partaking in some very delicious thoughts of future and past.