Just a Little While Longer
My first meeting is not until 9:00 this morning so I have enough daylight to get in a swim before starting work, which is a nice change. I leave my house just a little after 6:30. It’s another cloudy day but every now and then if I squint my eyes at just the right angle, I think I might see some blue tint through the cloud cover. It’s probably an illusion but I’m not giving up hope.
The tide is low on the beach. The water looks beautiful. It is this shade of blue that I can’t quite put into words. It’s something to do with the low light but it looks so clean and pure and sort of heavenly according to my inner vision of heaven. The air is filled with the sound of the birds and waves and nothing else. My favorite sounds.
I step into the water and start swimming quickly after that. I’d say it is about as warm as yesterday - maybe half a degree warmer - it’s nice. Surfline says that we may be approaching “spring suit” (a low cut wetsuit) temps soon. Well I’m wearing my all seasons suit (trunks) right now and I feel like it’s just right.
As I swim south, the water below the surface looks just as pure as it did from above. It is this beautiful rich teal color. It looks like you could reach your hand out and it would actually get wet. Oh wait…it does actually get wet! Wow.
As I continue to swim south I stick my head up every now and then to check on my heading and I see the point at the end of the beach and it looks so beautiful in this light, or lack of light, that I have to briefly stop and stare. Then I keep swimming. There is a sort of cold patch just before my turn around point but then I re-enter the warmer water which feels super good.
As I am swimming back up north I notice the general luminosity grow darker and then I spy a glow which might be faint blue sky coming from the horizon. It’s beautiful. I stop to catch a picture of this moment. I’m also filled with this premonition, something that has been popping up in my field of awareness the last few days, that things are going to get better for me in certain key areas of my life. This resonates with the glowing horizon. I can feel that glow on the inside and out. Who knows? Maybe I am the only one who can see this right now.
As I continue to swim I see something off to the side and I stop to look. It is another swimmer. I think they are completely oblivious to my presence even though we are just 20 feet apart and are the only two people in this 500 feet radius. He is swimming south and I watch him, or her, swim on into the distance.
So it is June 13th and the jr. guard camps here at the beach begins on the 16th and I still see none of the named buoys that usually accompany them. What is going on here? Please tell me they will be putting out the buoys. That is one of the highlights of my summer. Perhaps that is an indicator of just how exciting my life is. I do see the unblemeshed buoy put out by the lifeguards a couple weeks ago out here and I swim right by it on my way back south before finishing up. I take a picture of its underside and it literally glows red like a light bulb in the surrounding blue water.
During my final swim back to shore, I am re-entering the fairly small surf and a wave catches me and pulls me down to the floor unexpectedly. I thought it would just move past me but I misjudged where it was breaking. I briefly try to fight my way out of the suck and then surrender as I realize there is no escape and just let myself roll with it’s movement. I touch my hand to the sandy ocean floor and then let my cramping feet push me back up to the surface.
For several hours after the swim, my nose leaks salt water that it ingested from this ordeal. I like this. It sounds gross, and it kind of is, but it’s like part of the ocean decided to come home with me and hang out with me for just a little while longer.
