Like a Crazy Person
I thought I was going to be able to get out by 9:00 but a meting got pushed back. That’s ok because 9:00 rolls around and it is still as cloudy as can be out. Here comes 10:00. Still cloudy. Oh man. Ok, well, I’m going regardless and I know it will be great. About 10:15 I head out my front door, which faces the east, unlike my west facing windows, and I see blue sky. There is hope!
The ocean is drenched in silver light as a mix of direct sun and vaporous receding clouds fill the sky. Looking north towards Monarch, it’s pretty much as blue as can be and the south is still sorting itself out as the remainder of the morning cloud cover are booking their flights out. I was planning on swimming south today but their is only one option now: north.
I have my talk for my dad’s memorial tomorrow printed out so I can practice in the car where no one can hear my oddly loud voice. I went over it in my garage and then one more time here in the parking lot. I’m filled with feelings. Like yesterday, I feel like I am on the cusp of some kind of transition. This feeling grows every day. I feel like I will burst soon. I don’t know what to make of these feelings and all I can do is just keep moving through my life.
The beach is beautiful. Everything here is wonderful. I can feel the warm sun on my back as I walk down the stairs. I just want to remain still here until the end of time. Wait…no I don’t. That’s actually the last thing I want. I want to move. So I move all the way to the beach and into the water. I walk past the paltry surf and wonder why the lifeguard stations have the yellow flag out. I push forward off the ocean floor and start to swim. The cold takes over gently and I know it will turn to warmth soon and it does. After a few minutes it is quite nice. With the sun overhead, this is all I could ever ask for.
I swim with these feelings rumbling and bumbling and tumbling all throughout my insides. I can’t push them away. I have to stare them in the face. For me, right now, that is being present. I’m lost in memory and dream but these memories and dreams are happening right now. I have to meet them here and examine them not with scrutiny but with curiosity. Where the fuck do these feelings come from and where are they going? Am I some kind of a crazy person? Am I just letting myself get all worked up? Is this some form of emotional hyper ventilating? I don’t know.
I make my way all the way to the Monarch Bay Beach Club. The water and the sun are absolutely heavenly. I feel like heaven is just on the other side of the point and heading in my direction. I feel like I am crazy and caught up in some kind of dream. I look out onto the surface of the ocean both north and west and watch the water rise and move and fall. I watch the end of Monarch, just before Three Arch, hide behind the wakes and then show itself again. I close my eyes and breath with the water and hear the wind and random voices from the shore that sound like summer.
I swim back to where I started. The swim is dreamy in so many ways. I try to imagine what my dad would have seen during his first decade here back in the early 60’s. I always breath to my left so I probably see the exact same thing as I stare to the horizon. On the way back I am sure there are lots of differences and similarities. I’m sure we see much of the same sand and brush and bluff but I see a lot more homes. Whatever the differences and similarities, I like what I see right now. Sure more open space would be wonderful but things change and this place still makes me feel good inside and that is why we are all here and why we come again and again and again.
