Magic

Early start today at 6:45. I walk my dogs in the dark and we are just starting to see first light by the time we get back and I head to my car to get to the beach. I’m feeling confident that it is going to be a beautiful morning mostly because it already is. I don’t see any clouds in the sky and there is just the faintest pink lining the edges where the sky meets the earth.

As I approach the water on Selva Road, there is a soft layer of haze lining the edges of the horizon. Everything looks stil and quiet and magical. It’s the kind of magical that precedes the actual magic. You know something incredible is about to take place. It hasn’t quite yet or has it? You just know things are going to explode with a scattered debris of all kinds of unknown and unexpected things. It seems magical now but it’s just a foreshadowing of something much more to come.

I park my car and get out and walk to the stairs. There is definitely some chill in the air. I really want to talk about how this is another one of those mornings where it will be warmer in the ocean but will it be? I’m not sure. It could be or it could not. There is only one way to find out and that is why I am here. Every swim is a fact finding mission. It’s an attempt to answer a question. Please ocean please, remind me what it is like. What is it like? I was here yesterday and I felt something and now I seem to be forgetting. Show me what it was that I felt that time when I was last here.

The sun has not yet risen. It’s probably about 25 minutes in coming. Just above the cliff there is purple light preparing the way for the coming of the sun. I’m thinking of the cold water. I feel like it could kill me. I’m so used to this feeling and I know it is a lie because it never comes true. It seems like getting into that water could lead to death or at best be excruciatingly unpleasant. However I know that it will not. Experience tells me something else. There will be moments of surprise and not exactly pleasant but that will all give way to something entirely different. That magic I just spoke of. Those brief and fleeting moments are the price of entry for something that few will ever experience and I am so fortunate enough to experience this again and again and again.

The sand is cold which makes the water not so terribly cold. I take one last look at the pink hidden in the blues and whites of the horizon. I look at the reflection of the sky in the wet sand laid bare by the receding surf. Soon, my perspective will change. I know that I am just a minute or so away from seeing things differently.

I walk out and the water rises higher and higher and slowly consumes me into its mass. I start to swim south. It looks almost dark here. When my face turns to look below the surface, it is dark. After a while of swimming, i stop to take in the view of the cliffs and the light that is about to be transformed into sun. I see these dark figures just about 75 feet south of me. Are those dolphins? How great is this? Oh wait. No those are just surfers in their wetsuits. I steer myself westward to get around the same surf I see them paddling out to.

I swim a little further and stop again. I keep looking to that cliff. The suspense is building. That sun is gonna come and I do not want to miss this. I look toward the horizon and I see a flock of gulls or terns or both hovering over this small boat that is checking on its lobster traps. There is a dog standing on its bow. I love this. The birds are flying all about. This is all happening about 50 feet away and I am tempted to swim towards them but I have places to go.

I soon reach the south end of the beach. It’s odd because it is so dark on the one hand in the shade of the headlands, but it is so bright and colorful out on the horizon just at the edge of the cliffs as they plunge into the water. This is part of that magic. I’m seeing things that seem like they should not be happening but yet they happen every day. I turn to the north and can see the light glowing out onto the houses on the ridge above Monarch. Magic.

I begin swimming towards the Ritz. The light grows more and more luminescent as I proceed. I stop several times and look back to watch the sun rising. I am reminded of the bible story of Lot’s wife who looked back onto the burning of Sodom and Gamorah and was immediately turned into a pilar of salt. Could I suffer the same fate? How could one be expected not to turn around? I have to believe there were many other’s in Lot’s party who were also transformed into salt. Well there is no lack of salt right here. How convenient it would be for the powers that be to perform such a transformation here.

The water has got to be colder today. It’s fine. Every time that I feel the cold I know that is the ocean speaking to me. It’s the energy of the water interacting with the warmth that is inside of my skin. I try to relax into it and to feel all that there is to feel. I see lobster buoy after lobster buoy. Some sneak up on me and I see the rope tether to the lobster trap before the buoy itself.

I’m amazed at the speed that I am moving north. Before I know it I am in front of Niguel Shores. I see the beach to the north like a sliver of golden brown. The sun is now well above the bluff. Just a little further and I’m at my turn around point just shy of the lifeguard tower. Everything here is beautiful. The south half of the beach is covered in a soft misty light that looks like it falls down the bluff above like water in incredibly slow motion. I put my face down to look below the surface of the water. I see my arms. Are those attached? Do they belong to me?

I swim back and finish the swim directly in front of the concrete ramp. A woman sees me on the sand and comments that it must be cold. I tell her it isn’t too bad, but she seems concerned. Oh if only she knew.