Miracle Enough

I left my apartment at about 10:00. Ahhh Fridays. I still have to work but I can feel the weekend like a rising sun just before it crests the bluffs at the beach. Fridays have a lightness to them that I truly enjoy and appreciate.

The day feels a lot like it did yesterday. There is a healthy mix of blue sky and large expansive clouds. The morning begins with much more clouds than blue sky, but by the time I get to the beach, the blue sky has claimed victory over the heavens. However there are still enough clouds to make things interesting. And by interesting I mean beautiful.

Judging by the surface of the ocean from the parking lot, the wind has picked up since I last looked at the web cams at home. There is a good amount of texture ruffled up from the southern breeze. I get out of my car and am delighted by the heat of the sun. Today it’s only forecasted to get up into the low 70’s. That’s pretty great, but I do miss that heat wave. Heat waves can be nice when you live near the ocean. Man, I can’t believe I live near the ocean. I honestly did not see that as a possibility in my life before actually doing it almost 6 years ago. Now I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Sometimes I feel like God airlifted me to this place. I feel connected to the sand and water and rooted deep into the crust of the earth here in Dana Point. This is my forever home.

Oh yeah…the temperature…even though it is cooler, you just can’t beat direct sunlight on bare skin. At least that’s what my back is telling me as I walk down the stairs. Everything is beautiful here. As I step onto the sand, I can feel the sun in every grain that touches my feet. It is luxuriously soft. There are local beaches here that have varying coarseness of sand. In Capo Beach it is much more pebbly. My middle son and his girl friend often go to the beach there. It is a beautiful beach. One day I brought them both to Salt Creek here and my son’s girl fiend who lives in Santa Ana (not a beach community) was beside herself with the softness of the sand not to mention the beauty of the beach. It’s good to see my son hanging with people who can appreciate the finer things in life!

I get in the water and start swimming north. I can totally feel the current, which is coming from the south, pushing me forward. It’s also coming from the west so the horizon line is all over the place. I love this. I also wonder what the swim back is going to be like when I am against the current and the wind will likely be stronger.

I’m trying to totally let go of my thoughts and my will and all expectations and give them all over to the water. I am overcome today by this sense of deja vu. I feel like there are memories trapped here in the water. The colors and textures all around me elicit echoes of a life once lived. I want to know who it is that I am looking at from way out here in the water. I feel a yearning for reunification. If only I could remember.

Perhaps if I can let go of all of my thoughts the memories will emerge and fill themselves in. If I can surrender the way I want things to be, I can allow what is meant to be to unfold. Then again, I also believe what is meant to be will be regardless of what I surrender. I guess I think surrender will add ease to the journey. And yeah, I could go for more ease.

I pause just past the point between Strands and Salt Creek. The views are stunning. I have looked at these places a thousand times at least but it’s always different. Today the breeze clears the haze from the air and everything looks crisp and clear. The whites in the clouds are highlighted and the color in the bluffs are nearly psychedelic. The water rises and falls, hiding and revealing the cliffs in the distance again and again and again.

I put my goggles back on and plant my face down into the water and see a stray strand of kelp just in front of me. It immediately captivates me. It looks like it is sitting in some kind of suspended animation. It’s in some kind of time bubble. You know, a time bubble…right? Surely you have come across these. It is a space where time is absent but is surrounded by all the one thousand things bound to time. This kelp is also this rich shade of some color I can hardly describe. Is it orange or some shade of red? I don’t know but I like it…a lot.

It feels like I make my way to the Monarch Bay Beach Club in pretty good time. I just hang here and soak in the views. The point at the end of Monarch just on this side of Three Arch Bay is looking close and lovely. Soon it’s time to get back and I hunker down and head south.

It’s immediately obvious that I am now swimming against the current. I’m putting out a great deal more effort than I was on the way here and I’m staring towards the beach club on shore and it just doesn’t seem like it is moving. Am I moving? I know that I am even if it doesn’t seem like it. Regardless of the added effort, I’m still very much enjoying myself. I just figure if I keep moving I’ll eventually get to where it is I am going.

Hey look. It’s the Salt Creek snack bar. My strategy is working. I am indeed making progress. I don’t know how this happens. On every breath I look up and I’m exactly where I was on my last breath. Yet somehow here I am. It just goes to show that life is filled with infinitesimally small miracles. I don’t feel any need to part a sea or to move mountains. When I do die, I can only hope that I do not come back to life - at least not this life. All I want is to get from here to there. That will very much be miracle enough for me.