No Condemnation Here

Once it’s light out and I can see out my window, things look pretty darn foggy - much foggier than yesterday. However, I bring up the beach webcams on my phone, and all is clear. I mean, it’s cloudy but I have a clear view of the water and Monarch point on the Salt Creek cam.

This continues through the morning. The mist slightly clears at my apartment and the beach looks dreary but clear. Also of note, according to the buoy data, the temperature is down another degree in the water. Oh I miss those 66 degree days we had this time last week. It’s reading 63 now. Oh well, by March standards, 63 is nothing to complain about.

I’m off to the beach a little after 9:30. I’m in a bit of a Monday funk. I feel like there is a teenager in my brain complaining about why life is the way it is and not some make believe wonderland instead and it’s getting frustrated and pissed. I wonder why I am still working at this job that I have absolutely no passion for. I play some piano and momentarily leave the earth into this rapturous state and then I come back and wish I could spend more time at the piano and less at my job and I remind myself that it is the job that bought the piano as well as the food I eat that allows my fingers to play it. Also, regardless of my lack of passion for this job, it’s a pretty great and fantastic job.

I’m hoping things will settle themselves in the water. Actually that is not really true though it sounds like the natural thing to say. I’m not going to the water with any intention to work this all out. As I remember it, I’m just going for my swim because that is what I do. My mind is too caught up in my sorry state (which is really not so sorry at all) of affairs to be thinking about how the water can perhaps add some healthy perspective to my present outlook.

So I get myself to the parking lot and get out of my car. Everything looks pretty black and white here. Everything is gray. There is a bit of a breeze coming from the south but the air is pretty comfortable on my bare skin. I see others walking in parkas and I wonder if they feel too warm. Maybe they looked outside, saw the clouds and just assumed a parka would be required. I’m not judging them, I’m just curious. Ok maybe I am judging them just a tiny bit. I’m not condemning them though - I can say that with certainty. No condemnation here, just a teensy bit of judgement.

I get to the beach and I see a couple pelicans flying close inshore over the water. This happens so often when I get to the shore. I love seeing them. I walk into the water. There really are no waves to write home about. Then again who am I going to write to? My dog? The water is cool and I can’t believe I am actually doing this and also it’s really not that bad.

It doesn’t take long to walk past the surf and I soon start to swim south. Oof. I swim through this transition period of going from dry and warm to wet and cold. I know the cold will pass. The wet will remain through the entirety of the swim. That’s ok. I come here to get wet. I like wet.

As the cold eases, I have the epiphany that was perhaps inevitable but I did not expect - not today. It comes through the voice of the cold water. It reminds me to relax my breath and body and the cold will lose it’s bite. As I hear this I realize it is telling me much more. I have the realization that if I relax my mind that is complaining and thrashing about wanting things to be different, I will be able to more easily and comfortably move through this period of my life. If I simply engage with each moment as it arises, I will eventually find myself in a different place. Kind of like if I keep moving my arms and legs, I will eventually get to the other side of this swim.

The place I get to will be a place that reflects the actions I choose for myself between here and there. I’m not so worried about the actions I choose. I mean I do worry but in the end I feel pretty good about the fact that I am guided by powers I cannot see to the actions that are best for me in each moment with the occasional mistake here and there and the rare blunders I am sure to make, but all in all I inch my way forward. The cold water tells me to focus more on making the choice and less on the outcome I hope that choice will bring.

I ponder this throughout the swim. The swim is dreary and gray and uneventful but definitely not absent of miracles. There are absolutely miracles even in dreary times.