Part of Me

I leave my apartment at about 7:15. There are clouds over the sky but it feels very permeable - almost like some kind of cheap veneer that could melt away in a moment.

As I head down the stairs to the beach, I see a woman and her two dogs coming up. She is wrapped in a towel and I assume she has been swimming and therefore I must say hi. We have a nice little chat about the water temperature and then about the water itself which is much more interesting than the temperature (not that the temperature is not fascinating). It ends up that I know this person from recent interactions on Facebook. I love that and it adds just a little more joy to this already joyous morning.

The beach is beautiful and the tide is low. I can already see some cloud cover dissipating into the larger blue expanse. Come on sky, let’s keep this up. I can see Catalina in the distance and I ponder how that is a place that I very much would not mind being right now. I think now of my very first trip to Catalina where I ran my very first marathon (unexpectedly, unplanned and untrained) with my dad and his friend. It was a trip I will never forget and always cherish like pretty much every other trip I took with my dad.

The water feels maybe just a touch warmer than it did a couple days ago but not near the warmth it was a week ago. Part of me asks the other part of me if I am ready for this. My other part responds that I have no intention of turning around now and could not imagine this day without this swim.

There are no waves of consequence this morning and certainly nothing to aid in the “getting wet” department. So it is entirely up to me to take matters into my own hands and take that initial plunge into the water. I do this and I exhale my entire self as I make my way forward. It’s good. Soon I find stasis and I am well and I am heading south.

The water’s surface is very smooth and it calms me as I raise my head to breath and it calms me now as I remember it. Large branches of kelp become visible practically right in front of my face and they look absolutely beautiful and radiant. I stop to take a picture and what I see in the view finder of my camera just doesn’t seem to live up to what I actually saw. It still looks good though.

I reach the south end and the surface seems more calm than it has in weeks. I can see the rocks way out at the end of the point prominately displayed. The clouds here are still very much present but the light seems particularly vibrant and I don’t know why. I am here at this very spot multiple times a week but this looks special. I think I see a standup paddle boarder off in the western distance. I’m not sure but I take a picture that probably will hardly capture this stick figure I can barely make out.

I turn around to head back up the beach. I think of my dad the entire rest of the swim. His memorial is in a week and I have been thinking a lot in the last couple of days all of a sudden about what I am going to say. My mom and sister have written their words down and shared them and this makes me wonder if I should do the same. I have a fair amount of experience with public speaking and I have always put a lot of effort into the preparation but this time feels different. I wonder if I should write anything down, draft an outline or practice. Should I just open up there and then in the moment and let it flow? Part of me feels like that is what I need to do and the other part of me says to that part, “are you crazy?! Wait…please don’t answer that.”

I think of this beach and what it meant to my dad and the role it played in his life. This beach is more than a place but an active participant in my dad’s life. I think of how my dad has seen a landscape from these waters that I will never see. I think of all that I see now, he has seen. I think of decades from now and what I will see then, my dad will never see. I better pay attention so I can tell him all about it.

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That Thing

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Faith Restored