Rush Hour

Another humid and mostly cloudy morning here in Dana Point. There is some bluish sky above my apartment but that blue sky is difficult to find at the beach. I arrive at the parking lot during junior lifeguard rush hour traffic. A crowd of preadolescents and some parents are making their way down the stairs towards the shore. I try to find holes in the crowd so I can pass this multitude but realize I am really not walking any faster.

When I get to the beach, the one thing that sticks out is the further fading of the swell. Waves are definitely smaller than yesterday and it seems like we are nearing lake like wave conditions. The water feels just as warm as yesterday which is to say that it is very warm. Like yesterday, there is a small hint of blue out near the horizon. It is smaller than yesterday and if today proceeds at all like conditions did yesterday, that blue will be gone by the time my swim is over.

I walk out into the water and start to swim north. Wow this water sure is comfortable. There is no edge to it at all. I submerge myself and there is absolutely no startle response.

I swim past the point below the Ritz, past the surfers and out towards the Monarch Bay Beach Club. Like Saturday, I skipped my morning sitting meditation again. This is very much not like me. I maybe skip this a couple times a year…maybe. However, lets just say I have had some recent events keep me up later than usual at night and I don’t really feel bad about them. No. I don’t feel bad at all. So I try to leverage my swim time as “makeup” meditation time. I am somehow more successful than I was on Saturday. I pay attention to the water on my skin and the color beneath the surface of the water and the sound of my breath blowing out of my mouth.

The ocean becomes an amniotic fluid that nurtures and protects me like an infant that is not yet born. I swim through time and space in the direction of Laguna. I am an astronaut on an untethered space walk drifting out voluntarily into open sea. Where am I drifting towards? Upon what beach will I make land fall? The minerals and trace organic debris are fortifying my insides. My body expands and my thoughts develop a capacity to hold more water. My consciousness weaves through the kelp and swims with the fish and makes its home on the ocean floor. I watch my memories running on the shore parallel to my location just to their west. They are laughing and singing and enjoying the beach like a welcome summer break. I just watch and enjoy from the comfort of this warm water.

When I reach the north end of my swim in front of the beach club, there is a solitary pelican resting on the water. I try to swim just a little closer and take a few pictures. Something about this dark light that seems to suck the color out of everything around me. I turn around and swim back to where I started without hardly stopping. There are a couple of jr. guard counsellors, or whatever you call them, that I pass sitting on paddleboards just out past the northern bathrooms and they appear to be waiting for something to happen.

I finally near my destination and as I am swimming the final few yards to shore, I can hear the sounds of yelling and cheering as those jr. guard workers are encouraging the kids to keep swimming to wherever they are swimming to.