Shake Me Awake

Today is looking a lot like yesterday. The sky is covered by a morning marine layer which could very well extend into the afternoon. I leave for the beach at about 9:15 and as I approach the Strand parking lot, the sky looks dark. Once I get a glimpse of it, the water looks dark too and a bit more bumpy than yesterday but not too torn up. Despite the lack of sun, it’s good here. It’s a touch cool with the breeze but relatively comfortable. I can hear the sound of the ocean in the background. What’s not to like?

Once I reach the beach, it’s not difficult to notice that a lot of loose seaweed has washed to shore. It’s as if the ocean has finally decided it was time to shed the extra layer of kelp in preparation for summer. I do find these things interesting. The beach is always changing. It seems like there is something special about every visit. Why is it that today, there is all this seaweed on the sand that has not been there for months? What happened on this day (or over night) to bring all of this to shore that has not happened for some time?

I suppose I could look it up and let google or some AI bot tell me all the details but I enjoy letting the question rest in my mind. It nestles itself in some far corner of my brain and emits a steady timed release stream of images filled with sand and water and wave song that lasts throughout the entire day.

I get in the water and it’s good. I start swimming and it gets better. It may be a touch warmer than yesterday. A couple of the local buoys had dropped a degree in the last 24 hours but maybe that’s just because they moved into a colder patch of water than they were in yesterday. The color is so blue and pure and I just love staring at the kelp beneath me.

All I see is blue and grey and water and splashes and rock and sky and distant cliffs and bluffs and a horizon that seems so far away but so close. I try to keep my thoughts focused on all of these things in front of me. I place my attention on the feel of the water moving over my skin and the brush of my hands over the leaves and vines of kelp. I am easily distracted by voices and faces stuck in my memories of yesterday and yearnings for tomorrow. They are fantoms and ghosts that haunt and seduce me.

I want the ocean to tell me who I am. I want the ocean to remind me of what is around me right now. I want the water to shake me awake so I can live the life that I am in. Where am I heading? Where are these currents taking me? It feels like I drift further and further into open water. The shore looks so far far away.

It’s nearing the end of the swim. I know exactly where I need to get to. Here at the north end of the beach, I turn myself around and sure enough, ten minutes later my feet are on the shore.