The Big One

It’s another couple degrees cooler outside today, but it is still as beautiful as ever. Clear skies in all directions. My son’s dog who I am sitting for the week gets me up at 6 am, which is pretty comfortably late for me. After walking her and letting her do her “business,” I go back to bed for another hour. Ahhh Saturday and my four year old (almost 5) is away so I have no immediate plans.

I head to the beach a little before 10:00. I briefly entertained the idea of not swimming but in the end I could not think of any compelling reason why I wouldn’t swim on such a beautiful and lazy day. It’s only 60 degrees out, but the sun still feels warm on my skin.

I walk down the stairs and a crew from the Orange County Fire Department are running up and down the stairs and using the pullup bars. Must be a good gig to be a fire fighter in Dana Point. It’s also a good gig to be a software engineer in Dana Point. I think just being in Dana Point - period - is a good gig.

I’m holding my regularly scheduled internal banter about the water temperature. Today I am just listening to it as an outside spectator. It’s almost comical how every swim gets me all psyched and stressed to get in the water and then how every swim ends up being amazingly wonderful in the water. Today is no different. The big difference today is more surf. It’s not big but it is straight up surf. If you wanted to, you could get in the water and actually surf something. In fact there are people doing just that when I get here.

A pair of sand pipers fly in front of me as I turn to enter the water. I get in to my thighs and then wait things out while a few waves come in and break a good ways in front of me. Once that all calms down, I head out and soon begin to swim north. The water is good and after a minute it is better and the entire swim is quite comfortable. I’m going to call it at 64. I think my set point has come down in the last few weeks where that number is fairly cozy…fairly.

I don’t get far when another swimmer approaches and I wait for a good moment to take a picture. I always hope I don’t offend the other swimmers or surfers who end up in my pictures or creep them out. Anyone who has seen these photos know they are not “portrait” photos. My camera isn’t fancy enough. They pretty much preserve the subject’s anonymity. The swimmer seems oblivious to me and I start to swim and then see he has stopped. I say Hi and we briefly introduce ourselves and comment on the wonderful conditions. They are indeed wonderful.

I continue north. The water is not as clear as it was yesterday but the visibility is still pretty decent. I look ahead and I can see the waves breaking in front of the Ritz at Salt Creek. I’m getting pretty close and by the time I am there I think I am at the edge of the crowd but see a lone surfer just a few feet out farther than I am. I want to ask him if he is waiting for “the big one” but I’m afraid that will come out like a bad dad joke and I just ask him how he is doing and he responds very aloofly. I can see the ocean floor here. It’s really not very deep at all and it looks like the ground is covered in fog as the waves stir the sand.

Over the entire swim I am trying to relax my mind. Earlier this morning I was getting my briefs all tied up in a bunch over something I was ruminating about (a favorite pastime) and I got this sort of intuition that I just need to relax. Just relax. Don’t think of anything in particular or meditate on any profound truth. Just relax. I have everything I need. There are these things that I imagine I want. I get frustrated when I do not have them. I seem to be doing well enough without them. I wonder what good things in my immediate vicinity slip by without my notice because I am so fixated on the things that are only in my mind. Maybe if I can just relax and focus on the breath entering and leaving my body, these good things might catch my eye.

I think of all the good things that have come into my life without me ever searching for them or having the remotest thought that I might like them. These swims are one of those things. I would have never imagined 6 years ago that I would be into this. The thought would have never crossed my mind. Another thing is the pictures. I have never taken an interest in photography in all my five decades of existence. After swimming here for a couple years, it just seemed like the only way I could possibly get across what this experience is like. I do my best to describe it in words but they fall so short compared to the pictures I think.

Even living here in Dana Point was not on my radar. When my wife at the time wanted to move away from Washington I was so disappointed. I loved it there and I still think it is a wonderful and beautiful place. We were planning on moving back into a house we still owned in Chino and it was a nice house but it just seemed like such a step down from where we were at near Seattle. I loved the trees and gray skies. I did like Dana Point but I never thought I could possibly afford to live here. Then we discovered Capo Beach and some homes under a million dollars (in 2018) and played with the idea of selling both our Washington and Chino houses to buy one house built in 1977. The decision to follow through with that has changed my life and my relationship with the sun and surf. When I moved back here I just decided to go all in with the SoCal lifestyle. I can’t make it cloudier and colder so I might as well embrace the weather we have and it ends up that wasn’t difficult to do. At All.

I was so fixated on this vision of living in the trees and clouds. I was hell bent on that being the definition of my life. When I relaxed and opened myself to embrace what was actually around me it let me feel and appreciate the energy of the sun and surf. These things have changed the course of my life and profoundly impacted how I experience my environment for the better.

Also I have found that when we relax and open to what is around us and flow with where the energy of life is taking us, doors open. When I am fixated on ideas that I think SHOULD be my future but don’t jive with what is happening in my life, it can feel like I am trying to force open a lock that just won’t budge. Although our move to Dana Point was fraught with some “real estate challenges” around the sales of our homes. In the end, I felt like we were literally carried by some benevolent force across a raging river and gently set down where we ended up. There was a lot of work involved but everything just felt right (and also really really scary).

Sometimes I wonder what if I could just commit to going a month without trying to force an outcome in life. What if I could take a month and just be happy with where I am at and only move forward (or left or right) when I felt a compulsion to do so from a place of peace. Perhaps I should try that. Worst case is I stall my life for a month.

I swim to the Monarch Bay Beach Club and the water gets more clear the further north I go - maybe because I am farther from the surf. I am swimming through a kelp forest and it is delightful. I pause near the club and see a bunch of people on its steps that lead to the sand. It looks like a good place to be. I still really want to eat there some day. I turn around and head back. Trying to relax. Trying to just be my breath. Trying and failing then trying again.

I’m getting close to the surf again and I pause to take a picture in the direction of the surfers. Just as the picture is taken, a flock of pelicans swooshes just a few feet inshore of me. I can actually hear their wings. I am simultaneously filled with wonder and regret for not taking that photo two seconds later. There will be lots more opportunities I assure myself.

I keep swimming south all the way to where I started and then I keep swimming further until I am right in front of the ramp that leads to the road that leads to the stairs that leads to the parking lot. I swim to shore and keep swimming until I am literally just lying horizontally on the sand when the water recedes and I nearly topple forward trying to get up. I can do this! Really I can.