This is Why People Come Here
It’s a little before 10:00 and I look at the web cams now that all my scheduled meetings are over and it’s like I’m staring at perfection. I have this compulsion to run, not walk, to the beach and get in that water while the getting is good and it does appear to be exceptionally good. In the end, I decide to drive - even better.
There is not a cloud in the sky - just some haze out on the edge of the horizon. It’s warm and forecasted to be over 70 degrees today. What month is this? May? Can’t be. This year’s May is shaping up to be quite a bit better than the last couple years of extreme “May Grey.” We’ve definitely had our share of marine layer but plenty of sunshine too.
I get to the parking lot and the water looks smooth. I say hi to the Jehovah’s Witnesses at the top of the stairs and then proceed to the beach. It is so good here. This feels like one of those perfect Summer days. If only it was actually Summer, it would be.
When I get to my starting point, there is a woman standing in knee to thigh high water and splashing herself. She heads back to shore and has a sort of blissful look on her face. I say hi and comment how wonderful the water is and she says that she is smiling so much that her face is hurting. Yes, this is why people come here.
There is some small surf in the water and I’m having fun taking photos of what I think will be wonderful wave pictures. Nope. They are all awful. There are some local photographers that take the most incredible pictures of waves here. I am not one of them.
What is there to say about this swim? It was exquisite…spectacular. As I look back in my minds eye, I see a wide expanse of sky blue water and a sandy bottom. I see random trees of kelp that rise and spread their leaves out under and over the surface of the water. They descend into a void of cloudy grey and the water grows dark beneath their shade. I love it when I approach two, three or more of these all grouped together and I can swim in between them. Or sometimes the current pushes the stalk forward so that it leans horizontally and leaves a space of 6 to 12 inches between itself and the surface that I swim under. I’ll reach down so that my hands can feel the slippery texture of the leaves and vines.
I did not pause much over the course of the swim but when I did, I could look in all directions around the beach and see the water spreading miles ahead to the next point like a vast arid plain that is anything but arid. It is a moving, beathing, and living plain as waves pass slowly toward shore. One moment I see that point that stands between me and Three Arch Bay and the entire inside curve of Monarch Bay and then it is gone.
These waves mirror the waves inside of my mind. One moment I can see my entire future before me and it is vast and open and giving and the next moment I can’t see a thing and I cower at all the myriad things I wonder that lie just beyond that wake but that don’t actually lie on the other side of the wake because it immediately recedes and there is that plane of infinite possibility once again.
