Unsettled

Well we had some rain over the weekend. Not much, but enough to make it a good idea to stay out of the water a couple days to let the water clean itself up. We are still under the rain advisory for another day to avoid the water. It’s a standard 72 hour wait, but I can wait no longer. I’m out the door at about 9:15.

It’s a beautiful day. The water looks nice and calm earlier in the morning but the breeze has picked up and the onshore flow is already starting to show itself by the time I leave. I get to the parking lot and head for the stairs. The sun feels great on my skin and then I feel that breeze and things seem to cool down considerably. It’s ok. It’s not at all what I would call “blustery” - whatever that is. I’m really wondering what things are going to be like in the water today. After I woke up, I scanned the buoys and the Capistrano buoy reads 58. 58! If numbers had upper caps, I would use them. Should I trust this? The other nearby buoys (Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, Seal Beach) are down but not THAT down (63 - 65). Perhaps the Capistrano buoy is in the middle of a cold patch. The question is: how large is the patch?

Well it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. I tell myself that I could use some good old fashioned coldwater swimming. We have probably had fewer days under 60 degree water temperature than the fingers on my hand (I have a full set). I don’t want to grow too soft. A good brisk swim will do me some good. I have a full committee in my head weighing in on this and the vote is not at all unanimous.

It’s not long after high tide but it’s a moderate high tide and there is still plenty of beach. There are not plenty of waves though - really not much is breaking here, but by the time I get to the water, the breeze is chewing up what waves are here. After putting my feet in the water, the temperature does not feel alarming but it is colder than I remember on Friday.

I make my way out and eventually convince myself to dive in and start swimming. It does indeed feel colder. After about 30 seconds, I feel this wave of lethargy wash over me. It’s a common response to colder water. I am very familiar with this and I know that I just need to wait it out for a couple minutes before my energy returns. In the meantime, it takes all I have to kick my feet. I feel the cold in my neck and chest. After a while, I find internal stasis and, truth be told, I’m realizing that it is really not that cold. It’s not 65 but it’s also not 58. I’m going to give it a 62, but there are some spots that are definitely warmer too.

I am swimming south and just taking in the joy of the sun and the water and the beach and the solitude of being out here as a spec in this vast and seemingly infinite ocean. Everything else feels so far away. I don’t carry a phone out here and I like it that way. I know I could bring a swim buoy with me and put my phone in a waterproof plastic thingy but no thanks. Like everybody else it seems, I am addicted to my phone. I love it and I hate it. It gives me easy access to so many wonderful and terrible things. I have the entire bible, Shunryu Suzuki’s, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, tons of YouTube videos and podcast recordings covering topics of spirituality and personal development. I can bring up web cams that show me live video footage of just about any beach I care to see. This is all good stuff. It has actually been truly helpful.

Then there is Facebook and Instagram - a more complicated story. They are largely great. I interact with lots of people. I have accrued a few thousands Instagram followers and I enjoy getting feedback on my photos. I meet lots of people on Facebook and just in the last year, I have met up with a few in real life. That is terrific especially for me, an introvert verging on hermit. But there is that dopamine hit everyone is talking about. The constant influx of likes and comments that I look for. I try to tell myself not to check so frequently but apparently I need to keep nagging. It’s just so easy to reach for the phone and check the likes. And then there is the negative energy from certain individuals and the news outlets. Good riddance to those.

Anyways I am certainly glad not to have it for now. As for positive energy, I have an endless supply right here - no phone needed - and I have at least 90 minutes where I can’t check on the news, likes and comments. It’s just me and the water and birds and fish. All my fears of freezing to death this morning have melted away by now. See? They melted away. How cold could it possibly be here? I make it to the south end of the beach and everything is beautiful and there is a flock of birds, pelicans I think, way up high near the condos at the top of the headlands. They are all circling about and I wonder why but I try not to wonder too much. I just take in the views and let myself feel the fresh air and goodness shining down from the sun.

I head back north and by now the wind has picked up a notch and I am swimming against the current. It seems like it takes forever to reach the north end of the beach. The entire swim takes me 90 minutes today - 50% longer than average. Delightfully, there are some lovely warm patches on the way. I drift further and further offshore. About half way up the beach I am stung by some unknown entity on my right ear. So weird. This has been happening more consistently the last couple weeks. I stop and scan the water just under the surface and see nothing. I resume swimming and try to set myself on a trajectory that veers more inshore.

I try to simply welcome every piece of stimulus that enters my experience. I don’t want to reach for things that are not here or reject the things that are. We are constantly in the act of curating our thoughts. We want to weave a story and we nurture those thoughts that resonate with the story and reject, ignore or simply can’t see the thoughts that run counter to our own self constructed narrative. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. It’s such a dance and an art to live in both surrender and control of our thoughts. We must surrender to and learn to control our thoughts. This seems self contradictory but I feel like it’s true. Perhaps the skill we are exercising here is learning what to surrender and what to control. I’m not sure I’m finding the right words exactly. What is most challenging is the ability to actually see our thoughts unclothed of our own back stories. To be able to see our thoughts naked and plainly is a gift - perhaps unsettling but sometimes what we need most is to become unsettled.