Why Am I Alone?

It’s a beautiful morning in Dana Point this morning. It’s Sunday and I pretty much have the day free. It’s a beautiful thing. I just realized I began the first three sentences of this post with it’s. Does that mean anything or reek of terrible writing? Probably not but I thought it deserved mention.

I slept in until almost 7:00. 7:00!! Then I lied in bed creating a video of last night’s piano playing and some recent swimming pictures. I try to play the piano every day. I want to get better and I figure the best way to do that is to just keep playing. Sometimes I feel like the music in my head wants to go in a certain direction and my hands just can’t seem to make that happen. I have this feeling in my solar plexus that wants to emerge, but what comes out is some jumbled mess. Then other times my fingers come through. Then there are these magical times when I make some seeming mistake and the mistake is amazing and takes on a completely new life of its own.

Anyways, I figure the more often I can sit down and play, the more often the music in my heart and the mechanics of my hands and fingers will align. I also think part of it is simply building muscle. There are times when I’ll be playing for a while and I feel like my hands just can’t keep up and are literally getting sore or lethargic and just stop putting out.

There are days, sometimes several days, where I sit down and don’t feel particularly inspired or it just seems like I am playing the same old thing and can’t come up with something new. Of course it’s ok to play the same thing again and again and again. I sure hope it is because I do it a lot. Then there are other days where some music just seems to download itself directly into my body and I feel like I am possessed. This seems to happen most often if I have not played in a while. I wish I could discover the formula to make those moments happen deliberately.

Music is so enchantingly mysterious to me. It’s one of those things that I just can’t explain how it is I am able to transform the vibration in my heart to the movement of my hands to the sounds from the keyboard. It fills me with such joy and rapture and I don’t really know if it sounds all that good to anyone other than me. It’s a gift that is meant for my own ears and it feels like it comes from some place beyond space and time yet so totally familiar. It’s from a place that feels like home and that I yearn to return to and while the music plays, I am there.

So I pump out this video and then get out of bed and carry out my usual morning routine. It’s a little cooler today but by no means arctic. By the time I leave for the beach at 9:15, it is 58 degrees and the sun is palpable on my face. As I head down Selva Road, I can feel it coming through my driver side window and shining on my skin.

There are clouds all around. They are thin and hazy enough and there are still large patches of blue sky about that it feels like a mostly sunny day. From time to time the light shifts ever so subtly and dims the intensity just enough to make it feel like that sunshine might be about to depart. If you look at the forecast, that is exactly what is supposed to happen. We are expected to get a pretty good pounding of rain tomorrow morning. For now I will take all of the sunshine I can get and what we have feels pretty darn nice.

Catalina is just a shadowy silhouette on the horizon. At first I think I don’t see it at all and then as I focus I see it fade into view. I want to go to there.

I get my favorite parking space and start to head down the stairs. I’m not too preoccupied with water temperature today. I’m ready for whatever is out there. Just as I am about to set foot on the shore, I can see a couple pelicans lounging on the ocean surface and I see a pair of I don’t know what on the water and then disappear. I wonder if they are dolphins, but I never see them emerge. Who knows what they were. I don’t have my glasses on and there are so many possibilities including optical illusion.

The beach looks beautiful. The clouds and blue sky seem to be engaged in some kind of dance together and each amplify the beauty of the other. The water feels about the same on my feet as it has for weeks. The tide is on the high side but making its way down now. The waves are breaking close to shore and the water looks so smooth. While I don’t feel a breeze, I know there is a south wind blowing today slightly offshore and I can see it blowing against the faces of these waves and lift their lips just as they start to crumble forward.

I get into the water and start to swim north today. After a few minutes I am delighted by the temperature. It’s not exactly warm but it feels warmer than my last couple swims. I’m going to say it is in the ballpark of 63 degrees which is pretty amazing for this time of year. Just how much longer can this last? I feel like we are getting a free pass this winter but also know things can always change very quickly and very much. However even if Winter decides to suddenly show up next week, May is not far away.

Everything I see in front of me is amazing. These clouds and water and light seem to be present in just the perfect amounts in relation to one another. I still have that same music I was playing last night here in my head now. I enjoy substituting thought for melody. It doesn’t seem like there is much to think about today and the musical accompaniment is delightful.

Just after I cross the point into Salt Creek, I think I see something in my periphery and there is this bird siting on the water just a few feet in front of me. This feels like some sort of a gift. I can see the detail of white spots and streaks on its dark feathery coat. It’s odd that it is so close. I find that the birds here do not like to be close to humans if they can avoid it. I don’t blame them. I expect it to fly away at any moment. I’m not even sure what kind of a bird it is, which is strange. Eventually it disappears, but not via air. It simply dips its head and then it’s entire body into the water below and it’s gone. I look below the surface through my goggles which is pretty cloudy and I see nothing. I never see it emerge. It must be somewhere. Or is it? Maybe it has escaped to that place from where my music comes from.

I keep swimming and just can’t believe that it is February. I swim past the groups of surfers to an area of water that is sublimely lonely. I reach the kelp forests near the Monarch Bay Beach Club. I stare directly below into a big stalk or vegetation. I see a blurry image about 8 feet below me of fish. I decide to dive down for a closer look and behold many many fish. A couple bass and a bunch of others that I can’t quite identify.

The clouds here seem to have gained sentience. There is still the splattering of haze across the horizon but now there are these individual vaporous entities that look almost solid in the distance. I love this. I love being here. Why am I alone? How is it that there are so few who partake in this activity? I enjoy the solitude but I whish for others to enjoy what it is that I am seeing. I am convinced that the more people who can leave the land for this place where I wade right now, the more happiness there would be on this earth. I’m not a fan of our president Trump but I would be more than happy to take him out here for a swim. I think it would be a net win for everyone. Seriously though, there should be more people out here. I often wonder what could I do to change that?

I turn around and the swim back feels a little less bright but the sky feels a little more alive with these evolved clouds. What are their names I wonder. Surely they have names.