Monster

Leaving the house at about 10:30 this morning. Skies are mostly sunny and its warm out. Today is shaping up to be another beautiful summer day like yesterday, but I’m super agitated. I would have left sooner but I have a work related problem that I am trying to work through and it is driving me nuts. I get to the point where I know it is not going to get solved nor any significant headway made in less than an hour so I might as well head out for my swim now before I am utterly consumed by this mess.

I have been working on this problem for a week and if you would have asked me as I was beginning my investigation how long it would take, I would have estimated no more than a day. I know I will solve this, but I am entering one of those “troubleshooting troughs” where it seems like it will never get solved because I am just not smart enough. This is when it is time to step away.

So I’m off to the beach.

When I get to the parking lot, it looks like there is a breeze blowing and there is a good bit of bump on the water.

I’m walking down the stairs and getting an early start on breathing out my frustration. I’m determined to set this problem aside and let this ocean landscape wash over and renew me. I’m settling my mind on the water and horizon in front of me and letting that energy begin to circulate through me.

On the sand I feel the water and it is the same luscious warm as it was yesterday. I am looking forward to this swim.

I’m heading South and the water feels great. It feels like I am swimming with the current and I reach the South end in what feels like good time.

The water is still pretty cloudy today. So there is not much to see under water but there is a lot of kelp and stray sea grass floating on the surface.

I turn around to head North and now I am clearly swimming against the grain. Lots of little wakes rolling into my mouth. I’m imagining that this ocean water is some kind of life extending elixir. If that’s the case, I’m quickly heading for immortality.

I’m fading the boundary between myself and the horizon, myself and the water, myself and the sunshine. The shore is an extension of my consciousness. This puzzle I am trying to solve stands on the water. It grows larger than a finite work issue and mutates into a monster that mirrors myself. Or I should say an image of myself as I imagine myself to be in the shadow of this problem. Small, weak, unskilled, uncapable.

I know this is an illusion. The monster tries to hypnotize me with a gaze whose eyes reveal a future of poverty and failure. The monster is harmless and is only as dangerous as I give it space to be.

Keep swimming…keep swimming…keep moving forward…This water will carry me forward. I will not sink.

I will go home and return to the problem. I’ll keep working it and working it and it will eventually go away and I’ll once again and for the millionth time be reminded that these monsters are just like movie characters on this journey. The movie ends like all movies do.

I reach the shore, walk up the stairs and am better for the beach behind me.