On the Edge of Summer and Fog

I think this Wednesday, two days ago on July 12, was the first day of summer. It was actually sunny skies at dawn. There was some fog on the coast that cleared up by 6 or 7. Yesterday was the same but without the fog. I was so tempted to swim yesterday but I just had too much work to do. I thought surely this run of summer will continue.

Today I wake up to sunny skies again but also fog on the beach. Can’t see a thing on the web cam. That’s ok. It will clear up. 8:00 rolls around and I still see nothing. 10:00 and I think it is getting worse. 11:00 maybe an improvement? 11:30 nope it is worse again. 12:00 ok we might be getting somewhere. 12:30 let start thinking of leaving soon. I still see fog but I can see surf and Monarch point. I’m sure this will all blow over (literally) very soon.

I’m out of the house at 1:00. It’s warm and delightful. Doheny looks like a summer dream. I turn the corner on PCH just past Del Prado and I can see the edge of the fog. It seems to hover just at the shore but it feels sunny enough.

When I get out of the car, I see some wisps of fog hovering around Salt Creek point but it seems like any second it could all just go away. The temperature is so pleasant out.

I get to the stairs and the aggressive Sea Lion warning sign is gone. At the lifeguard stand, no more purple flag indicating dangerous marine life.

As I walk down the stairs I feel like I am on the very edge of summer. Blue sky dominates behind me but ahead of me looks like some other season that just doesn’t want to pass.

I get to the beach and the water feels colder than I had anticipated but really not much different from what I remember on Tuesday when I last swam.

When I get to the spot where I intend to begin the swim, I look out on the ocean and it just looks like another overcast morning. If I turn around 180 degrees, it looks like a beautiful summer afternoon. Well I am here now. I’m going to do what I always do and whatever meets me out there I’ll receive it willingly. What else could I do? This is not exactly the day I had hoped for but it is absolutely the day that I have.

The surf is pretty small. I dive under a couple waves and I start my swim. In no time at all the water feels super nice.

As I swim south I face inland and it feels lie summer. When I near the end of the beach the fog starts to thicken. At the southern end looking north, I can’t really see Salt Creek point. It’s all just a hazy mist.

I now head north. I’m focusing on the feeling that has been hovering on the edge of my consciousness since Tuesday when I had coffee with my friend Ed Piorek. As I often do after meeting with Ed, I can feel an electric charge in the air around me. My faith in Jesus feels alive and real. It’s not about the intellectual viability of the divine incarnation or resurrection. It is just a buzz of grace. A sort of sense memory of rescue. In the presence of this grace, there is no need to justify or rationalize events from the past. There is no need to build a legal case because none is needed. Those events: the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ are embedded in the landscape of what I feel and what I come to know.

This all reminds me of the Salt Company documentary I watched and the interview of the broken woman weeping at the threshold of grace upon hearing the gospel message. I let go of the complexities that I parse from that gospel story. I accept it as the mystery that it is and then its simplicity collapses into into a fine point that I can barely see but holds the weight of a thousand suns.

I’m swimming and trying to melt into that point. I wonder how spirituality is more about the verbs than the nouns. It’s more about what is felt, experienced and done that what happened or how the spiritual landscape is composed. The elements that make up salvation vanish and give way like this fog that coalesces and dissipates. Everything looks grey and thick and the shore disappears. Then in an instant, the sky is blue and the air is light and the water is warm.

Half way back up the beach, things seem to be clearing up. It’s happening! The fog is lifting. At last. Then in just seconds, it’s foggier than ever. The shore is barely visible. I decide to head closer to the beach so I can see where I am.

This continues for the rest of the swim. It just gets foggier and foggier. I try to get closer and closer to the beach. Eventually I am nearly at the bathrooms above the jr. guard tents. I just have a little further to go.

The water is so warm. Fog or no fog, this feels so great and it is so good to be here.

I get to the end and then just to be sure I keep swimming a little further. Then I head back to where I started. I can barely see the houses on the bluff, but as I approach my destination I can make out my landmark house well enough.

I head to the shore and it’s time to head back to the car. I walk past the lifeguard station and its water temperature reading is set to 64. I don’t think so. I’m putting my money on 67.

It’s foggier now than it was when I got here. There is a little girl just starting to come down the stairs and trying to convince her mom that she can’t see anyone on the beach and they must have closed it.

On the drive home. It is clear as can be on PCH until Doheny where there is a thick blanket of fog rolling in through the trough of San Juan creek. Then as I climb up into Capo Beach, things clear up again until I get home and it looks as though there could not possibly be fog anywhere on the earth.