Happy Friday! I left for the beach today at about 9:30 with 100% cloud coverage. I’m pretty much resigning myself to a no-sun swim today. As I walk down the stairs to the sand, gardeners are trimming the surrounding bushes so the smell of rosemary fills the air. Can’t really complain about that.

It surprises me how often I just can’t get my head around the fact that I’m gonna feel good when I hit the water. I’m actually anticipating a pretty pleasant swim today but the anticipation is purely intellectual. From a visceral standpoint, I’d like to be by a fire and getting into the ocean seems like some kind of masochistic ritual. I totally know that this is completely false and I meditate upon this chasm between what I know to be reality and what I feel and dread.

Happily I am proved correct once again and the water is indeed good. Any fear and loathing is immediately flushed out and as I allow myself to truly feel the cool water surrounding me, I am energized.

Conditions are mostly the same as yesterday. Water is comfortable with little visibility and a mostly smooth surface. I relax and focus on just moving forward. Something about the sounds, movement and weightlessness of the water that often puts my mind into a dream like state as I swim. Music spontaneously arises, memories come and go, and thoughts of the future weave with all of the above. I typically try to put my mind into the present, but I find it downright disorienting in the water to parse the present from the past and from the future and from some musical land that lies on some far off plane. Today I wonder maybe I should let go of this present I imagine to be here and allow my mind to dwell upon what comes into it. Perhaps that is the real present here in the water. If I open myself to these whispers traveling on this thread of time, maybe they have something to give.

I get out of the water and look…sun! Maybe not a cloudless blue canvas but there is some serious blue going on up there. The sun feels good and I savor the walk back to the car.