It’s looking like a beautiful spring morning - clear skies and mild. I start with a run to Lantern Bay Park and back.

After some chores and watching my foster son while my wife sleeps in, I take off for the beach at about 10:45. The wind has kicked up and by the time I get to the parking lot I can see a fair amount of chop on the water. I can tell it is going to be a rough ride today.

The lifeguard hut at the bottom of the asphalt ramp is open and it is posting a water temperature of 58. That definitely aligns more with what I have been feeling this past week. I really wonder where these measurements come from. The Red Beach Nearshore buoy did get up to 58 yesterday and today but I don’t think that buoy (just north of Oceanside) would be the definitive metric for this location - at least not consistently.

Sand is up just a bit today. It is low tide and things look similar to yesterday. The most notable change today is the wind.

I stash my stuff on the rocks and head for the water.

It’s a long walk to the surf. The sand floor is very uneven. I eventually dive into the water and begin swimming.

The water feels a tad warmer today and the initial cold shock is much less severe. However the turbulence on the surface is consuming the vast majority of my attention and effort. As I head south, I feel like the current is mostly in my favor.

Half way down the beach I see the dorsal fin of a Dolphin just a few feet inshore from me. I see another one surface close by. By the time I power up my camera, they are long gone.

When I get to my southern turnaround point and begin to head back north, I can definitely feel the onslaught of the current waging a full frontal assault against me. The entire swim to Salt Creek feels like a fight. I partially find this thrilling and partially exhausting. I also partially enjoy the exhaustion. I like exhaustion. Maybe that is why I seem to make so many things harder than they need to be? If only we could get ahead by working harder and not smarter.

Half the time I come up for air it feels like I am met with a bucket of water being thrown into my face. Every once and a while I catch a wake at just the right angle and it feels like I am propelled above the water. About half way back up the beach I manage to collide with a small log or large branch right on the nose. I pause and utter an expletive or two and then continue.

I feel the water gradually getting colder as the swim progresses. I know it is me and not the water. I feel fine though.

My head is consumed with the intensity of the turbulence and the cold. I feel like I have been dropped into this unforgiving environment. It is worth noting that I was dropped at my own request. I find therapy in this beat down. I know that all I have to do is keep swimming. It’s so simple. I’m thinking of struggles I am involved with out of the water with work and relationships. I recall the inner voice I so often hear, “just keep going. I am with you.” There is no promise that I will have the outcome that I want, but a felt assurance that the outcome will come and it will go and I will make it to meet the next wave. It might just throw a bucket of water in my face or propel me forward.

This makes me think and is actually somewhat inspired by the online Q&A I watched yesterday with Natalie Goldberg - a writer and Zen practitioner. She teaches classes and workshops that teach writing as a Zen practice. In the video I watched she talks about two voices. The “monkey mind” voice that tells her how horrible she is and that she will fail and the worst things will happen. The monkey mind is a term that is very familiar to Zen and other meditation focused circles. It is the mind that is controlled by the chaos of incoming thoughts, attaching itself to the fears and desires of passing stimulus.

The other voice is sort of her “true voice” and just says, “It’s ok Natalie. Just keep going.” This voice simply repeats that over and over again. This really struck me. First because that is exactly my own experience of things. Part of me stands in constant hatred of myself and fear of the future while another part is calm and knows that a path is being laid down before me as I take each step. The path may not always lead to bliss but it leads me to the next thing and shows me that the last thing did not consume me.

I find these voices in Christian circles as well. There they may be the voice of the devil and the voice of the Holy Spirit. While I kind of like Monkey Mind over the devil, I have to say that there are times where that dark voice seems to be part of some evil force that conspires against me. It certainly can feel demonic. There have been times in my past where I believed that voice. I mean I certainly can go a good while now where I am seduced by that voice and it seems VERY believable but I eventually have the wherewithal to recognize it as deceptive or at least not helpful. I wonder if insanity is the inability to differentiate that voice from the truth. Maybe the demoniacs that Jesus healed grew to be unable to not listen to that voice.

I think of Zen, which I have a personal past with, and how it can easily appear to be sort of ultra rational and void of a concept of faith or grace. However as I listen to Natalie Goldberg, I can feel that essence of trust. There is indeed a faith that as we sit down to watch our thoughts pass through us and focus on our breath entering and leaving our bodies, we are in fact held by something. It may not be an anthropomorphized or deified being. It is perhaps the very nature of all existence. One can just sit and know that the world will not collapse. Even if it does, we can sit with the collapse. The sitting is an act of faith in a thread that runs through each of us. It binds each of us no matter how greedy or altruistic together into this fabric of life.