Like being back in the womb. But with the mere illusion of safety. We forget that we are out in space decaying. Or at least approaching that peak of growth that precedes the decay.
But that's ok. The nature of things presents us with that ebb and flow. Life blooms out and then sucks back in to disperse to conserve and bloom again, supposedly outwards. The expanding universe as it were.
The sun revolves and lends us its rays and the warmth pours in and then leaks back out to wherever it must go, and the cold night awaits the next oscillation.
It feels good, laying here with this full body fatigue that is achieved from every muscle fighting in the resistance that water provides. Back to surfing, in short.
It is quiet out there, quiet in the respect that the roar of the breaking waves is rhythmic and constant and becomes soothing background noise that the brain ignores. The ebb and flow is out there as well. Benign and impersonal as opposed to the offense to our sensibilities that the ebb of life causes. It is all impersonal in a sense, but we assign offense to that particular ebb of life because we are wired to do so in order that we may desire its flow, simply by necessity.
But bobbing up and down out on that ocean is not a threat. As long as one doesn't become nauseous or tipped over. There is a profound serenity under the sun. Nevertheless, I can't help but cast morbid glances down into that murky brown emerald, with its discs of light rolling past the surface as the sun hits the water at the right angle. I imagine the broad gaping face of a great white, silently rising into focus out of the murk, its jaw slowly opening, its eyes rolling to the back of its head, going white. It comes up silent and deliberate and inevitable, like death itself. The face of shameless death coming up to meet me, to pass finally through that uppermost film of filth in the Huntington surf.
It hasn't come yet. But I've always had a fear of sharks. They're just moments of fancy. Of the imagination running wild, and then there is a bulge on the horizon that meets the peripheral, and ah here comes a wave, and I am off and then I forget for a while.
