I used to sing on the mountains, has the ocean lost its way.
--Led Zeppelin
The Spouse and I headed down to Misquamicut for our annual day-at-the-beach last Sunday. It's a pity we don't get to the ocean more often, living as close to the coast as we do. After driving and being pleasantly surprised at the lack of traffic, we got within 2 miles of the coast and were rudely awakened by the reality of end-of-summer beach traffic. Since The Spouse loathes waiting in a non-moving vehicle and I loathe waiting in a non-moving vehicle with people who loathe waiting in non-moving vehicles, we decided for the sake of continued marital bliss that he should walk to the beach while I sought parking.
Once my fine luxury automobile (look, after having driven a 1992 Buick Century for most of my adult life, a Honda Civic is a luxury vehicle) was safely docked in some parking spot a zillion miles away from the bathhouse, I proceeded to track down His Spouseliness. He awaited my arrival in all of his sun-weary excitement at a picnic table. We headed down to what was supposed to be the beach but, due to high tide, a hot day, and it being the last beach-able weekend before the start of the school year, we were instead met with a gigantic people carpet.
Eventually we found a patch of sand maybe about 8x8 feet and planted our stuff. We didn’t fret too much about the insane numbers of people because, well, we were at the BEACH, baby! Yeah! There was pasty-bodied fist-pumping, followed by the two of us trotting eagerly (not running – way too crowded) to the water.
I got to the water and was met with…fear? I sighed and, yes, it’s true, I rolled my eyes with impatience at my own reluctance to ride the waves. Was this particularly compassionate? No, of course not. But I had come to have fun, not to watch The Spouse dive under 300-foot high surf and squint into the sun without my eyeglasses (basically rendering me temporarily blind) until I spotted him again. Since his hair these days is reminiscent of Fabio, it was easier than I would have expected. Men with long blond hair are sorely lacking in New England , and the particular dude with whom I keep company was gleefully frolicking in the surf as I dealt briefly with my inner worrywart.
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE the ocean. I could body surf for the rest of my life if it weren’t for my day job and the fact that lousy surf happens. We had come on a perfect kind of day. Well, I mean, aside from the riptides, the intense undertow, and the waves, which seemed a lot bigger and more intimidating than I remembered them being. The lifeguard kept blowing his whistle. The kayakers kept yelling at people to move back toward shore. I wondered if there were going to be lots of jellyfish. I thought about several bad experiences I’ve had, and all of them have involved the following two things:
1. Being in a body of water.
2. Panic.
Even with these thoughts, it didn’t take me long to get into the water, and it’s because I kept on thinking of all of those metaphors about life that have to do with waves. You know, things like, “Life is like being in an ocean. You just have to let the waves take you where they’re going to take you.” Or whatever. I figured it would be an entertaining way to pass the time to see if I could just let the waves take me wherever they were going to take me.
The other thing that helped was dropping the judgment and totally letting myself be afraid. Once that happened, I had the freedom and space inside of me to realize that I was creating worry and fear. I could feel myself being afraid, just for the sake of being afraid. It was abundantly clear that my mind was just trying to come up with a reason to be afraid. I remembered that, even though I’ve had bad experiences in the water in the past, I can swim now, and I’m even a fairly strong swimmer. I have more confidence in my swimming than I have ever had in my life. I’ve made many beach trips in my day, rode many waves, and lived to tell the tale. I knew that this was just an old habit of fearing everything worth doing that was trying to take the reins, wanting to keep me protected from experiencing new bad experiences in the water.
I feel pretty ridiculous talking about my brief hesitation before getting in the ocean. Yet I realize that it’s the brief moments of hesitation where I have a choice to either act out of my fear and old habits or to continue on with what it is that I originally wanted to do. I noticed that I had a total ball on the waves once I recognized that there was fear, and then was free to make a choice regarding what to do about it. Did I want it to overtake me, or did I want to ride the waves anyway? When I made the choice to go in, the fear quickly transformed itself into the pure bliss and excitement of flying toward shore on the top of a wave while slamming your thighs together so that the bottom of your bathing suit doesn’t disappear.
Of course, the waves had to test me a little bit. At one point, one of them totally bitch-slapped me on the back. That kind of hurt. I slapped it back, and then we were on okay terms. Another one tried to separate my lower body from my upper body, but I just did my Superman pose and I was fine.
So. Waves. Get in the ocean and ride them! And if they’re too big, just dive underneath them. If only all of life were so simple.
