I found some peace Sunday morning.   At 7am I was at one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.   La Jolla Shores is a surrounded by a university, mansions, cliffs and blow holes.   There are kayakers everywhere in large groups.   The surfers were out in force this early in the morning.  About half of them have those long poles that they paddle their boards with standing up. 

    Surfers rarely seem to surf.  This morning the waves were tiny and I was able to swim out beyond them into the deep calm sea.   It was so green and I saw five fish swim by my feet.   With just a few strokes I was out  with the surfers.  Hanging.   Just drifting there on the swells waiting for a big one that never really came.

    There were two scrawny old men in the water ahead of me.  It wasn't that cold but they took their time getting in.  Then a hot shot middle age guy ran in and dived right into the waves splashing out to the deep water.   He was impressing his girlfriend on the beach blanket.  Full of energy.  I wonder what he will be like when he is old?   Will he resent his lack of mobility or will he be able to just relax and hang....

   I floated watching my red toes bobbing up and down in the swells.   It is different than being in a swimming pool and yet this morning it was so smooth and serene it seemed like a pool.  I looked up at all the castle like mansions surrounding this wealthy community of La Jolla. Exquisite architecture.   The sun was coming up behind the palm trees.  It was going to be about ninety at the beach by the afternoon but in the early morning it was a comfortable seventy.  

   That is the spot for peace.  Just out beyond the waves.   The rest of the world fades away.  I know there is so much controversy about the next cove over.  Some rich lady long ago had built a big rock jetty to protect the cove and use it for a children's pool.   As the years have gone by the seals have moved in and use it for a birthing station.  It has become a premier tourist attraction to see the seals.

   Now some people in the town want the Children's Pool back.  The nastiness of the court cases and the hoopla around the jetty have intensified in the last couple years.  How to push the seals away and what to do with the people who seem to want to use it as a kids' pool   The whole situation seemed so far away as I floated out in my green bubble. 

    I love being suspended in water, just barely moving and letting my legs dangle.  Maybe I was a seal once in another life, peeping up out of the water at all the crazy humans on shore.  Now that I am one of those humans I sometimes yearn for the simple sensuous pleasures of the seals.   Their ability to slice thru the water with just a few flips of their tails.   One of the old men out in the waves had some flippers.  That might be a nice present to buy myself.   Some flippers.

      When I was a kid I loved my flippers.  I grew up in Hawaii and then Guam.  It was a wonderful time to play on the beach.  Today I felt so fortunate at 66 to still have the energy to go out into the waves.  There is something empowering about doing a physical thing.  I slowly emerged from the water and tried to just savor the beauty of it all but the crowds were coming.  

     As I sat there in my little folding beach chair drying off the people started to populate the sand around me.  I know that by noon today there would not be a free blanket space anywhere.  I do enjoy the beach like that when you consider that we are all just one big hunk of humanity playing frisbee and building sand castles.  

    This morning I folded my beach chair and headed back to the freeway.  At 9am it was still relatively calm.   I like to remember floating in that green aquatic environment.  I kept a look out for a shark's fin but never saw one.  

   So now when they say "This will hurt a little so just go to a place in your mind where you feel comfortable."   I will know where to go.  I will transport  myself back to that green rolling water and remember the peace.