Five times in seven days and I remember this was the life I wanted.
***
Thoughts prompted:
Oh, this is fun.
I should probably sell my car. Do you know how many boards and board bags and trips I could take if I didn’t have car payments?
Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes.
Seriously, I need to reconfigure my life.
It’s so beautiful.
It’s so beautiful.
It’s so beautiful.
***
The ocean glassed out for a solid week. The waves were small, mostly only about shoulder-high on the sets, tiny on the final session of this bliss streak. The ocean floor glittered, bait fish leapt, pelicans dove, seals popped their heads out like ocean labradors waiting for an ear to be scritched. (Don’t actually pet the seals.)
Of those five days, the highlights:
A morning surfing my favorite break with just a few friends while it worked like the magic carousel it occasionally can be.
Walking out from my house with my 2013 birthday board tucked under my arm and catching waves in front of my house.
The photo Bobby took from that session of me wiping out; I’d pearled badly and he caught me upside out, legs sticking up out of the top of the breaking wave like a sad cartoon.
Reliving a magical July from eight years ago, when the ocean stayed small and glassy for an even longer chunk of time and we took the Nick and Kaylee out almost daily. They were little then, eight and 10, just learning to surf, and giddy with the delight of it. I would have surfed elsewhere this day, but a friend called, saying his own 8-year-old wanted to go surfing and where should they go? I thought about it, what the swell had been doing, how the bar was working, and said, You know, I think this spot could work. No promises. It could be flat. And it’ll almost definitely be too small for adults.
I did them right. When I showed up, they were already suited – her in Kaylee’s hand-me-down wetsuit – and in the water, knee-high waves peeling left and right through the ocean smooth as a lake. I grabbed my camera and skipped out to water’s edge just as my friend pushed his daughter into one of those bitty swells. She clambered to her feet, thrust her arms out and rode down the line, grinned etched on her face, as my friend whooped and I shot photos (“Ah! I’m capturing this for them, yes!) and a surfer parked on the beach honked in enthusiasm. Everything was as it should be in the world for a few fine moments.
And then it stayed fine. I joined my friends in the water (at an all-time high of 61 degrees) and the waves were almost definitely too small, but had just enough to them for us adult types to goof around. I noticed two boys playing up the beach slightly while their folks sat on the beach next to a parked quad and a BBQ. I told them about the couple extra boards in the back of my truck. “You can grab them if you want.” They wanted. The younger caught whitewater on his belly, the older tried to stand up, they held on to those boards for at least an hour, their fun made exponential. When I emerged from the ocean and returned to my truck, they ran over to thank me. They were from Redding, they said, where there’s no ocean.
My heart brimmed with joy from this day. I swear, I didn’t even need the 4WD as I drove away – my lightness of spirit lifted my truck right off the sand as we made our way off the beach.
And I remember this is the life I have.
early morning fog, partial clearing 
61 degrees ocean temp? That is warm for here.
Quite!