But anyway here I am

Before I went east the week before last I had slipped in somewhere, not sure exactly where but easy as a veil so sheathy you barely notice it being placed over your eyes it had happened, I was halfing-it.  Slipped in: to a way of thinking edged with doubt on the inside line of things. A tense feeling of having to try to figure things out, me fighting it and it gaining muscle because of my fight.  I knew I was fighting it too which is the worst kind of strain.  August, last year, when I got in my car with 800 bucks in a brown paper bag and my spirit full of good luck and set to head west it was a day at a time of bliss and wonderment that lasted almost entirely through til the middle of April. After living like that which let me tell you is a sweet and light way to live slipping in is painful.  Erin my cousin came for 10 days, this was April, I flipped right after that and never was quite righted.  A number of things in a row stacked up all at once all having to do with people back in Maryland I love.  Suddenly I was feeling like my decision to be here, however grace touched and true, was wrong.  So I was fighting the natural ebb of these doubts.  It was the fighting that made it way worse.

California has helped tremendously since I've been back.  The sparkle of the day when I flew in to John Wayne, Deryyne's smile and hug among all the fast cars and cabs that said so genuine I missed you!  My ride that afternoon on my bike next to PCH was the kind of ride where my bike feels like its being compelled by the concrete, like my bike itself has a place to go and I just get to be along for the ride.  The way the wind always is full of the sea.  The way it communicates with my skin.   That happiness of the light rolling around on the waves.  It just felt so right to be back.  Me and my book had dinner at what I know to be as the best little Mexican joint in Huntington Beach.  It's tucked away you have to live here to know it.  I rode to Deryyne's after for the Stanley Cup.  That night I walked in to my little room on Main Street so contented all I could do was celebrate me:  the journey I took and am still taking, the space of mine, my whole own little world animated by the tender small regularities of my Orange County rounds.

It was amazing to go east my soul needed it to feel calm.  I had to see Mandy to look in her eyes, and dance with Jott for both of us, and I needed the green of the east coast hard wood heady hardy trees.  I needed to sit a long time and just hush with my mom and cuddle with Erin and hug her mom, I needed to hear the high-pitch Grammy laugh of surprise come out of my dad.  I really needed to be close to my niece, and sister-in-law, and especially my brother the new dad.  I really needed to hug my grandma again.

But anyway here I am.  It's so good to be home.

Last swim

I hadn't swam since the day I went to go see Katie, not counting the last night with Casey at Fagers when we went partly (or totally, depending on who's who) skinny-dipping late night between closing-time for the bar and getting our regular 3am pizza at Mambo's. That last night it was us grls, the four of us that were left, and Todd should of been there too but he wasn't which maybe was cuz of me or maybe wasn't, but in the end didn't matter bc it turned out to be us a ladies nite, us bareskinned and the hot blowing wind and water warm as a mother's hand. I hooted a lot that nite and floated along in the rough top surf then made sure we all had blankets and sheets to wrap ourselves with from the collection in my trunk. Monday was gold out, the water was blue and the air so clean and I stepped on to the sand in front of the hotel where I go to write and look at the sea, and as soon as my feet touched down I felt the loop in my heart which was Yes yes golden yes and I knew that I would swim.

And in my $12 WalMart bathing suit that looks hotter on me than all the other ones, I went in. The water was deep and twisted and rippy at first, I padded through then up on to the sand bar and watched the water just barely then cover my feet. I stood a long time. I waited, I watched. My skin was taught with shiver bumps and I breathed deep to keep my self warm. I kept walking after a while, got to a place where the current seemed sullen and the depth was thigh high. I dove under and swam the whole while underneath the waves, just using the kicking motion of my feet. I expected to easily get out beyond the break, where I go to float, but the waves had a mind to their own and that is the first time all summer, even counting the hurricane, that the ocean and I struggled together in my swim.

So, I let her take me where she would, floating all the while on my back. I finally stood when I realized the water level was only knee-high. I laughed out loud when I stood and discovered this, I am, I realized un-self-consciously, laughing out loud covered in wet beach sand and clumps of salt water hair and goosebumps, three families in the ankle surf just yards from me, so often alive inside my own natural state of childlike, intrinsic joy.

It hit me then, it is October. Summer is over. It really is.

I heard a cosmic door close last week, one that I walked through several years ago. I am just about out of the hall. I am happy about it, I am 33. I am moving on. It feels good. And I said so, I said so in whistles and grins and empty hands in the air, I delighted and I cleansed in and then I thanked the sea.