Morning swim

Today I’m swimming at Pau Pau. At 6 o’clock in the morning, it’s just me, the Eagle Rays, and the Butterfly Fish. It’s now I feel: the ocean is an antidote to the motions of life. On land, I’m always going, starting one place, ending another. In water, I am in one place, just being.

I’m plunging in, submerging my entire body at once. Wet and fresh, I feel experience gush in. My senses are sponges for this moment: they wring out the energy of going and going, all that striving and doing, and they soak instead in the infinite present. I glance at the horizon and see the full width of my life and its possibility.

I’m swimming far away from shore. I like it out in the pure ocean, a 360 degree view, as little land in my eye as I can get. I turn on my back, suck in the air, and float. Stillness. All but the falling and rising of my chest. Here I find a moment that hangs in the middle of time, like the sun in the midday sky.

I’m standing on land to drip dry. The air’s tasty, salty and sweet. The heat isn’t sticky. Yet. The breeze sweeps the air around me aside, making way for more. I’m water-washed, sun-kissed, and all my world is at ease.