Well I’m not here to brag or anything but guess who got in the water (briefly! But twice!) the other afternoon. Yes me. In April. Unheard of.
It’s surreal how normal it feels to be running into the water again as if I was just there last week, instead of all the way back there in September. I loved reacquainting myself with this colour of blue. It’s even better in person, all shimmery shades of indigo and periwinkle.
I have a son who has been exploring rocky vertical things in lots of ways, and since February he has been rock climbing and then jumping off cliffs to have refreshing ocean dips after. I know some of you who read are from much warmer climes so let me emphasize that jumping in the ocean around here in February is best left for the young or the nutty, and really one has to have both of those in combination to even consider it. But we’ve had some unseasonable warm weather lately and he told me last week the water feels like June water now.
Maybe. Maybe September water. Water cold enough that as I run in I think it’s all good, I dive forward and stick my head under and it’s all good, I think maybe I’ll stay in and swim out a ways, and then instantly, instantly, my arms turn to ice, who even knows where my toes have gone, and my brain screams at me to get the heck back to shore as fast as I can.
And then once I’m out I pace back and forth at the edge, getting hot again in the sun, thinking it wasn’t that bad, maybe I had better go in again. Such a goofy delightful cycle.
(Tsk tsk. Look at the lineups.)
So maybe he’s right about June, or maybe I’m also right about September, but hey, this is what I’m thinking now. When you jump off a cliff into the water you just have to be brave for a second right? Once you commit to that second that you jump you’re just along for the fall. But doesn’t it take real bravery to run in? To get up off of a warm beach towel, all hot and groggy and giddy, stumble down to the waterline, and run into the sea? It takes about twelve or fifteen feet of splashing forward movement until I’m in deep enough to dive forward and go right under. That’s a long time of bravery I’m thinking.
Cliff shmiff. I’m the brave one.
