Today I Saw a Wave

Today I saw a wave for the first time.

I have been looking at the ocean my whole life. Not regularly, mind you, but enough times. Since I moved close to the beach a few years ago I have been determined to spend more time there. Until recently I found excuses not to. Maybe I was afraid I would fall in love. If that was the case it was a legitimate fear, as now I have. I can’t imagine not being able to drive or walk over there whenever I have a free moment. Recently my schedule opened wide up, and I decided that before I have to commit to a new schedule, I will make an effort to visit the ocean as much as possible.

The first day of my love affair was hot and muggy. Unusual weather for eight in the morning at Ocean Beach. A hurricane was heading toward shore south of us. It was a Thursday, and the beach was populated with locals, going about their regular business of beach combing, exercise, and socializing. In the water about halfway out the pier, surfers waited, tried, fell, stood up, swam in, swam out. I felt for the first time like I really belonged there. Something inside me decided that I could never leave this place. I could never not be here.

As I’ve sat there in the mornings, I’ve watched the people interacting with the environment. I can start to see the different conditions and how they welcome some kinds of surf boards and won’t accommodate others. Some days the ocean looks as though it is continually spitting out particular individuals and singing with the chosen. But today as I watched something happened to me.

My attention drifted from the man-over-nature/man-with-nature narrative to the water itself. I remembered something I read the other night by Thich Nhat Hanh, which I am going to paraphrase, probably poorly: the wave must remember that it is part of the ocean. As I watched the waves, I began to see them, not as waves, but as manifestations of the water. The ocean was expressing itself to me. It rose up until it could rise no higher and danced back down upon itself. It flailed and foamed, teased that it would break free from itself and then melted back into one body. Sometimes quietly, sometimes with explosive force, but always coming back to itself.

I sat in the only patch of shade on the beach, cast by a palm tree that was directly between me and the sun. The world held me in shelter so that I could witness it and be it. I started crying, wishing I could dissolve into the moment. I wished that my awareness of what was happening would step out of the way so that I could simply be the “I” and the world and the waves would be “Thou.” I wished for less of me. I wished for surrender.

As soon as that thought had formed, I began to cry more. I was taken by the understanding that there is so much more for me to see and feel, to know in this world. I have come so far to be able to sit and see the waves for the first time. I have put down so many burdens. I have created and allowed for so much peace within myself, which has in turn created and allowed so much peace within my life. And I can see that there is more to be had, but I am not anxious for it. I am not grasping at it. I am only grateful that it is there when I am ready for it.

I can see that I am the wave. I am part of the ocean. I will rise up and dance, I will dissolve, I will crash down. I will spit out those who are not ready and sing with those who are. I will become something different and when I fear I will fly away and separate, I will come back to myself. Someday I will surrender because surrender is already here. It is only waiting.