These 3 girls are great friends and they surf against each other in contests. Estos tres amigas. They paddle out during a heat and do their best to beat each other, then paddle in to shore and play in the sand together. Mia is a new comer to their division, and the older girls have taken her under their wings and help her along, rooting for her and helping her pick some choice waves during the heats. There is a 3 year age gap between the oldest and youngest.
Surfing and love bridge the gap. We should all take notes from them.
Recently we had some dark storms blowing through the coast. Tornadoes, thunder, and rain mixed with the salty air and blew all the oak pollen out to sea. The sand was packed hard with the rain and a crisp coolness replaced the humidity.
With indecision and reluctance, ball games were cancelled as the storms marched through and we retreated to the dry safety of our homes.
After the initial down pour, dark clouds continued to roll into town, threatening more heavy rain, but in actuality producing nothing more than a tease.
Bring it, I’ll play with you…
I took off from my house to run as the darkness marched in. I figured, what the hell, the worst that can happen is I get soaking wet. I ran down the paved trail, then turned onto muddy trails with puddles everywhere. Snow white herons soared past forest green. Waist high grass and the smell of rain was all around me with black, brooding clouds as a backdrop. Alive, thankyouverymuch.
About half way back, I saw an older lady walking past me. In one hand she had an iPod and the other an umbrella. An umbrella. She looked….burdened. It would have never occurred to me to bring an umbrella on a run. So, what, you pop it up if the rain comes down and keep on exercising? Maybe that is the kind of logic one acquires with age, but it has eluded me so far in this life journey. It seems so…safe…but illogical at the same time. You are 2 miles from home and even if you pop that sucker open, you are going to be soaked to the bone from the waist down when you arrive back! So why not throw hell to the wind and just go umbrella-less? I continued on, the sound of my feet hitting the ground as I felt the first sprinkles. I would not be stopping. I was running 26.2 miles for Boston that week, and a little rain was not going to change my mind.
The older I get, the more I am becoming aware of the bad things in the world….the stuff our fears are made up of. The news is full of doom and gloom. It makes you want to curl up in a ball and never leave your house. The media and their fear mongering make it worse. I really have to fight against it. Sometimes I fall for it, letting my mind get bogged down with the “what if’s”: the kind of worry that ruins days filled with sunshine. Life can be unpredictable. It can be brutal. It comes with the territory. No one said the path would be an easy one. The good and the bad are all jumbled in together in one tangled mess sometimes, making it hard to see the love that is there in plain sight.
Wearing my blue and yellow and running for those who were killed or wounded in Boston.
I guess you have a choice to make. Give in to the fear and not live life to its fullest: don’t venture out and explore the rocky terrain of emotions. Be safe. Stay in your little groove.
Or you can carry on, keeping your eye on the storm but not letting the fear of being caught in it keep you from enjoying new paths and scenery.
I imagine that common sense will catch up to me along the way. There may come a day when I look to the sky and see the clouds and not the sunshine hiding behind them.
For now? I think I will chance the rain without an umbrella and find the love amidst a world filled with thorns.
