Wave of Life

Sometimes, don't you wake up just wanting to go back to sleep again? Kind of like life-not everyday is a fun filled extravaganza run of frolic and joy.

Sometimes, its just work.

Sometimes, we just have to lower our head, tuck our shoulder, and prepare for impact. I remember as a kid swimming in the surf in San Diego, a wave would come and it was too shallow to dive under it, you did exactly that, leaning into this wave that you could see coming, ready to try to knock you over. Once it hit, it usually pushed you back on one leg where you found yourself hopping, trying to keep your balance.

You survive the impact only to find yourself in deeper water, trying to wipe your face free of the salt water and that long green grass like kelp that got stuck in your hair, not to mention what ever that stuff is wrapped around your ankles.

Sometimes, for days, weeks, months, whole seasons, we feel like we just have to tuck our shoulders, lower our heads, and brace for whatever is going to roll down the street at us, leaving whatever it brought, wrapped around our ankles and stuck in our hair. After a while, after one wave then another, we get use to the stuff in our hair and we don't even feel the goo around our ankles. It has become a part of our life.

But then it happens.

You don't even realize it, but finally you come to a point when you are in the perfect position to catch one of these waves that has been beating you for so long and ride that puppy to shore.

And the one you pick is huge!

You look up at it as it starts to curl and the top ridge of it starts to thin, allowing the sun light to come through. For a moment, you think about going under it, avoiding it because for a moment, you are feeling fear. Then it happens.

You lose your fear and replace it with courage of a paramount level-almost joyful, exuberant joy. You turn and start swimming as hard as you can to shore and quickly find yourself being picked up by this thing and pushed forward. You tuck your arms and try to form a bullet, going faster and faster and sliding down the curl that now, instead of beating you to death with its power, you are in full sinc with. You and the wave, for just a few seconds, are together.

Until your belly scrapes the sand.

Then, you stand up, pull the green grass out of your mouth, the kelp off your ankles, turn and walk back out to sea, only to be battered again for a season, before you get another chance to ride the Big Kahuna all over again.

Just like life.

Hmm.