There's a new saying in ocean loving, surfing circles, the kind of thing that makes it onto tattoos and car stickers: stay salty. Those who surf, get it. Sometimes life becomes a lot better when you get in to salt water. I like it. It reminds me of what we used to say in the old days: 'salt water cures everything'.
Last week I worked three days and went into gasping hypersensitive mode. I cannot take another sensory input - not a conversation, a question, the presence of someone else in my space, loud noises, nothing. Thank goodness I had a forced day off as there was no work that day. The only thing I could possibly do is to drive to the ocean.
I'd arrived a little early for low tide but it was tiny and not worth going out. There were two stand up paddle boarders getting tiny waves but I didn't want to get in their way - there were so few waves it really would have been a crowd. The water was glassy, though, and the sky grey and beautiful. Air temperature was about 11 degrees so I wasn't in a hurry to get into my suit.
Instead, I started focussing on the things around me. It's an old anxiety trick, to label the physical things in this reality, here and now. Beach, cloud, sky, water. I picked up seaglass for my pockets and found a small pink sea urchin. What a fuzzy little guy - can't you just imagine him with googly eyes? I watched the waves drag themselves over small mussels that I'm not sure ever reach full size.
The tide was too high to get round the rocks so I perched there for a little while just breathing. In for four, out for four, in for four, out for four. Slowly the waves suck away of the little stresses that have resulted in me feeling like I'm in panic attack mode.
There's a huge, huge log on the beach that contrasts the tiny sea creatures and shells. It'd have to be forty foot long. I love the thought of the powerful ocean tugging it along to sweep it up on this beach. It'll stay there and get covered in sand or form a seat for families in the summer.
When I get back to the carpark, there's two girls I know from surfing getting suited up. I laugh and ask them what exactly they'll be surfing.
'Probably nothing' they laugh. 'We just need to get salty. Are you coming in?'.
You bet I did. I sat around in the water for an hour and a half, getting a few waves and chatting to the girls, til the salt water made me feel as if I was a normal person again.
Always, always staying salty.
With Love,
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