The Exercise of Writing & Self Discovery

I am in Newport Beach with my family.  It is early morning before the house is up.  I rise and make myself some tea.  I never really know these days if my morning tea actually does anything or its just a wonderful placebo I believe in.  Either way it's still a ceremony that I enjoy at this point and am happy with that.

I head out to the deck to write but my head is still enshrouded with fog.  The same fog that blankets the beach and the water beyond.  Outside the air is crisp and fresh.  The is faint jazz playing from somewhere own the way.  I really can't tell where, but it's faint, it's soft, it reminds me of something from the twenties.  It fits somehow with the intermittent voids of the early morning joggers and cyclists that pass by.

The beach stretches out before me.  A kind of golden tan, stippled with the shadows of  footprints from the day and night before.  A lone lifeguard tower stands at the water's edge.  Another one, made smaller by the distance stands a third of the way to the north.  Two others stand, respectively smaller, beyond it; dividing the beach into heat quarters of tan sand. 

Past these is the water.  All shades of blue in the morning light.  Aqua blue.  Silver blue.  Blue reflecting the clouds into an almost grayish white blue.   The almost black ripples are all that show any movement.  That and the sounds from the breaking waves in their steady beat.  Occasionally one will rise up and send a crest of spray over the horizon of the dunes.  It is followed by a deep sound that is more a vibration in the air than an audible tone. 

I look beyond the dune and the edge of the beach where the water meets the sand to the real horizon.  The navigation horizon.  The horizon Johnny Depp referred to when he said "Now bring me that horizon."  I know Catalina's out there.  I saw it yesterday before the fog rolled in.  It's hidden behind an almost imperceptible layer of clouds that wash from the dark,cold blue of the Pacific to the bright blue of the sky.  What must early man have thought when they saw it off in the existence?  How many generations must that have called to them before they had the technology of a log raft to heed it's call?  How many people were pulled out to sea before anyone even knew what currents were trying to reach it?  Then how many finally reached that forsaken place only to find that they were unable to return?

Did we originally think it was the seat of gods?  Did we paint pictures of imagined sea creatures that broke apart their log vessels?  Was it the start of a native American version of Jason and the Argonauts?  Only this one not written for the ages?  But does the energy of those lost generations still hover in this area?  Picked up by those who move to the beach, to find some sense of solace in the same view?  Somehow augmenting this part of the world with another layer we just know is there without being able to put a finger on why this one particular view or space is so wonderful?

I turn inward and start to ask myself the same questions.  I know that the image before me is only part of the reality we all live in.  I follow the same internally, as I did externally.  I start by stating the obvious and give it time to unravel before me; leading me to deeper and deeper thoughts and discoveries about myself. 

The process is the same.  Start with broad and innocuous questions.  Give your brain the permission to wander.  Allow it to find its way into itself.  Give it time to explore.  But all the while write down where it takes you.  It is the process of recording your journey that creates your path for wellness.

simple truth