Went camping this past weekend at a spot near Santa Cruz called New Brighton State Beach. It's a beautiful place right up against the Pacific Ocean. The weather was perfect--warm but not too hot. We went swimming and made campfires and worked on our sunburns. The water was strange. We were bobbing out past where the waves were breaking and the water would be very warm, and then as a wave came by, the water would turn very cold. I've always been drawn toward the ocean, but at times it terrifies me--usually when I am in it. I think there is something very sexy about the ocean. It's this presense that is so much bigger than we are, and you can just walk right up to it and put your toes in, while at the same time it has the ability to swallow you up or hold you in its wide embrace or nourish you, and you can cup it in your hands and when you spread your fingers it's gone just like that.
I first came to this beach over 10 years ago. I have to credit the lady bus driver who saw us, Mary and I, as we emerged out of the Santa Cruz wilderness, cold and half-soaked from a night spent in the forest--no tent, no fire, nothing. We were looking for a weekend away from the university, so we grabbed some food from the dining hall and sleeping bags and water and set out with nothing but a few dollars and our good-anywhere university bus pass that we used to get us the furthest point on the bus route we could get. I have to admit that first night was a bit scary, since all I'd known of camping was the comfy tents and the warm glow of lanterns and nothing of the cold. The lady bus driver said she knew of this beach where you could just walk in and she dropped us off as close as she could get to the campground. We hiked in and slept on the ground without a tent in the middle of November. It was cold, but a true adventure. These days I opt for a tent and even acquired my first real camping stove (which is a real luxury, believe me). Someday when I grow up I'm going to invest in a folding chair and maybe a table cloth, but for now, I'll keep roughing it.
This was one of the best parts, check it out: I'm roasting chestnuts over an open fire!
And while I love camping, taiko continues to brew. I actually haven't been to class for a while, instead, have been enjoying living life a little. Did the running thing. Did the camping thing. Visited family. Saw an old friend. I'm working on finishing reading a really good book, which is something I haven't been able to do since my mom got sick. Just haven't had the concentration. For the longest time, all I did was fold origami cranes--thousands and thousands of them. Didn't want to talk to anybody. Didn't want to go out. Didn't want to watch tv. I just folded cranes first thing when I woke up, and on my lunch break, and stayed up late and folded cranes until I was too tired to do anything else (I'm trying to sell them on ebay, by the way). I had stuff to work out in my head. Oh, and at that time, I listened a lot to a cd of the sound of waves. Waves coming in, waves going out. Nice calm waves. Rhythmic in its own way, but definetly not taiko. Not do ko don. Not kara kara ka ka. No hups. I just felt like I had to take the time to just think and figure out all that happened and make sense of everything. After my last set of a thousand cranes, I realized that I was pretty much done with thinking, and needed to start living, so I didn't go out and get more paper like I'd been doing, and have instead decided that I need to do more. I need to go back to taiko.
Right now I don't want to get too specific. There are things I want to do. I'm trying to set up a few things, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they're being set up for me. Have to give thanks to someone who keeps lighting little lanterns in this dark forest I seem to be wandering in. It's like I get so far, have something to look forward to, and then there's this other lantern that lights up further away, so it's like I'm starting to see a path. Can't say that the path is solid yet, can't say it's been set out any further than the furthest lantern I can see out there in the distance. It's like a Miyazaki movie. Maybe like Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. The characters are lost, but not really, because they're searching for something, even though they're not quite sure what it is, and it's not all hokey pokey Disney like they're searching for who they are. There is some darkness there. There are uncertainties that never neatly work themselves out. I have to say I am really interested. But it's scary too, because I'm kind of alone, not that that is particularly scary, but I'm doing things I love to do in new ways in new situations I've not been before, and that's what's a little scary. But really, it beats folding cranes. Not that folding cranes is bad--I actually miss them a little, but I'm getting off my butt and out there and beginning to pursue things. I'm starting to live again.
Actually, honestly, I'm starting to get really excited. I'm starting to get really happy, and I haven't been really happy in a long time, and that ought to ward away the darkness a bit, until I can see the light of the next lantern.
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