I went to the beach recently on my own. I sat in the sand on my deep blue cotton towel south of Balboa Pier and stared at the ocean for awhile. Looking north up the beach, the afternoon sunlight bounced off the waves like sparklers. I held onto my hat; the wind was blowing everything, making the water choppy. I saw people playing in the waves, splashing, screaming joyfully, apparently oblivious to the sting rays around them. Saw a woman play frisbee with her dog, and I admired the single-minded focus of the dog. I saw a sailboat gliding silently along the horizon and a loud Jet Ski zooming past closer to shore. The sun so bright in the cornflower blue sky, it almost seemed like everything wanted to disappear. Washed out by the light. The salt tang on my tongue, the spray from the waves cool and the sun warm on my skin, I was relaxed. My awareness floating peacefully from one thing to another, pondering the pelicans and shells.
I had just lost Lucy, my dog. I remembered how much she loved coming to the beach. So many good things to smell! Always trying to lick the water, then shaking her head when she tasted the salt. She always gave me a look of confusion -- like, why all this water and we can't drink it? Weird. She would RUN to the waves, away from the waves, to other dogs, away from other dogs. She would sniff everything: the seaweed piles, the shells, the By-the-Wind-Sailors, and washed up debris. I loved her. Loved her adventurousness, her joie de vivre, her ability to stay gleefully in the moment, always discovering something interesting. Miss Adventure was one of her many nicknames. Equally willing to run along the waves or sit next to me to watch them, I missed my friend.
This is a real new beginning, I thought. My furry protector gone, my internal defenses dropping, I am alone in my house for the first time in a long time, maybe ever. I've lived many lives, but this one might be my favorite. I seem to go in 18 year cycles. Birth to 18, family of origin. My first independent life from 18-36. Divorced and rebuilding from 36-54. And now, California. Ann the Surfer. Ann the Meditator. Part of a Sisterhood of surfers joyfully connected to and sustained by the waves, as well as a meditation sangha of beautiful people dedicated to awakening. When did this happen?
I remembered other times in my life that I've been acutely aware of myself in time and space. Like I leave my body for a moment and look back at myself in wonder. I can mark my lives by these moments.
The first one I remember was when I was in college. First life. I went to school in DeKalb, Illinois, and a friend of mine went to school in Decatur. Between DeKalb and Decatur is two and half hours of driving by the best that Central Illinois has to offer: acres and acres of farm fields. I was traveling home after a weekend with my friend. It was late on a Sunday night; no other cars on the road. It was winter -- dead of winter, snow on the ground. It had been a bright, sunny January day. In those conditions, the top layer of snow melts a little in the bright sun, then freezes when the sun goes down, leaving a solid top layer of ice over the snow like the crust on a creme brulee. That sugary crust acts like a mirror.
Somewhere in the middle of the drive, on what was then a lonely two-lane road, I noticed how clear it was. The darkness is crystal clear on those nights, because subzero air holds very little moisture. No moon, I could see every star in the sky. Not many lights along those roads, so very dark, except for a blue-white glow that seemed to emanate from the snowy fields. Starlight. It must have been the reflection of starlight setting the ground aglow. I slowed the car way down. No one was around, so I shut the headlights.
Only country kids know the joy of driving without headlights on an empty road in the dark.
I saw a perfect little farm to my left. I stopped the car on the side of the road. Despite the cold, I got out of the car and sat on the hood for a bit, looking at this perfect little farm. A beautiful white clapboard house on the right surrounded by some spiky pine trees, shelter from the wind. A dark red barn on the left. And in between them, one light bulb hung on a pole in the middle of the barnyard casting a yellow triangle of light. Farms always have a light between the house and the barn or on the barn, so the farmer can find his way in the early darkness. I looked around and saw a number of single bulbs dotting the landscape across the distance. Little pinpricks of light adding to the snowy glow.
The dome of the sky seemed acutely three-dimensional in the upglow, and it was just me, the lightbulb, this farm, and the stars. It looked like I was a miniature in a snow globe that had settled. I felt very small. So very small, in awe, and very lucky. Who are we really? What is this whole thing? The air was icy sharp in my throat, my nose prickled, making my eyes tear. It was so beautiful. I sat for a bit then went on my way.
That moment -- maybe five minutes long -- happened 35 years ago and I can still see it. What I see in my memory is the view of the snow globe. I'm out of my body, standing well behind me, looking at the miniature of a person sitting on her car, looking at a farm, with the starry dome above her. I love that perspective. My Self looking at the person I was then.
The second moment I remember happened when I was in Iowa getting my PhD. Second life. Recently divorced and going back to school, I had left Chicago after living there for over 30 years. A new state in more ways than one. My teaching assistant buddy in my department decided we were going to join a softball league. (Was it so he could spend more time with the girl he just met? I can't be sure. But I do remember she was on the team.) His enthusiasm undeniable, we of course said of course we will play softball this summer.
I had never played softball. I don't even like softball. But play softball we did.
Iowa City (or was it Coralville?) had just built a new park with a bunch of ball fields. It was hot and the sod hadn't taken hold yet, so the park district didn't want anyone playing on the fields during the day. Being summer in Iowa, it was as hot and humid as hell itself, so this wasn't a bad idea. But at night, we were pincushions. The mosquitos as big as helicopters, many of us fell to exsanguination. We swung at the mossies more passionately than the softballs.
So there I was wearing my jersey, a new mitt on the passenger seat, driving to play softball at 11 pm on a Tuesday in Iowa. I had one of those moments. My consciousness left my body and wondered what the hell had happened to my life. What is actually happening right now? Why do I have a baseball mitt? What am I doing in Iowa? WHAT IS GOING ON? Who is this person?
I had no answers. I just laughed hard to myself. How weird life is. And the team? We were terrible. We might have lost every game. But my TA buddy married the girl, so it was all worth it.
Another moment happened quite recently. Third life. I had gotten up -- without an alarm -- at 4:15 am on a Saturday. Had a coffee. Packed my changing robe, towels, wetsuit booties and jacket, hat, and surfboard in the car by 4:40. I had already put on my wetsuit bottoms and suntan lotion. I drove my car 40 minutes south on The 5 to San Onofre State Beach. My nine-foot foamie level with my right ear, smushed all the way up against the windshield, passenger seat fully reclined to accommodate this, I had no visibility to my right so stayed in the right lane the whole way. All this effort in order get in line at San O to surf at Dogpatch. Arriving by 5:30, I'm waiting in line in the dark on a road I don't recognize. Sitting in the car, totally have to pee, I'm playing the Wordle and texting in the What's App chat group with the other girls who were doing the same thing. Marine layer fog obscuring everything but the car in front of me whose license plate said, "[heart] TO SRF."
I found this so amusing. I was just giggling when, again [a great slurping noise sound effect] I leave my body to scan the scene. What is Dogpatch? Who are these people? Why am I wearing a wetsuit? Why am I in the car at 5:30? Is this a dream? Who is this person and when did this happen?
How strange life is. How utterly hilarious when we stop to think about it. Rilke wrote, “O Lord, give each person his own personal death. / A thing that moves out of the same life he lived, / In which he had love, and intelligence, and trouble.”
So many lives. So many absolutely unpredictable lives. There is a marvelous quote in the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She wrote, "My thoughts turn to something I read once, something the Zen Buddhists believe. They say that an oak tree is brought into creation by two forces at the same time. Obviously, there is the acorn from which it all begins, the seed which holds all the promise and potential, which grows into a tree. Everybody can see that. But only a few can recognize that there is anther force operating here as well -- the future tree itself, which wants so badly to exist that it pulls the acorn into being, drawing the seedling forth with longing out of the void, guiding the evolution from nothingness to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born." Had I known that a 56-year old surfer girl was pulling me forward, my second life would have been far easier to take.
And of course, had I known, then so much of what has happened wouldn't have happened, would it? I wouldn't find so much meaning in the Sisterhood were it not for the long years of loneliness. I wouldn't find such succor in the feeling of healthy, boundaried love if it wasn't for the first life love that left me wanting.
The Buddhists have an idea that I'm working to understand. They believe there is no self. No actual permanent and unchanging essence that exists apart from other things. BTG said, "You are a process, not a thing," as a human being. "A flowing consciousness." Who I am is always dependent upon many other things. I am the result of people and experiences in my past, seeds planted, actions taken along the way, and I am always interacting with experiences, thoughts, things, and communities in my present, whether a farmhouse under the stars, a softball mitt, or a surfboard. When I look around for my Self, I can't actually grasp it. I had a thought. When did it start? When did it end? I had a feeling. When did it start? When did it end? I can't actually pinpoint it. Who am I apart from my community? The language I speak, the ideas I hold so dear, even my actual body, are all the result of other people and their ideas and decisions. Each of us arises anew each moment through interaction with our world. When I try to nail down the thing we call the Self, it's slippery, elusive, ungraspable. Constantly flowing like waves. Interdependence and impermanence are the only permanent facts of life.
If I can't nail down my Self, then who is to blame? Who needs to be perfect? Can I be invisible if I'm already invisible? If I've led three distinct big lives, and countless other small ones, then who has abandoned who? No self sets me free, loosens me up. I can let go of my rigid identities, beliefs, and assumptions about myself and how life works. I can really sink into not knowing and bearing witness as a way of life. If I can just stay with it...
Alas. The irony.
The Buddhists have a wonderful way of thinking about death. You can hear Chidi from The Good Place explain the wave returning to the ocean here. BTG shared how Thich Nhat Hahn wrote about it: "A wave on the ocean has a beginning and an end, a birth and a death. But Avalokiteshvara tells us that the wave is empty. The wave is full of water, but it is empty of a separate self. A wave is a form that has been made possible, thanks to the existence of wind and water. If a wave only sees its form, with its beginning and end, it will be afraid of birth and death. But if the wave sees that it is water and identifies itself with the water, then it will be emancipated from birth and death. Each wave is born and is going to die, but the water is free from birth and death." Endless. Beginningless.
Pema Chodron wrote that, "...opening to death will help you open to life... death is not just something that happens at the end of our life. Death happens every moment. We live in a wondrous flow of birth and death, birth and death. The end of one experience is the beginning of the next experience, which quickly comes to its own end, leading to a new beginning. It’s like a river continuously flowing.”
No essence. No self. A flowing consciousness, ever and always changing with experience, opening up if you're lucky. If I can identify with the water and not the wave, then I can see that this is the part of me that has always been safe. Like a wave sliding under me, this idea is slippery to me; I can't quite catch it. But something about it is revealed in those out of body stories. I have lived many lives and who knows what's next? If a 56-year-old surfer girl pulled me this far, who is pulling me forward now? I can't wait to meet her. I wonder if she has a dog.
Back on the beach, I focus on my toes in the scratchy sand, the shells at my feet. I turn to look south down the beach and see how the color of the water changes to a deeper blue as I look away from the setting sun. A dolphin pops up in the distance. A squadron of pelicans lumbers by. Sandpipers and plovers race the waves in and out. Deep breaths.
Local summer is about to begin. The best time of year. Skies get clear. We can see Catalina Island in the distance. Water is cool but not cold. Waves are soft. Tourists are safely ensconced back in their homes, crowds disappear. More space. More freedom. More air to breathe. The light shines lower in the sky, creating an entirely different feel from the intensity of summer. Everything is gentler. Only the locals gather to see what surf we can catch. And I'm a local now. I'm a local.
Startled out of my peaceful reverie, I was irritated when one of those motorized paragliders spluttered into view in the air above me. They are so loud. Looks like a fun ride, but the noise would just ruin the experience for me. These days my only craving is silence and the whisper of waves. The pilot did some lazy loops, floating over the water, then over the beach, then back out to sea. I watched for a long time, lulled by the buzzing sound. As he came closer, I noticed writing on the parachute. I see these gliders all of the time, but have never seen writing on the chute. It comes into focus. A word. A single word.
Nirvana. It said nirvana.
I laughed out loud.
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