As we were driving to the coast, I could finally remember what it was that I love so much here... It is not the country, which is after all only a name, with unfriendly associations (for me). It is the land... Lush shades of green, high cliffs overlooking the bluest of the bluest, there, where the sky mixes with the ocean...
And trust me, I have been to many beaches in my life. My travels have taken me all the way to the Indian Ocean, which is magnificent, populated with the most colorful and interesting lifeforms, and on whose shores one finds paradisaical spas and jewels of small hotels, where the life of the tourist is, indeed, heavenly. I have also been to the Caribbean, where you can lay in the water all day while pelicans lounge nearby and you just relax while Piña Colada oozes endlessly into your glass, never half-empty... I've swum with sharks and turtles and rays in the blue waters, and as a child, I was a regular at the Cote d'Azur Mediterranean sea, from the shores of Camargues to the small creek at Théoule-sur-Mer, where I spent most of my summers. I even swam in the cold North Sea, while vacationing at the Oléron Peninsula, or in the Atlantic shores of Bretagne summers. I've walked through the Aegean Sea, in Crete, with a group of buddies, fully clothed, (by the way, that is one of the joyful moments of my life that I will never forget). More recently I even crossed the Baltic Sea with a bunch of Dharma friends, and actually scuba dived - without scubas - in the Adriatic Sea with my boyfriend a couple of months ago. So you could say I know a thing or two when it comes to great masses of water...
So, my friends, believe me... The Pacific Ocean is something else entirely!!!
First of all, the name... come on!!! Could it possibly be more enthralling? "Pacific"... that is, of course, the last thing you'd think upon looking at the wild upsurge and breaking of the waves. And yet it is, pacific, in the sense that swimming in these waters transforms you... Today, for example, was magical! As I stood there, staring, in absolute fascination, the Ocean's only witness except for a lone fisherman, some distance away, the waves hit and crashed in almost miraculous ways... I wished I had my camera with me and had been able to catch a special moment, when a tall wall of crystal water rised, fascinating, transparent, only to crash and disappear in the world's largest bubble bath one second later. It was so magnificent, I almost felt like clapping, and although I did not clap, I screamed! I screamed in glee, in wonder and amazement, in gratitude at being there, and then just stripped and ran to the water.
It was fresh and deep and playful and it opened up to me like a mother to her estranged child. I dived and swam and laughed for a long long time. Both Maïa and Glo came to join me after a while, and we all felt brand new... like somehow the sea had taken all our worries, all our preoccupations, all negativity, all fear to a deep far away abyss, and replaced them with open space... space to be happy, space to be radiant, space to be nothing but to only exist.
We even flew a kite! Maïa brought hers. It's an orange Koi fish, and it flew high over our heads, brilliant against a deep blue sky. After the afternoon nap, in a brightly colored hammock (oh how I have missed those!), I meditated on the beach, while my kid jumped in the waves at low tide. The sun set and ignited the sea with pink, the sky ablazed... All I could feel was space enveloping me, and time was an illusion, I could only think "If this is not real - and somehow it is not - then mind is truly the most wonderful adventure."
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