Perhaps it is the jet lag which is stripping me raw to feel all my senses, or the immersion into the continual sensorial flow of sights and sounds in Paris that I exited on Wednesday, but my perception into re-entry in Los Angeles has a ebullient quality of discovery. Point Dume, a beach I have frequented often over the years deep into Malibu, sparkled etherially, like we were on the moon. The sand beckoned, tepid and cushioned, and the surf razored, hard, and pulling, the cold slicing across our torsos like a knife on frozen cake. A long time resident of Los Angeles, this scene could have felt replayed, but today seaside nature appeared fresh and new. A sweeping gratitude for the ability to drive out 20 miles from my home and land in the undulation of the crashing ocean, the tinkle of the ice cream truck, laughter of children and the gentle breeze masking the driving force of the sun.
We walked to the climb up to the top of Point Dume, popular for its similarity to what one may find on the coast of Cornwall, rugged, craggy and blue ocean stretching beyond the human eye. As we navigated the path, hair tangled with the salt of the sea, and our flip flops looking to find traction in the sandy path, I saw a tangle of sea creatures far below. My companion first pointed like one does when encountering a pod of dolphins or seals.
“Look!” he said, indicating great gratitude for this visual gift of the sea.
Not so much the case.
The squirming, squiggly mass brought me immediate dread. Danger. A witnessing of nature’s cruel course came to mind. I scanned the other observers, a young girl filming with her camera, a couple smiling as he held her from behind. Stop, I wanted to say. Death is happening.
“Are those fins?” I said. I felt a little woozy. Partly the time difference in Paris, but largely my association with what came next. The one mournful call of the sea lion.
Baby great white sharks, three of them, were making a meal of a sea lion. No blood was evident, but you knew. The white flashes the predators bodies in the moving sea, the insistent fins, the brown body of the sea lion.
“Oh my God,” I said. “They are eating that sea lion alive.”
“Shit, you might be right,” he said.
We moved on. The pain of witnessing nature unfolding its cruel but necessary course had put a slight pall for the moment on our romantic walk. But then I had to rethink that point of view. Our relationships are shaped and built by how we deal with all our experiences, not just how we bask in the good. Witnessing an experience raw and untidy juxtaposed to the romantic and carefree walk gave our time together even more heft. We are walking through this whole world, not just one part. By the sea, open, untangled by email, phones, the ever moving concrete world, we saw the world unvarnished and held steady. We had plunged into the wider scope, and watched that which exists within.
We took no pictures for this day. Not by any kind of disrespect for the memories. We were too inside their interiority. Walking hand in hand back to our car, the sun was indicating its gradual decent from our sky. Our minds and hearts were captured by our aliveness in this moment. Once 9 hours apart, and reunited, what was, the absence of each other had died to make way for the new birth of time now. Lying on the sand, looking at it meet the edge of the ocean, time passed without consequence. We were in the vortex of reality, but holding it loose. Hoping we could retain this sense of not clinging to anything. The impermanence of all things. What comes and goes. What stays.
Find that nature producing, regenerating and dying all around you. Engage with it and allow its raw essence to open you.
Question time. Question death. It will speak to you its never-ending truth.