2-17-2011 Muir Beach. After nearly a month of balmy sunny and altogether un-wintery weather, we are in another storm cycle. Lots of snow in the Sierras, lots of wind and rain on the coast. Driving across the San Rafael bridge from Chevron in Point Richmond to San Quentin in Marin (reality and metaphor; Big Oil linked to Big Law Enforcement) the wind whipped the car and rain splashed against the windows. Amalia, now 8, and Joaquin still 5 were full of joyful planning for going to the beach. It was crepuscular, the beginnings of night, and an exciting time for mammals. Our visual systems are tuned to such changes. We shift from daylights color/cone vision to nights more sensitive monotone/rod vision. Visual fields with rod vision are larger, and the information flows differently in the 4 layers of processing that happen in the retina itself, milliseconds before the brain has any idea of what’s happening. So in twilight the brain is vacillating between states of interpretation. The mechanisms we use to enhance edges, to be sure we see the action that might terminate or extend our genetic chances, cast interesting shadows on the scene. It’s a great time to imagine things.
We reached home with the ice cream and the broccoli after dark, the kids still amped up to go down to the water. Fuji, who had been left behind at home, was dancing excitedly around, and game for anything. And then Osha appeared at the door, having already walked down to the beach. When I had talked to him earlier, he had said he was thinking of driving out to do a ceremonial birthday swim. But had decided not, since he was alone, he said. Not anymore!! It wasn’t particularly cold, and from where we were, behind the house, there wasn’t even that much wind. It was dark, of course, and wet. But the kids were already getting into boots and coats. In the headlights of the car, inadvertently left on, Joaquin discovered he could see the rain as a little string of dots. For me perhaps a dash of sparkle, where my flicker fusion frequency interprets the movement as a string of light, rather than recording the momentary position of the falling rain drop.
Joaquin, dressed in a yellow raincoat and black boots, and Amalia, wearing her dependable green wool coat and also boots (a grandmother present from last week) and both equipped with their own LED camping headlights positively capered down the road towards the beach. Fuji capered right along with them, the tiny tinkling noise that her two dog tags make helping to locate her otherwise dark passage. We kind of depend on that noise, since she is otherwise very foxlike in getting under fences and gates, and through hedges. Osha and I stumped along behind the kids, he with two bamboo sticks, and me clutching three towels. Adults intermittently blinded by headlights, with much kiddish amusement, making light of our squawks of protest.
We turn down into Cove Lane, and get a gust of wind off the water. Filled with raindrops and the ironic smell of seaweed, the usual beach smell symphony. A little colder, a reminder of the reality of swimming into a Pacific storm. And the noise of the waves breaking, already very audible from the house, increases. It echos off the sides of this little arroyo, and the stream that runs down the middle is gurgly with runoff energy. We are becoming surrounded by the noises that water and air make when they meet land. Elemental. The only fire around is the relatively tame combustion that all us mammals carry around inside, burning glucose and fat, night and day, literally the fire of life.
Cove Lane’s asphalt ends with a concrete water bar angling across the road, a dangerous obstacle for 70 year olds at night, but we negotiate it without difficulty. The kids, dancing lights and excited screams in the growing noise of the waves, are well on ahead, hopping and skipping down the past rather steep path, laid over railroad ties as steps. Fuji is a soaked rat already, and doesn’t really like all this water. She doubles back, a fast moving wraith in the low light, wanting to be reassured it’s OK. Luckily she and Osha’s walking sticks avoid each other somehow. We descend the railway tie steps and begin on the 20 feet of loose and slippery rocks mounded up at the top of the beach. Summer’s, the sand comes back to cover most of this. Winter’s, the sand goes out to reveal the hard reality of the land here. Tonight, the tide is low, the sand looms ahead in the headlight, an indeterminate stretch of smoothness, and then the white shifting phosphorescence of the breaking waves.
The kids small shrieks thread through the lower pitch of crashing water. With violin like clarity, the noises of the branches of Monterey cedars, and the tinkling gurgles of the stream add their contribution to the tumult. Rain whipped horizontal by the wind splatters against eyes.
This space between water and wind, between air and land, between us and all of that is what we have come for.
This is insane, hollers Osha. Yes, I agree, but we gonna do it! Go in? Absolutely!!
The kids leap and caper, their lights drawing exciting figures against the storm. They are safe on the sand; with the tide out, only a very large rogue could offer any danger, and they both know about calling loudly for help. Osha and I grope and stagger with our 70 year old proprioceptors and reflexes to a large log sitting above the tideline. It takes longer than it did only a few decades ago. We take off shoes, socks, pants, underwear and finally, discarding the sticks and the headlights, our shirts, sweaters and jackets.. and we are naked in the storm.
Too late to change course. Holding hands, we walk out across the smooth firm cold sand. Cold…nothing compared to what is waiting. Ahead, the farther breaking waves seem to pile up, so high they must sweep us away when they arrive. But at our feet, only small piles of foam over our toes. The kids are a few yards away, happy noises as they run away and return to tease the next wave. And we go on.
Now the waves have more substance, and definitely they are cold. Keep on walking. Now we are vocalizing, those more primitive noises that over educated old guys make when they are intentionally walking into the waves of a Pacific storm in Northern California. Ohhh!!! Ahhhhhh!!!! Yow!!!!!
The waves are fast, about 6-7 seconds between. And we keep walking, I want to get to a point where we will be completely covered when we finally yield and fall into the water.
And here it comes, a dark wall with just a hint of white along the upper edge. As it nears us, the noise begins, a delicate ripping noise, as the water begins to fall back into itself, pushed by the pressure of the wave. Within seconds, moving at 10 mph as it slows, the wave is breaking, there is white foam and water everywhere, and we are bowled over, knocked down, swirled around and surrounded by water and air and sound and cold.
We struggle to our feet, shouting, and turn, head back towards the beach, the kids, the sand, the trees, towels, our clothes, our shoes, our sticks, the wet dog and the deliriously happy storm fed children.
Alan
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