Alcatraz II

I signed up. It's official.

I promised last year that if I did Alcatraz this year, it would be skin--that is, no wetsuit. But sitting here, bundled in my post-yoga sweat shirt, I just could not bring myself to check the "skin" box.

If it is warm enough--that is 62 degrees or higher--I will try. But I cannot swim in 55 degree water without a wetsuit. I do not have a frigid enough body of water to practice in. That is my excuse! And, after last year, and reading Lynn Cox's amazing book, Swimming to Antarctica, I now know that getting your body used to cold water is a serious undertaking that takes commitment, and, to the truly dedicated, perhaps a month without hot tubs or warm showers. No!

I am swimming again because this year my brother will swim, and my aunt (again) and my cousin (I hope) and my soon-to-be 70 year old father. I worry about him a little. He tends to overestimate how far he can swim, and believe the water he trains in is colder than it is, and go into various kinds of shocks during extreme athletic events. But to not do this event, I think, would kill him. Last year it crushed him that three members of his family did this crazy endeavor without him. So this year he will swim. And my gift to him on his 70th birthday, is that I will swim, too. I believe he will live. And he will do it. But, I tell myself, because I worry just a little, if he does get in over his head, he will be threatening his life doing something that he dreams of doing, and that makes him feel alive. I want to be like that. So I am lending my support.

So I am in!

Sharks, cold, Alcatraz, waves, lightning, San Francisco, here I come again!!!!

The Art of Waiting

This is a deer we saw on on one of our most magical hikes during our stay at Stinson. It appeared out of the mist, and stood before us. It was the only spectacular sighting we could capture on film. During our two weeks we also saw: a great white shark fin, flipping seals, diving pelicans, a spotted owl, a whale spouting, a domesticated wolf from Montana named Masai and a shower of shooting stars.

Some of these sightings were ordinary (but still wonderful) and some extraordinary. But each felt like a touch of grace, a piece of magic, a blessing or a visitation. The deer, the pelicans, the leaping seals--if you went out you would see them, and they were wonderful. Other animals or sights we would go in search of. Maybe we would see them, and maybe we wouldn't. We had no control.

You could go to the place, you could sit down, and then you could wait. There were no guarantees (as I had to tell Theo and Benji over and over). You just had to be there, in the right place, and then open your mind, your eyes, your peripheral vision, and be alert. Trying hard wouldn't help. Neither would getting impatient.

And I thought a lot about myself and how I walk through life. I try so hard. I try hard to make the people I love happy. I try hard to be a good mama. I tried so hard to be a great journalist. I try hard to do good in the world and to make my house clean. I try hard to work out and keep my mind alert. I am always trying. When I was younger--working in Japan for my Japanese parliamentarian--I got to go down and get a shiatsu from the women who massaged and worked on the backs of all the Japanese politicians. As I lay there in the bowels of the Diet building in the middle of Tokyo, the masseuse to the politicians told me: Gambarisugiru. You try too hard.

And I thought, as I sat looking for wild animal visitations and shooting stars, that is NOT how you do it. You cannot will things to happen. And they often are not more likely to happen just because you really really try and you really really want them to. You have an obligation: work hard, get to the place where you can see, park yourself and be still. Then, and only then, can the magic happen, can the animals appear, can the stars shower down.

If you get impatient, if you keep shifting your gaze, if you get jealous of the person next to you who saw the whale spout when you didn't, you will not see. You just have to go into the zone of looking and waiting.

So yes, we must try. But once we get to the right place--psychological, geographical, physical, emotional -- we must just wait and be open. And even then, there are no guarantees. And if that beauty comes, if it chooses to show itself to you, that is grace. And how much more incredible it is because you cannot guarantee it through hard work, effort, will. That is the magic.

Has that ever happened to you?