Surfing

Now I know why I want to learn to surf. This morning as I sat meditating this question popped into my head: If my left-brained, analytical skills were a thing, what would they be? Uh, yeah I practice meditation. My monkey mind is quite wild. But it’s fun to watch her swinging through the trees. Anyway, the memory of a dream popped up as the answer.

It was a beautiful, warm sunny day. A light breeze gently brushed my skin. I was at a beach, a wide cove, at low tide. I walked out to a jumble of large boulders lying exposed in the sun in the middle of the cove. I climbed up onto a big flat rock and practiced some yoga, some mediation. As the tide turned back in I saw my dad standing over on the beach, opposite from where I had started out to the rocks. He called “Do you need a towel?” His voice was faint as the cove was so wide. I called back “Nope. I’m fine.”

The water continued to rise as the tide flooded into the cove. The sky turned dark and cloudy. The wind no longer brushed gently. It gusted irritably. A sudden storm was approaching. The deep water was now being churned by waves. Anxiety swamped me. I no longer felt safe. And from the shore my dad’s voice reached me “Do you need a towel?” The waves, the wind, the distance - how could I even hear him? I thought “A towel? You think I need a towel? I need you to get a boat and come rescue me.” But I knew he couldn’t hear me. He was as calm and unconcerned as he’s always been, confident in my abilities.

I looked back and saw a huge wave stretching upwards, curling, ready to break over me. Preparing to crush me into the rocks. I was crouched, cowering on, the rocks that had so recently been a place of grace and tranquility, supporting me. That’s when I woke up.

I was shaking a bit as I walked down the hall to check on my kids. Waking up more seemed like a really good idea - a way to shake my dream. As I made my way I realized that I had walked out to those rock, and not climbed up more than a few feet. The water wasn’t that deep. My dad was right to be unconcerned. I could hop off those rocks and walk to shore. All I needed was a towel.

In the morning I thought about what the dream meant. I had all sorts of ideas of what the rocks, the water, the waves symbolized. At that time the wave was my fear. Fear of the unknown. I had recently enrolled in a course that is taking my life in new directions. But this morning I experienced that wave as the surging and dominating power of my analytical mind threatening to crush all the emergent creativity in me. I want to harness that power for fun and creative expression. I want to surf that wave.