Saltwater into Wine

Things are becoming hazier in the Pacific, as swells rise and blood oxygen levels drop, we see a fluctuation in brain waves not unlike housing prices. Forever up, on the rise, only when it's not.

A smart man once told me that everything works if you let it.

We're back in that place now, the ancient Zone, free from clutter and window dressing, just out, doing, going. It's not passive, nor active. We are fabric now, stretched and contracted, moving in unison with all other fibers. Deals are made with ease, everything tinted with gold, the future spreads out before us like an endless fruit plate.

The call this place the "country", but if you get beyond the roosters and stray cats, it's really more of a thought pattern than a geographical area. Are we far away from the city? Well sure, as far away as Maple Grove is from Anytown USA. But aren't we far from everything out here? The sun, moon, stars... all at impossible distances. Our remoteness gives birth not to loneliness, but to perspective. Ah, that word again. You heard it here about the Land of the Long White Cloud, and here it is again. Up the mountain, flatten it out, get underneath it... whatever you've got to do, just give it some perspective. So when you're there, you can't really talk about "there". You can only go elsewhere and look back. That's what makes climbing cliffs so fun... you get to go, and come back. But at least you get to Think. Something that is often missing back in Ye Olde Nort.

Adventures here are a way of life, you take your life into your hands every day, and you can't help but move and explore. That's the reason for all this green... a constant churning of life and water, land and tide, produces a fantastic realm of imagination. But you don't have to imagine shit - it's all right here. Every 30 yards there is another beach entrance, another hidden cave, a secluded walk. They don't write about these things. You drive up to the edge with your car and then you drive further. If land gets boring, as it is immovable, into the surf we go, breakers be damned.

I suppose it is like a prayer, or at least a mantra. Only when it becomes a way of life does it truly start to matter. I can dip my toes in, I can stick my whole foot in, but until I feel it wash over me and fight like all hell to keep it from pulling me to the brink of death, I will not understand it. To sit on a board out here in the rising swell is to commit to this Way. I'm an outsider, sure. But you can't tell me this isn't living.

If you could pray to yourself, what would you ask for?