November 03, 2013
It’s 1AM on Sunday. I’m
having coffee and choco-bread while I write at the kitchen table. The crickets are in concert in the jungle-of-a-yard beside ours.
Time slips by lazily when you
live by an ocean which attunes your life to its rhythms. Nothing hurries the
waves and the tides, nor slows them down. The pace is relaxed and persistent,
almost monotonous, save for the beauty of the moving water and the hypnotic
sound of the softly-crashing sea, from sunup to sundown.
It's a lesson in living: steady as you go. Don't be hurried and let your deeper waters be undisturbed.
Right now the two boys are
cooking the small fish that they caught from the seawall across the street.
Their catch will be made into inan onan: fish cooked in vinegar, salt, onions
and garlic. The two octopi Joseph yanked from under the rocks are in an
adjoining caldera (pot), on the other burner of the stove.
It has been a delight for me
to witness the excitement of these two boys, as they charge ahead in whatever
activity has captured their hearts for the moment: swimming, fishing, catching
octopus or resting - between bouts of energetic, water-related activities - on
the seawall or at the guardhouse that sits over the beach, a block away.
I feel like a teenager again
when I see Clyde bound out of his room in the morning and head for the brine.
Sometimes he doesn't stop for breakfast or even to relieve his bladder. Joseph is always right behind, but stays
around long enough to do some chores first, a responsibility which Clyde will jump over or run around with the combined,
practiced skills of a hurdler and a wide receiver.
Witnessing the exuberance of the two of them has taken me back to the long-forgotten experience of pure joy at being totally
involved in nature’s gifts and the spontaneity of living from the heart, in full appreciation for
life.
