I’ve been thinking a lot about waves, especially since this past weekend.
On Saturday, I found myself at Bluff Point State Park https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/State-Parks/Parks/Bluff-Point-State-Park which is a wooded, flat trail opening up onto the bluffs of Long Island Sound.
The day was warm and as we emerged from the woods, a thick fog shrouded the beach. When we reached the point, my friend suggested I go for a swim.
“But, I didn’t bring a suit or towel,” I lamented.
“No one can see.”
It was the truth. The fog made it difficult to see 20 yards away.
So, I hopped in.
The water was delightfully chilly, definitely colder than the lake I had just dipped in that morning. I moved in a mirage, the green tinged water, clear enough to see plant life and ridges of sand below as I swam out. Ferries bellowed almost constantly somewhere beyond me, WHOOOO echoing in the distance. The water rocked me back and forth as I rolled onto my back.
Although there were not really waves, there was a definite gentle undulation of peacefulness that carried me in its cool embrace, back and forth, back and forth. The cloak of fog gave it an ephemeral quality. I looked around. It could have been a dream.
What were the chances? The weather had to be perfect, to create the fog, in this place and time, just as I got here. My whole being said Thank you!
A poem came to mind, especially these stanzas:
“Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.”
-Theodore Roethke
See the full poem https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43333/the-waking-56d2220f25315
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On Sunday, I was lunching outdoors with a dear family. B. parked his range finder next to my chair, knowing full well my curiosity would get the better of me!
“What is this?” As much as I love Nature, this translates into an adoration of science and gadgetry.
He explained and showed me how to use his laser range finder. A West Point grad, former veteran he now uses it to compete in the precision rifle series. What?! I had never heard of such a thing.
“Is that like target shooting?”
“For snipers,” his wife interjected.
They shoot targets from 10-1000 yards in a variety of environmental settings. To get a feel for the competition watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-28GHR0Q2LA
Pretty wild.
The conversation moved on to barrel harmonics, something I had previously never heard. A bullet does not travel straight down the barrel of a gun, he explained, it moves in a wave form down the barrel.
All the calculations using sine and cosine for ultrasonics these past few years popped into my brain. Math is a beautiful science, reproduced from Nature.
Waves again, in a totally different framework.
What is the Universe telling me? Waves! it seemed to scream this past weekend. Waves in the ocean and the way they feel. The ups, the downs, the gentle rocking. So much of life is up and down – jobs, relationships, even this pandemic. Crests and troughs, life offers both and the journey really is the movement along that sine curve, up and down, up and down.
“What falls away is always. And is near.” Falling away, drawing near. Up and down. We are all just surfing, wherever you are in the life curve.
Let’s ride those waves together.
Leave me a note, even one word to tell me the wave you are currently riding. What is keeping your head above water? Xo
