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Picture of the Day
 Thursday
February 22, 2024
spacer today was first time this year morning sun poked above the treetops out back, lighting up the catio to much rejoicing among me and the cats. our house is in shade four months of twelve but today we crossed the line into brighter times. around noon, sarah returned from 4 days working in seattle and after catching up over coffee we walked to the spit, where the glassy salish sea and sky put on quite a show, one mirroring the other. though cloudy when we got there, i was inspired enough to go back across the street to put on my wetsuit and grab a SUP. by the time i returned the sun had come out and i paddled for the first time since october. when i lived on maui, i knew a guy who built a suspended meditation platform for a big time hollywood celebrity and i thought of them as i sat cross-legged with the sun on my face--how workers sprout like mushrooms in the shadow of the rich to satisfy their whims--but i had to admit there's something to closing one's eyes and focusing on breath detached from solid ground. reflected sunlight flickered pink and black under my eyelids, psychedelic. a lone boat motored by on the far side of the channel, out of earshot by the time its wake reached me and i gently bobbed atop the swell, then watched it refract off the shore back to me, greatly diminished but creating an intricate interference pattern on the surface, an unimaginably complex weave in its particulars but effortless in its unfolding. just then a flock of birds flew low close by, flashing white undersides in unison as they whooshed through the still air. they did that twice as they streaked back and forth in between me and the land. allen ginsberg taught me mindful breathing: start at the tip of the nose and follow it into the lungs, imagine it blue on the inhale, trace its path to the extremities, then exhale red, taking all the body's perturbations with it. i'm good for about one or two breaths free of intrusive thoughts. i'm more of an action meditator, so i slipped into the water and dove under. that's when thinking ceases, in the pure exhileration of dissolving in the salty embrace of our mother the sea, existence stripped to its essentials. ...and this is a breadcrumb trail back to that feeling.