Californication, Day 1

The best place to begin a story, is...well the beginning. And sure, I have a few literary options on how I can tell this story but I am not here to have a discussion of literary styles. Today, I am here to discuss my escape into solitude.

I am small. I am so small.

I don't know how many times that very thought entered my mind as I stared off into the immensity of the ocean. I would close my eyes and I felt the ocean air wrap me tightly in a solitude and at the same time with a the connectedness of the Universe. I am small.

Sometimes I just need to get away and I wanted to go alone, to a place where I could only find myself and that is what indeed happened. I went to the very place I had been trying to avoid for so long--Monterey Bay. Actually, Day 1 consisted of going to Big Sur which is off of Highway 1. Needless to say it is extremely beautiful.
In the solitude of the road, I realized I was very happy driving. I don't think I've been happy driving since I was sixteen years old. I was so alone and there I was confronted with myself, a person I knew and I liked. I never knew the day would come that I would be confident and proud of my accomplishments. Furthermore, I also realized that I much rather be alone than to be in an unhappy situation, which I was for so long.

Honestly, I left Sacramento without much of a plan. I had a place to stay and I packed enough food and clothes for three days, just in case I didn't come back on Sunday as planned. So when I arrived early afternoon Saturday, instead of staying close to Pacific Grove, I decided to keep driving on Highway 1. My initial decision did not include going to Big Sur but I did contemplate the thought briefly because I wanted to see Climbing Poe Tree at the Spirit Garden. Things didn't go as planned. Instead I went to Pfeiffer Beach and stayed there ALL DAY LONG until sunset.

I can't even tell you exactly what I did aside from taking a few pictures and meditating. Wait, let me rephrase this, that is all I did. I went to the beach and I laid there and meditated on the sound of the waves for nearly three hours. Yes, that's right: THREE HOURS, I thought of nothing else but the sound of waves. There was a faint whisper and all I could hear is, We are one and You are small.

The Sunset was creeping onto me and I realized that it was probably not a good idea to be alone on a desolate beach after dark. Therefore I gathered by belonging and walked to my car. Little did I know that waiting for me on Highway 1 was one of the most beautiful scenes in nature that I would ever come to see. A fog was beginning to come in and this created something like an optical illusion. It seemed like the fog was like another ocean in the sky. I want to say that the photographs that I took captured this emotion well but this is a lie. It does not compare to the entire experience of colors and the scent of the fresh oceanic air.

The night would have been perfected had I stayed in Big Sur to watch Climbing Poe Tree but I didn't want to drive back in the darkness of the late night back to Pacific Grove. But like I said the sunset was amazing and I took so many pictures. I want to include them all but they could never justify the evocation of the moment. If I could just describe the feeling...if I could just hand over the peace I felt in that moment I would share it with the world. Now I understand why the Transcendentalists believed in returning to nature. The immensity of nature makes you believe...makes you feel Spiritual.
I know I could this spirituality here at home, in the local nature but I feel that the solitude of this area is so incomparable. Besides there is no beach, close to home, that compares.
In any case, I felt so good and lucky that I had the opportunity to go to Big Sur for the first time in my life. This was a perfect day, despite the four hours I spent in the car and anyone that knows me, knows that I can barely stand fifteen minutes in the car let alone driving. Yes, it was a good day...