Sunrise Mojo

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Isla Vista, CA 29 Years Old

Eyes open easy with the first birds of morning in the silver coastal fog. Serene breeze glides in through my open window.

I breathe deep and set a meditation timer…20 minutes.

Both hands laid on my stomach, eyes closed I drop straight into belly breathing to cleanse the inner sanctum, before there’s even been a single thought…

Long, deep, slow, lung-expanding, hyper-oxygenating breaths. Body becomes loose, tension melts inside. Hushed crescendo of morning waves roll along the shoreline.

Soothing breeze drifts on skin’s tingly touch, with every exhalation time evaporates. Until I am a lake without ripples…still.

200 full breaths later, I roll left and peek through the curtain, sky in cool cerulean pre-dawn glow, new warm light for paradise.

I slide open the big side door and brush and spray turquoise foam on the golden meadow beside the vessel.

A liter of water guzzled over a passage from the Tao Te Ching in the early haze. This was my dream and now it’s here.

Prop the 100-watt solar panel on the roof rack to save some sunshine. In this half-hispanic beach town north of Santa Barbara…it is a great thing just to be alive.

10 minutes of yoga to awaken the biomachine. All systems go.

Morning

I pop my old steel frame mountain bike off the rack and ride in whatever direction feels right.

Stop by a small-town coffee shop for a $2 random roast to google whatever new question intrigues. Today’s it’s “samurai wisdom” and “real impactful heroes” across the generations.

There are so many good things happening in the world. There is plenty of hope.

Knobby black tires spew golden dust plumes in the salty ocean air, drifting across the mesa to ocean cliffs on the 21-speed mountain smasher…firing the rear brake in turns so the back wheel kicks out and the stomach drops.

An hour passes basking in the white sand with my soul friend Lila, when she spots spouts in the sea.
The spouts dissolve and then reappear closer…a pod of dolphins….only 40 feet from shore!

A quick glance and we are both thinking the same thing…”Should we?”

Smiling, we move smooth to white waves and duck dive the chop til we’re treading a hundred feet ahead of the fountain spouts.

“Be very still…”

“PFSHHH!!” a sudden blast of water and a shiny gleaming flipper 15 feet away. “PFFSSHH!!” another right behind us.

We look each other in the eyes with electric awe… they are circling us!

We dip our heads underwater and click to them and they click back and squeal…exuberant elation in the language beyond words.

We come up for air as one stoked dolphin shoots from the water and soars with his white belly shimmering. We cannot believe this is real.

Then out pops the tiny silver flipper of a baby dolphin learning to glide along with the pack, and now we are also in the pack.

”PFFFSHHH” a water blast so close we could smell his seafood breath. His wide curious eyes investigate our wide curious eyes…loud moment of soul sensing soul.

When they pass we splash back to shore giddy in a whole new dimension. It is so good to let go of fear and dive in.

The best things in life are alive!

Afternoon

Today I have a special mission…a promise to keep.

I stop by the grocery store and buy five giant bags of candy, wrap them in a neat package, and set off for a little house.

I took a job this winter as an algebra tutor for struggling kids. 13-year-olds who were falling behind. We’d meet at the library and have 1.5 hour one-on-one sessions.

For the past five weeks, I’ve been dealing with a very special case. A girl who was getting a 28% in class. She doesn’t seem to care about anything.

She cussed me out the first few times we met. Spent the whole 90 minutes saying the most insulting and cruel things she could fathom.

It felt horrible. I’d leave those sessions feeling so worthless. Awake in the middle of the night, soaked in her cruel words.

The program permits you to drop a student at any time. After one very cruel session, I held the phone in my hand, ready to nix it.

Then a new feeling rose. About the situation this girl was born into. No father, a family who doesn’t speak English, a gang culture within a materialist culture.

It hit me that maybe no one has ever really cared about this girl. She’s probably been drifting on her own since birth…lost in a world she doesn’t understand, getting colder and angrier everyday.

Maybe if I could reach her, maybe the effect of my care would change the whole course of her life…or her feeling about the world. Maybe I could show her a kind of reliability she hadn’t felt before. Everyone she ever met probably gave up on her. If it got rougher then I’d just get tougher and learn to be more patient.

When we met the next day, she knew something was different…a new look in my eye. After her first slew or insults, I smiled and said “Are you done?” She didn’t know what to say.

I opened my bag and pulled out an agreement which said she’d get giant bags of her five favorite candies, if she could make it the next four weeks without cussing me out.

She spent a loooong time going over the terms to make sure she wasn’t being tricked. And eventually agreed. The deal was…we didn’t even have to work on math. Just chat and not be abusive.

Two sessions later, she began telling me about her friends, about how she saw cocaine at a party, about mean things people did at school. Then sometimes she’d realize her vulnerability and put the shields up quick.

I’d sneak in little compliments about how smart she was and how algebra would be easy for someone as clever as her. She told me other kids laughed at how dumb she was. I told her she could have the highest grade in the class.

Gradually, we worked algebra into the chit-chats. She did pick it up quickly (with a little sass, of course).

…And today is her big candy payoff.

I roll up to her house and knock on the door. No answer.

I place the carefully wrapped bundle of candies on the doorstep with a note on top, saying I am proud of her, and she can be anything she imagines. I got back on my bike and said a prayer for her as I rode back to the coast.

A month later, her report showed she had the biggest leap in performance of any kid in the program. And I felt my heart smile.

Evening

A wide-open night in the golden-hour fairytale haze.

Leaning on a luscious palm in the ocean breeze with bikers and joggers, silhouettes of kamikazi pelican dives under purple-pink-orange-teal sandglass sky.

Surfers ride perfect curls and I’m overcome with the desire to be under the water myself, so I strip to shorts and run and dive into the cold Pacific, invigorated and weightless, duck diving waves to the big break.

A nice big smooth swell nears and I turn and paddle hard diagonal with the wave. It lifts me up and forward hard and my speed seems to double as I ride its surging wall. It carries me all the way into the beach and I lay in the surf letting white waves wash my soft spirit.

I return from the sea each time reborn, gasp and crash in the sand to stretch every muscle. Sun melts into ocean and soon I am empty of tension in body and mind.

A slow ride back to the rolling beach cabana as the first pearlescent stars peek through indigo.

Soothing breeze drifts in the open window, laying on a fluffy blue sleeping bag and soft maroon pillow. Cozy in the hushed lullaby of waves on the shore in the dark.

Seals call out in the cool night air. Fuzzy tan blanket covers nearly naked skin. I drift asleep exhausted, and satisfied.

A simple, happy, healthy, helpful life.