#86 A trip to Malibu

Oct 20, 2022

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

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Imagine the CEO of your favourite chocolate cookies to be one of your kind buddies, who just offered you a lifetime deal of free cookies as long as you live. How would you feel? That’s exactly how I feel right now. Why? From visiting the ocean 3-4 times in the first 21 years of my life to living in a city by the Pacific Ocean, giving access to the beach with a blink of an eye. That’s pretty much what a person who loves reflecting by the sea would want.

My last two articles on this topic - #57 Life’s a beach & #58 Sailing through the Sea, and finding beauty in brokenness in #81 The Mysterious Graph were quite interesting (at least that’s what I think) and this makes me want to write more on lessons from the Sea.

Last Saturday, Me & my kind buddies drove down to Malibu in order to find the bungalow where Charlie Sheen in Two & a Half Men lived. Well, to our disappointment, we couldn’t find his bungalow but we did find a number of beautiful beaches. Starting from the Malibu beach to Point Dume, with an incredible view encompassing the entire Santa Monica Bay and distant Catalina Island.

To reach the shoreline at Point Dume, one has to climb down the stairs - which to be honest is very difficult, not because it is tiring (climbing back up is) but the view is so serene that you feel like standing and staring. While walking down the stairs, I stood at one of the platforms which could accommodate only one person at a time. Two people standing there would make it crowded and block the pathway because of its size. While I was standing there lost in the deep sea, a sweet young humble man waved at me casually from the next platform and asked if I could leave that platform as his mother, who was in her 80s was climbing down and needed that platform to rest. Apparently he had just left the platform for his mother and I came in between of nowhere to ruin his plan. I apologized sincerely and thought to myself, “How often have I thought someone else was ruining my plans on purpose?” I wondered if he thought I was intentionally tearing down his ramp, when I was simply unaware of his plans. In that very moment I wished to be as humble like that gentle man and ask kindly for someone to go find their platform somewhere else.

If you loved Point Dume, you’ll definitely love El Matador - where one can find beautiful sea stacks on the beach and in the surf and a place to capture stunning sunsets. This is one of those places where you will never get bored if you take something to read and something to drink. The waves coming by the ocean and an iconic view will fill up the rest of your day.

Sometimes life just needs to get over itself! We need to let our hair down, laugh, dance and play! Watch people at the beach - happy and carefree! We need to turn our faces to the sun and backs to the wind. Dive in the water with gusto and laugh with abandon at the discovery of a sand dollar or pretty seashell. The beach encourages us, for at least a moment in time, to forget about schedules, troubles, and impossible deadlines. So, take a lesson from the beach. Take time to breathe. Take time to play. Take time. It’s the most precious resource you have. Use it wisely and happily!

You can work on something for hours and one big wave can wipe it all out.

Enough Said. Ending with a pose I learned this week :)