Big Sur’s South Coast
A year ago September 2nd, on my 60th birthday, my daughter Emily and I went for a swim in the Big Sur river.
We started at the beach at Molera and headed upstream, the majestic and holy mountain Pico Blanco rising above us.
The water was freezing. But after awhile my body stopped feeling so cold and it began to feel like I was swimming through chilled cream.
We giggled through chattering teeth, kicking and splashing as we swam.
We both knew we were just days away from loading up the last of our things in the van and heading East.
We knew we’d be gone for awhile.
I’d been thinking about turning 60 for a long time.
I’d imagined moving to Rome for a year, to paint and study and travel. I’d imagined doing something radical, marking the moment, making a shift. But the change that came was in learning that our beloved brother-in-law Tim had ALS, and we knew in the marrow of our bones that we had to go East to be with Tim and his family.
How?
We didn’t know. But we knew we had to do it, and we chose this week to make the first foray East.
So this day – this big birthday – felt different, and more pivotal, than I had even expected.
Above all else, I needed this day to mark my deep love for the place I’d been for so long, and to spend it with my beloved daughter, one of my favorite people on this planet. I wanted the day to honor something deeply important to me – and to acknowledge that I was inviting in a change toward a different future for the highest purpose.
The swim with Emily felt like a baptism, of sorts, a ritual of acknowledging, loving, sharing both grief and joy, new birth, and wonder.
What comes next?
It is a mystery.
Light on the Water
A new series of studio landscapes inspired by mornings here on the East Coast. Walks through the park where the river flows and drives across the lake.
Wherever we go, I am drawn to the places the water runs to the sea.
Big Sur Landscapes
Cloud Land I & II
Awakening I & II
