This far south the parking is free. I walked down the little, steep hill to the tiny parking lot after I parked on the street above. My grandiose plan was to swim straight out from tower 7 to the bobbing float about 250 yards offshore. Then I had wanted to swim north and past the pier, turn around, and return.
Well, first fate intervened. My serenity was tested. My grasp of my emotions was challenged. I was strolling slowly with some other people across the one-lane entry into the pay lot and this driver pulls up behind me and almost touched me with his crummy car. He was a 50'ish scuzzy, half-homeless looking surfer in a thirty-year-old car. I stopped, looked at him, and asked, "Do we have a problem?" That is that great line you hear tough guys say in the movies just before they beat someone half to death. He tells me, "Hey, I coulda' beeped my horn to get you out of the way. I didn't." I say, "So a misunderstanding, okay" I begin to walk toward the water. Then he couldn't help himself, he says, "You're just walking around in a daze; wake up." Now I am very close to attack mode, and say to him, " So we DO have a problem?" He mumbles about walking faster and with my GREAT self-control I just say, "OK, so you're a wise guy; that's your thing. OK, so-long wise guy." And that was that. But, oh boy, I wanted to pound him a few times but refrained. So, I swam, but my mind couldn't relax. I kept thinking that I wanted to see him on his board in the water. The water was rough swimming out; it took me 16 minutes to hit the buoy. I did see about 3 big dolphins before I got in moving south slowly in the surf zone. Visibility was better, about 8-10 feet. Water temp felt about 65. Let's check. 64-66. The 1-2 foot chop took my energy away, and my heart wasn't in it anyway. The self-growth was that I said a Psalm to myself to calm myself, and it gave me peace instead of a vicious need for revenge.
"The first time you quit is the last time you try."
