Hot sun beaming out of a clear blue sky: finally, after a few days of overcast grey, the stereotypical California weather has returned. I headed for...what else?...the beach. Despite the many health warnings, there are still bronzed bodies lounging on the sand, faces turned to the sun. Children dig and build in the sand (whatever happened to school days on a Wednesday in March?) and surfers in wetsuits hang ten. Families munch their picnics and a lifeguard warned a lady with a dog on a leash that she was on the wrong beach. No animals permitted here.
A Navy vessel bobbed at anchor, and other grey ships rode the waves just offshore. I was just here for a walk, always grateful for a space to sense the vastness of creation in the midst of the sprawl and congestion that is LA. I headed west, towards the permanently docked Queen Mary, loving the feel of the sun on my arms and the wind in my face, savouring the beauty of the light reflected on the Pacific breakers.
Headed back towards the car, I noticed a forlorn kite caught in the spiky branches of a palm trees. Its tail waved languorously in the breeze. It made me think.
Once that kite rose on the winds, free to soar and dip, and go new places, but now it is spiked and stuck, permanently moored to a pretty palm tree, with a glorious view of the ocean, but never again to roam the skies.
Sometimes, maybe especially when our star seems to be on the rise, we can become caught, tethered to something beautiful perhaps, but nevertheless tethered.
It's important to ca' canny as they say in Scotland, aware of the snares. Or as Jesus advised, travel through life as innocent as doves but as wary as snakes.
Over and out from Seal Beach.
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