My Rad Moment That I'm Still Super-Stoked About

Yesterday it occurred to me how lucky I am to be living out here. Yes, I’ll concede that having the summer off played a big role in this revelatory attitude of mine, and perhaps without these endless days of beach-going and reading and running I would never have experienced this moment of insight. But lets put aside all that pessimism and focus on the Moment that sealed the deal for me.

Picture it: A stiff northwesterly breeze comes off the ocean, bringing brine-flavored air to the olfactory system and surf noises to the ear. The sun is straight up and golden – not humid or overpowering or even bright, really. Just golden and warm. The beach is in Hermosa, and because of the time of day and day of week, practically empty, save a few calm families and lifeguards. Next to me is Jessica. We’re sitting on our new beach chair backpacks purchased from Costco reading our books.

Suddenly, a cry goes up from one of the families to our right. I look over to see a child pointing at the ocean and jumping up and down. My line of sight follows the direction of her finger, and lands on several dark shapes cruising through the surf, about twenty yards from the beach. The dark shapes bend in and out of each other’s paths. One breaks off from the pack and body surfs on a large wave, much like an experienced boogie boarder. As he (or she) nears the beach, his dorsal fin pierces the water, and a blowhole shoots a puff of water and closes. He aligns his trajectory parallel with the beach and jets back to his friends.

But these dolphins aren’t making their usual drive by. Maybe because there’s fish nearby, or maybe because they have an audience, the pod circles back and begins a veritable dolphin decathlon right in front of our eyes. Flipping, surfing, diving and showboating, they soon draw a crowd of onlookers and scores of children dive in and swim into their arena.

At first, it’s a little disconcerting watching dark shapes in the ocean swim fast towards groups of children, but the lifeguards don’t seem to mind and the kids are squealing with delight. Jessica and I move towards the ocean to get a better view. The dolphins swim back and forth across an area of fifty yards, staying always right in view for everyone to gasp and point at. One kid gets so close to one of the dolphins you could swear he was about to ride it. Jessica quips, “I hope that kid is here on vacation from the Midwest or something. Just imagine him going home and telling his friends that he freaking swam with dolphins in California.” I laugh.

At that moment, something in me clicks on. Or off, depending on how you look at it. I hand Jess my sunglasses and hat and dive into the water, swimming towards the dolphin highway. With each wave that crashes over me, I get closer to them. For a minute, I can’t see any of them and think dejectedly that they had been scared off by my newly shorn head, but just as I surface another crest, I see one coming straight for me. He is surfing the wave, his body gliding with the current, his tail whipping efficiently. I marvel at his grace in the water, and feel a little like I was a fish out of water. I dive under his wave, and as I come up for air, so does he. For a split second, what felt like a week, I look right in his eye, see his blowhole open and close, and watch him slip back into his playground and dart off with the quickness of a greyhound.

Jess is jumping up and down when I beach myself on the sand after riding a wave in. “He was right there! Did you see him? He was handsome, wasn’t he!” I tell her I saw his eye. She thinks about it and replies, “Whoa.” I think I get it now why so many native southern Californians have come up with words like “gnarly”, “radical” and “bodacious”. They have objects for these adjectives that many places in the world do not. You tend to forget that out here.