We sponsored a national surfing competition today. It was pretty sweet. I attended and got some decent shots. I didn't have a telephoto lens, though. So they're not up-in-the- surfer's-nostrils close.

Since I couldn't get wet (I was working, and it WAS driving me mad) and it was such a beautiful day, I got off some shots of the beach. I've posted them here.

My baby is coming back on the 25th. We've grown quite fond of each other. She says that we began this adventure-in earnest-last May. That sounds about right.

I have been "courting" her in my own way for 3 years now. I was in deep smit the moment I met her.

I had to deal with some personal shit (which included moving away from NYC). But we stayed in touch, somehow. It didn't seem like we had the remotest chance of getting together. But not because of how we felt about each other. Or could feel about each other.

No, there were circumstances, dammit! Circumstances, I tell you! And so we went about our seperate lives and didn't talk about it. Not once.

And so here is what happened:

I have held this theory about Everything for a long, long time. As you know, I consider myself to be largely atheistic in my beliefs. I am a moral and kind man, and dogmatic religion frightens me. It is a source of tremendous suffering in this world, and always has been.

But when I stand on my beach, the sand hugs me to the earth, the surf whispers great and small secrets to me and the stars play with my hair. It is at that moment when I know that I am a teeny tiny part of a great whole.

Hence my theory.

It goes:

There is one old dude, the earth and two old chicks, the sky, and sea. They watch over our world in all things, but there is of course only one place in which they meet.

My beach.

So you can come to my beach. And if you are very still and very quiet, you can hear them singing to each other. They gather at that single, special place and they sing their songs.

And if you are very, very still and very, very quiet, sometimes you can ask them questions and sometimes you can ask them for help. But you have to surrender something of yourself for them to listen.

It makes them happiest when you surrender your grief, or grudges or any darkness in your heart. Because they take this darkness or pain or sorrow, and in a way only they can--with their old, old hands--this old dude and these old chicks, they mold it and shape it like clay. They take it away from you.

But they are not All There Is.

There is more.

Older than the old dude and two old chicks is the Universe. The Universe is a great bear. The great bear sits up there and knows. That's his thing. Knowing.

The great bear has a best friend. That friend is called Time. And Time is a great tortoise. The tortoise moves. That is the tortoise's thing. Motion. Ever forward, slow and slow but inevitable, implacable, unceasing, forever and ever.

You can see these two doing their thing. Just look up. The great bear looks like a ball of fire sailing across the sky and the great tortoise looks like a silver disc or sometimes a silver sliver that moves across the sky.

That is my theory.

Now, when I look back, I remember spending a lot of time with the old dude and his two old girlfriends. And I was very still and very quiet and they would listen to me every once in awhile. I never asked them for anything. But I did just chat and tell them what I thought and what was going on with me. And sometimes I passed them some clay and they took it and did their thing.

And so I think I believe (I Think that I Believe) that there came a day when perhaps the old dude and his two old honeys felt that we had waited long enough, enough tides had passed.

And I think I believe that the earth and the sky and sea passed a note to the bear. And the bear must've passed the note to his buddy the tortoise. And maybe the bear and the tortoise prize patience above all things and now came a day when the Universe and Time rewarded me and this woman for our patience.

It was the tortoise. Because the tortoise, for good or ill, takes all things. And so the tortoise piled up all those minutes and hours and days I and Evie had spent apart, and he buried the barriers that stood between us with them.

It was this day that Evie looked across the way, where the barriers once lay, and now only saw a huge but gentle hill. It would be tough to traverse it, but not insurmountable, as the barriers once were. She could now see a way to me.

So she started up that tall but gentle slope. And she called out to me and I saw her coming to me.

So I started up my side of the hill.

We will meet in the middle, at the top of the hill. We will look around and agree upon what path we shall strike out on together.

We will have great adventures together. We will stand back to back and take on any bad guys. We will stumble and catch each other. We will be in peril and we will find safety together. We will be very quiet and very still whenever we can.

This is our adventure.