Apocalypse Picnic

When are we most ourselves? Walking alone at dusk on a path on the edge of a bluff, guided by yellow goldenrod, watching hundreds of butterflies flutter from flower to flower? I am most myself when I swim in waves as tall as small mountains at Black Rock. I need the immensity. I am most myself when I am forced to pay attention or I will be drowned. I am most myself when I sit on the beach afterwards around a fire and play my flute. I was myself the other night as I did yoga in a field and watched two deer feed on the hill a hundred yards away. They knew I was there, but decided I was no threat. We were all gentle with each other. It is is hard to be gentle around other people. We have to put up so many barriers just to make it through the day. I am rarely myself around other people, only a version that they want to see, and this is something I want to change. I want to be as gentle and trusting as those two deer on the hill. I want to be as fully alive as I am when I swim with the great waves. That night on the beach after swimming was especially amazing because there were other people around the fire. Surfers, exhilarated from riding waves. I played my flute. It was dark, but they could still see me in my song. I wasn't afraid to be seen. Some campers had abandoned a whole campsite on the beach. Pots and pans, a grill to upt over the bed of coals, a cooler of striped bass and a keg. Even lemons and salt and pepper. Jack cooked the striped bass and we ate it with our fingers. We called it the apocalypse picnic, joking that we were the last people in the world. When everything does collapse, I know we will be ok. We will come together and make the best out of what we can salvage, and what we create will be far more authentic than the illusion we live in now. The more I surrender to the will of god, the more I am able to be myself. I pray that we may all walk in beauty.