I love the ocean but mostly from its sandy shores. Its pounding waves and mind-numbing depths usually keep me at the water’s edge. My home is one of the world's best surf spots and boasts one of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on the planet, but my fear of the ocean’s power and strength has prevented me from learning to hang ten or from exploring the bay's depths by scuba or snorkel.

It had been years since I last took the plunge into the Pacific’s icy cold waters. I’d heard rumor that the water temperature was abnormally warm this year but thought little of it. It didn’t affect me. I don’t swim in the ocean. Then my parents rented a house in Stinson, 100 feet from a long stretch of beach. I woke up at 6:30 every morning, rolled out of bed, let our dog out of her crate, and stumbled outside and down the sandy street to the ocean.

Talia, my blue heeler/husky mix, would run ahead, looking back with glee as I groggily followed. We walked in the cool sand, sometimes letting the surf crash around our ankles. We walked until I became too hungry for breakfast and then we returned to the house. Every morning I made coffee, cooked up an extravagant omelet, and poked fun at my mom and sister's sad-looking pot of oatmeal. The sun would come out and the temperature would quickly climb to the mid 70's. I put on my swim suit, lathered on the sunscreen, grabbed a towel, and headed back out the door.

Letting Go

In the afternoons I would let the water pass my ankles, my knees, my waist, my chest, and then I would dive under, head submerged, the taste of salt in my mouth. I shivered and dove again. The water knocked me off my feet, tumbling me like clothes in the washing machine. Saltwater filled my nose and I gulped down a mouthful as a large wave pulled me under. I flailed to the surface and gulped for breath.

This loss of control terrifies me even though I make sure to only swim in the ocean when the surf is small and safe. I’m cautious and calculating but you can never be sure when it comes to nature. It’s sneaky and unpredictable, beautiful and terrible, awe-inspiring and character changing. It’s absolutely necessary. So I let my fears go and dive under the next wave.

Just Keep Writing

Writing is like this. You start swimming and when the fear and doubt threatens to silence you for good, you dive under and swim past it. You’ll get tossed and tumbled, but you’ll keep at it, past the waves that try to fling you off track, until you surface in the quiet calm of the open ocean. Out here the critical voices in your head are dimmed to a muffled white noise. You can finally think.

It’s at this point you can stop flailing and fighting and just let the story take you where it may. Now you can finally start to see what you’re really writing about. You’ll follow this inspiration for as long as you can until your newly found path of reason begins to slip through your fingers like water. You almost had it but the slippery fish escaped. So you tread water and try not to panic until the next wave of inspiration reveals itself on the horizon. Then you’ll paddle like crazy and try to catch that wave back to shore. You’ll ride it a little ways and then it will peter out, leaving you waiting for the next ride.

Eventually you’ll reach shore, sandy, sunburned, and exhausted. You’ll lie out in the sun drying off for a bit and then you’ll stick your toes in the water. You’ll let the surf crash around your ankles and then a sleeper wave will catch you from behind and pull you under. It’s scary and unpredictable out there but the quiet calm and clarity that lies just beyond the break keeps you from doggie paddling back to the safety of your warm beach towel at the slightest hint of danger.

As Anne Lamott puts it in her book on writing, Bird by Bird:

It feels so great finally to dive into the water; maybe you splash around and flail for a while, but at least you’re in. Then you start doing whatever stroke you can remember how to do, and you get this scared feeling inside you—of how hard it is and how far there is to go—but still you’re in, and you’re afloat, and you’re moving. Anne Lamott

The process of writing is like diving under a wave head first, not knowing if you're going to just pop back to the surface like a cork or get spun and flipped until you don't know which way is up. You flail beneath the waves for a while and look for a glimmer of light up above. Sometimes it takes longer to resurface but you always do, and each time you’ll be a little braver and a little stronger. You’ll be a little bit better at the art of writing.

Like what you read here? Get new posts once a month straight to your inbox.