Pacific's Wild Horses

We live under a cotton-batting sky, all in shreds and tangles, drenched and dripping.  No sense of when the sun will be visible again.  I continue to feel thrilled by the scope of wind, sky and sea, all thrashing around with wild abandon.  The roads and thoroughfares in town are showing signs of succumbing to the forces of the elements.  Cracks and pot holes have widened and deepened; rain has filled them and washed out any loose fill, exposed dirt thrown around and rocks strewn by passing cars. 

The sea wall along the ocean has been pounded relentlessly by high surf for the entire week.  Where, in the summer months, "surf" amounted to a languid swishing gurgle, the waves are throwing everything into the fray.  Boulders, kelp, driftwood - who knows what else - are all battering, crunching and tearing up stationary surfaces.  Waves come stampeding in like insane racehorses that snort and kick and fling themselves wildly, all crazy with energy. 

I've always been drawn to water, feel a need to watch it and understand it.  What is most compelling about moving masses of water, like storm waves and large rivers, is the chaos at their hearts.  A huge wave comes rolling in for a long time from the horizon, visible as a lumpy shifting form way out there, miles away.  The big red weather buoys lift and then disappear in the troughs and hills of the Pacific when the roller passes.  It's so cold, so deep and so mysteriously forbidding, all that force and energy.  You see big rollers steaming in, mounting up and tumbling with roaring and foaming, grasping fingers all chaotic and rabid.  The random interplay of crashing breakers and the zillions of frothing bubbles makes wavelets, waterfalls, fountains, streams and spray patterns that never repeat themselves exactly the same way again.  It is an indescribable beauty that somehow must be described to be comprehended and believed. 

I have stood every day this week during these storms and watched, completely fascinated and absorbed by the spectacle of storm surf smashing itself against the rocky coast.  It never ever gets old.  It's always exciting and incredible.  Because if I, 98-degree weak little me, were to venture out there, I would be the laughingstock of the whole ocean.  I have not even the slightest illusion of doing that, but I love it beyond compare.