I am feeling the sun on my bare skin [what is not covered by the knee/wrist protection]...I'm gliding out of the South Beach marina along the Embarcadero sun-drenched streed..... I find the rhythm where the strokes of my blades synchronize with my deep, diaphragmatic breathing. Qui gong on blades.... I feel the myriad of the energetic meridians opening, and my fingers and palms are tingling slightly. I gently return this qui to my face. I listen to the music of the traffic merging with the whisper of the waves and the momentary immersion into the many conversations of people passing by – this is the perfect soundtrack to my flight. I spread my arms and close my eyes for a second. I am truly flying....Breathe in......breathe out. I can feel my stomach rest against my back on the deep exhale. There is a minute of weightlessness before the next breath. Then a gentle inhale of the sun dispersed in the air – I can feel that sun get absorbed by my leg muscles that seem to have internalized this rhythm.
I look at the people I am passing by. Some are moving in a busy, no-nonsense way, business suit-clad with blackberries and wireless ear-pieces ingrown into their ear-lobes. Some are strolling peacefully through the new to them town of San Francisco, people-watching and enjoying the sun. Some are running bare-chested with sweat of the work-out glistening on their well-developed pectoralis muscles.... I am surrounded by so many beings from all walks of life, and, yet, there is never a time when I feel a crowd that doesn't let me through. There is always a way between and around the beings that can be viewed momentarily as “moving obstacles.” sometimes, when I see a solid wall of beings coming towards me [some are facing me, some are walking in the opposite direction], and it seems that there is no way to go between them without causing a collision or stopping, as I get close, I discover that they either separate naturally, or were just perceived as a “solid wall” and are truly not on the same plane, so there is a passage between them. As I move through that “just enough for me” passage, I think of how true this perspective is of life. Just when you thought the path has lead to the dead-end, at the last moment the passage appears. I have absorbed this phenomenon with my whole body – it is the kinesthetic equivalent of “having faith.” I know, there is always a way if I am committed to reaching that Pier 39 [that is where I turn around to return to South Beach].
As I am flying through the street of moving beings, I notice that when I make a gesture of my intended direction with a smile, they gladly part or step aside........and my path is always clear. How simple and effective.... So true of life too. Indicate your direction clearly, firmly and kindly, and your passage will appear, and there are no obstacles. There are just those who have not yet been clued into my intention or given a smile. It is human nature to want the smoothest possible interaction, I realize. We do not want collisions and want to sense the flight in our endeavors.... rollerblading or doing business....or relating to our loved ones.
I notice the many faces coming towards me.....many eyes, windows of the soul. I look at them with acceptance and love. I look into their eyes for however brief of a moment before my blades carry me past them. Some meet me and honour this instantaneous connection, while some look away. Some smile and wave. Homeless beings and wandering musicians, businessmen and tourist teenage girls.... eyes, eyes, eyes – some smiling, some defending, some letting me in, some loving, some questioning. All spectrum of human emotion is met in this eye contact – a kaleidoscope of the human thought and emotional “forms.” I see me in them. I one with them. I momentarily journey back into the gigantic school of semitransparent fish I met in Curacao. In my journey “there and back” along the sun-drenched Embarcadero, I see a slice of life so delicious and complete in itself, that I cannot resist bowing in gratitude to its perfection and sharing my infatuation with life's gentle Zen in its most seemingly ordinary activities. It's simply here and NOW in all its Unity and joy.
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