I catch up online, chatting with a few friends and answering emails before Walt and Jeanne soon join me. We eat peanut butter toast and fruit and begin to plan our day.
We set our sights on Bondi Beach, 30 minutes (or so we thought) outside of town. This trek ended up taking a bit longer, since we initially took the bus in the wrong direction. Due to this happy accident, however, we discover an enormous shopping mall complete with a Target and K-Mart.
A few hours later, we have navigated the Sydney public transportation system and arrived at Bondi Beach. I look at the sky above and the sand and think, "This is my life."
Walt, Jeanne and I spread our sheet and towel upon the sand. The air is warm and the breeze is perfect. Veronica warned us to stay between the red and yellow flags if we swim in the water. Something about lifeguards paying attention to that section and that you swim elsewhere at your own peril. She also casually mentioned that although people usually don't die from shark attacks, they've been known to lose an arm or leg.
No big deal.
Bondi Beach is a small crescent shaped beach which tapers off into short cliffs on both ends, where we can see foamy water breaking at the base. It's a regular tourist/backpacker stop and the streets are lined with surf shops, hostels and restaurants. The cliffs on both ends look inviting and the three of us vow to explore them later.
Twenty minutes later, Jeanne and I take a stroll down to the water to test out the temperature. It's frigid. We walk a bit further and watch a beginning surf school attempt to master the waves. Many of them fail awkwardly but I can't laugh, since I would be the same.
We return to our blanket. Jeanne puts on her headphones and I dive into this book that my friend Josh lent me. It's called "An Invitation to Discipline" and it's about the process of spiritual formation. There's one chapter in it that explores our Myers-Briggs personalities and our tendency to gravitate to particular forms of spiritual disciplines and neglect others. I'm reading the section about prayer and it makes me think. I breathe deeply and begin to pray. I also begin to fall asleep.
Somewhere in the midst of this, Walt declared he was going to brave the freezing water. He returns, smiling and shiny from his dive into the water. I soon summon the courage and dive in myself a few minutes later. The cold water is shocking for 3 seconds, then refreshing. The Pacific Ocean is saltier than I was expecting.
After a couple of hours, we decide to explore those cliffs on the northern side of the beach. As we round the bend we discover the cliffs actually mask an entire tidal pool that wraps around the shore. Years of incoming and receding tides have carved out a weird, beautiful landscape, covered in barnacles, shells, moss and deep pockets and crevices filled with crabs, fish and other creatures.
We begin to walk, hopping from rock to rock, careful not to trip and fall on the slippery surface. We don't say much to each other. It feels like we have discovered a new planet. Silence seems fitting.
Jeanne seems lost in thought and lyrics as she pads on ahead, silently and agilely negotiating the slippery and rocky tidal pool. She's as sure-footed as a deer. Walt seems as awe-filled at me at the secret beauty we stumbled upon.
I spy a monstrous rock in the distance, jutting majestically into the sky like a proud peacock. With a nod and smile from Walt, I set off to conquer this miniature mountain.
The waves crash and foam around me, spilling over barnacled, mossy rocks, daring me to succeed or be swept away. I circle the rock, finding a lower ledge that seems a bit more surmountable. I grip the edges, finding a handhold and thrust my weight up. I lacerate my leg upon the rock--a gash about six inches long--but I don't care. I've scaled a 250 ton rock that's been perched on Bondi Beach since some monstrous gale swept it upon the shore 97 years ago. Walt is video blogging this moment and I smile triumphantly at him and the camera.
Walt soon follows suit and once again laughs maniacally, claiming the ocean is his. Although I don't see it, he claims the waves crashed up spectacularly, accenting his bellow with natural sound effects.
We stand and stare at the blueish white foam that relentlessly swirls and crashes again and again upon the rocks. Watching Jeanne disappear into the landscape ahead of me and watching the waves crash, I hear a song begin to form in my head. I write the lyrics down. Walt and I stare at the waves some more. It's entrancing.
We look off in the distance and cannot see Jeanne anymore. It is as if the cliffs have swallowed her up. Walt sees her, and suddenly she appears, perched at the top of the rocky cliffs, like a lone Greek goddess on to of Mount Olympus. How the heck did she get up there, I wonder.
Walt leads the way and we scramble upon the rocks, up and up, winding past more rock formations and caves. We circle around, trying to find our way up to the high place where Jeanne is sitting. Walt goes up the difficult way, scrambling up a steep rock face as easily as Spiderman. I opt the roundabout way and soon join them. The three of us sit, high above the rocks and the waves and stare out into the ocean. I feel very small.
I look around me and see broken beer bottles, abandoned blankets and other traces of other people who have come here before us, scaled and scrambled upon the same rocks. We are not the first travelers to sit here and stare across the sea, nor will we be the last.
But as we sit there, laughing and joking and contemplating and wondering out loud as the sun disappears behind us, I like to think that--like each incoming, persistent wave crashing upon the rocky shore--maybe we've changed the landscape a little, just by being there.
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