Lessons from the Ocean: Stillness
Reflection from 2022 Oaxaca: Zicatella and Carizalillo

This year has been different for me. My mind likes to be busy. Naturally, I feel like that is what works for me, it’s what I like to do. I love to daydream. I thrive in my alone time because my alone time gives me time to do these things that help guide my life. I also like to be with friends and go to places that excite the different interests I have. But for the most part, I was used to doing a lot of things on my own and I felt comfortable in that space.

I started dating again earlier this year. In my mind, the goal has always been a healthy relationship with someone I could see as a life partner. But to be honest, I was just curious as to what dating looked like and meeting people.

Through this little curious process I did meet someone and I’ve been enjoying my time with him. There has been a tiny shift in me. I’m not sure how to explain this, but I haven’t been spending the amount of time I was used to on my own, and to be super honest, it felt a bit foreign.

As this trip I had planned was nearing, I felt this pull in two directions. I wanted to give space to the thing that had called me to make this trip in the first place but I also wanted to just stay in the moment. I was feeling a push and pull within me up until a few days before my trip when I finally decided what I wanted this trip to be for me, some time to spend painting by the ocean.

When I arrived I spent the first few days of my arrival painting in Zicatela. The water in Zicatela is far from still, the waves generally come in strong, it’s primarily known as a surf beach. There are also currents that form and move up and down the stretch of water. Swimming in that water is not easy or really advised to people unfamiliar with it. It took me a few days of observing the water before finally deciding to go in. The pull is strong, and in order to avoid getting hit by the waves every few seconds you have to swim further into the ocean, something that I didn’t feel safe doing with the constant currents that occur. When I did get in it was brief. After a few days there I decided to have a beach day where I could swim and headed over to Carizalillo.

Carizalillo is a small bay where the waves come in softer. It is still a surf beach but you can swim further in that water and float or swim for hours, which is exactly what I did. I got there at 9 am and left at 7 pm, took a few breaks for food, but a majority of that time was spent either swimming or floating in that water. Stillness.

I spent most of my time in that water just feeling the waves, swimming, floating, letting them rock me gently before the next soft wave came in, I did this until my brain got quieter and quieter and the waves more abstract. Later that night I reflected on that. I had a similar experience of reality slowly becoming an abstraction once when I took sedatives that slowly made me pass out.

As I lay in bed that day I could feel the memory of the waves rocking my body and the sensation of floating in the ocean, it was a magical experience.

Stillness, a lesson from the ocean.

Image 1:
Carizalillo, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca

Image 2:
Zicatella, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca