I don’t trust the ocean.  But I like to look at it and notice the way it reacts to the sky.  Every passing moment brings a change in light.  The water is a mirror for the cosmos to look down into.

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My friend’s husband (who is also my friend) told us he had a surprise for us.  We were nervous about it because he likes to shock people (though he is very excellent at crafting wonderful surprises, too) and so we asked for hints and our dialogue over a few days went something like this:

“Can you give us a hint?”

“There’s going to be a buffalo.”

“Should we wear something specific?  Will it be hot or cold?”

“What you have on would be fine.”

“Wait.  Will we need goggles?”

“Sure.  You could wear goggles.  You could wear a bikini, too.”

“What?!!  Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise!”

We had no idea what on earth was in store for us and we were very afraid and imagining all kinds of terrible and weird things.  Finally, en route to our surprise, he turned our truck towards a little airport in the San Diego area and she and I looked at each other and I yelled out:

“OH MY GOSH.  WE ARE GOING TO FLY TO CATALINA TO SEE THE BISON HERD!!!”

My friend and I proceeded to scream our heads off and jump around in our truck seats and he was delighted because no matter their age, boys always love to make girls scream.  He was smiling enormously when he said, “Yes.  You are correct.“

So she and I bounced around some more and hollered and whooped and grinned at each other and gave each other high fives and said, “Happy Birthday!!!”  Because it’s always one of our birthdays when we see each other and this was too nice a gift to be fluttering around and not attached to something special.

And we looked at him and told him it was a very good surprise, indeed.

We loaded up into a little orange and white Beechcraft Duchess and took off into the sky.  The fog was too thick and so we changed our plans slightly.  Instead of zooming out to Catalina Island to see the bison we flew up and down the coastline and marveled at the color of the ocean and the sun on the water and the light mingling with clouds and the hue of the surf running to shore and the mud of the insidious riptides pulling the sand out from beneath the break.  I looked at the millions of people below us fading away into specs until they were out of reach and out of sight and we were resting in that wild, unruly place between the Earth and the stars.

From there, we cruised inland, up and over the piney mountains and into the crumpled, thirsty plains of the desert.  We landed on the airstrip in Borrego Valley and had a casual lunch at the cafe there before taking to the skies once more and slipping back over to the sea — that great big ferocious blue thing that so effortlessly refracts the heart of the sun.

It was such a grand day.  It was such a thoughtful surprise.  I have had the great pleasure of flying in so many little planes and helicopters over such beautiful, wild country in the past 12 months of my life it has had me thinking, for a while now, that I might work on achieving my pilot’s license.