Waltzing with Fog

My paddle sliced through the quiet, sweet water of the lake. Mountains in the distance were partially hidden by a blanket of soft, white fog. As I glided through the stillness, warm tendrils of moisture wrapped around my legs. Oh, yes. This is medicine–the healing I needed after a stressful week.

As I paddled, I reflected back through the week but the whirling fog, lifting in columns of gypsy-inspired abandon, caused me to stop the mental chatter and be present. I wanted to paddle into the middle of these phenomena and find my center while watching the walls of clouds dance around me. Yet each time I shifted course to enter the vortex, it eluded me.

Occasionally I find myself in a fog of mental and emotional debris. The past week had been one of those times and I don’t like it. Who does? Each time I paddled this week, the lake has had these amazing currents of clouds moving across the surface. It has appeared as if the entire cloud blanket was a living, breathing being moving on the lake.

My paddling meditations were not the only place I found fog. Sunrise at Clingman’s Dome in the Smoky Mountain National Park presented a most unique golden fog. My friend Jen and I left our neighborhood in Asheville at 4am to seek fog and we were gifted with a display of light and moisture-laden air that was spectacular. As I was standing on the mountain, photographing the beautiful momentary occurrence, I realized that I had been fighting the personal fog I’d been in and thus not appreciating the gift it could bring. Like the golden fog, my personal haze would pass so why stress about the experience?

This morning as I paddled into dancing cloud-beings, I chose to embrace my personal fog and appreciate the place in which I find myself rather than curse it. I like to see my path clearly, to be sure of vision and the forward motion of life but there’s nothing wrong with being in the place of inner waiting, the place of not knowing what comes next.

An hour into my paddle this morning, I looked down at the smooth surface of the water. Bits of fog were moving over the water, across my board and feet. Reflected in the mirror-like water were puffy, white clouds and blue sky. For a moment it felt as if I was riding my board in the spaciousness of the heavens. In that instant I felt something break open inside me and I felt peaceful, content to be exactly where I am in my life.

When life crowds me with choices and confusion sets in, I now know that waltzing with my fog, rather than cursing it, is the way to freedom.

(For more information on SUP Boarding check out Three Brother’s Boards–Handcrafted, American-made and bringers of fun and adventure).