Waves

You know how there’s all those people out there like Thoreau and John Muir and also maybe just a friend of yours, or maybe even you, who are able to find this incredibly deep appreciation of nature? They are inspired by it and learn from and have trouble comprehending its beauty. Well I’ve always loved our natural world and have appreciated it and thought it was beautiful too, but never to the degree that it seems like these other people were, I never looked at something or watched something and felt moved deep down inside. And to be honest, this always bothered me a bit, why could Thoreau get so much out of a pond and I couldn’t.

Well, last week this all changed for me, because I had an experience that affected my whole being and touched me deep down inside. This experience was profound enough to make me want to write about it, which is saying a lot, because I generally avoid writing at all costs.

It all started with a hiking trip taken by Tamarah, myself and this guy we met at our local coffee shop. The hike started at Waipio Valley, which is a beautiful and sacred place with a very high and lovely waterfall. Upon seeing Waipio Valley for the first time (which actually happened over a month ago when Riley was here) I felt like I wasn’t appreciating it as much as I should, maybe because I had heard so much about it being so beautiful, which it was, but not breathtaking or anything. This was just one of the many times that I was bothered, as I described above. There’s a trail that’s about 9 miles or so from Waipio Valley to Waimanu Valley. Waimanu Valley can only be accessed by this trail, or by the ocean, and nobody lives there, there is a small campground near the beach and a trail that goes back to some rather impressive waterfalls. It is also home to another waterfall that is 2,600 feet tall, making it the tallest in the country. It is this valley that we hiked to, arriving just before dark, we were greeted by two Argentinian travelers who invited us to share their fire, an invitation that we accepted with gratitude before retiring to our tent for the night.

The next morning, I woke up and found a nice rock on the beach to enjoy the sweet potatoes we had brought for breakfast while I watched the waves coming in. Now, watching waves is always a wonderfully captivating experience. It’s a lot like watching a fire, you can just zone out and be perfectly entertained and content. Well these waves were on a whole other level. They were perfect in every way; I can think of nothing that would make them more beautiful or more satisfying to watch. And that is the best word I can think of to describe them, utterly satisfying, from the beginning to end. I will now do my best to describe these glorious natural phenomena.

To set the scene, I’m sitting on a beach in a lush valley with waterfalls plummeting thousands of feet behind me. There are precisely 9 other people in the whole place and non are within my site. The sea is perfectly calm so each wave appears to come from nothing, and they are forming very close to shore, which just enhances my viewing pleasure.

When the waves were still in their beginning stages they looked like a monster rising stealthily from the depths. Then they began to take the wave shape. But these waves were perfectly shaped. They were very thin from front to back, and the front wall (the one we could see) became vertical as it rose. The crest of the wave was razor sharp, giving it a crisp, clean look that was unbroken for the length of the wave. The wave continued to grow, the crest held its shape even as the wave became concave. There was a second, when the wave appeared to freeze, as it became more concave without losing shape. Then, at precisely the right moment, it broke, and in that crashing white water was the release of all that energy that had been building up since that monstrous form first appeared. It was so powerful that I could feel the buildup and release in my own body.  It was so powerful, that just writing about it brings back the feelings I felt watching it. I can’t describe exactly how it made me feel except for deeply satisfied, and perfectly content.

I know that is something I will never forget, and I doubt I will ever see anything like it again. It was a perfect moment that I think will let me understand the similar moments that others have had. I know it has and will continue to affect me in various ways and I feel so fortunate to have experienced it.