Five months ago, I wrote a blog post titled Just … because.
It explained why our family was moving from New York to California. Not because of a job opportunity. Not because of a sweet media deal. Not because of an amazing house or real estate investment or, truly, anything.
No, as I said in the post, we moved because (and I hate quoting myself), “Life is short. Terribly short. You blink, 10 years pass. You blink again, another 10 years. There is so much out there to experience, and I can’t handle the idea of confining oneself. We’re lucky enough to be able to take a shot; to try something new; to jump from the Atlantic to the Pacific and see if the water feels any different. We want our kids to see the stuff they’ve never seen before. I hope they try surfing. I hope they spend their high school years playing beach volleyball; taking walks through the sand on a warm December day. I hope they dig fish tacos as much as I dig fish tacos.”
Anyhow, earlier today I picked my son up from school. We grabbed a couple of fish tacos (delicious) and drove six miles to Dana Point, where—for the fair price of $20—we rented a kayak for an hour.
It was magical.
Truly magical. Back home in New Rochelle, it was 27 degrees. And here we were, shorts and T-shirts, paddling beneath the sun, screaming at ducks, gazing toward the pelicans, reading the funky and funny names off the rears of docked boats. At one point, two young women were paddle boarding nearby. One motioned toward us, “Do you see the sea lion over there?”
We turned—and he swam toward us. Smooth, quick. It was wonderful, and reminded me why we uprooted from familiarity in the name of adventure.
Just … because.
