mudslides and risk

It's been a raining off and on for several weeks. The rain varies between a light drizzle or sprinkle to torrential downpour. I commute through the Malibu Canyons and that means - MUDSLIDES!

I've noticed the mud on the sides of PCH the past few weeks. Sometimes some small rocks, occasionally large boulders the size of my torso are also seen. I dodge them and run through the film in my mind of the rock tumbling down the cliff. How did it land? Who saw it first? What would the experience be like if it were to tumble down the exact instant I was driving by?

I look at the mud puddles by the side of the road. I expected great big sloshes into multiple lanes not these smallish swirls of wet red dust. It occurred to me that the slides don't necessarily come down in an avalanche of mud, but rather grain by grain, the rain sweeping the sides of the canyons clean towing in it's flow grains that detach themselves from roots and rocks.

Malibu Canyon was closed today. The rock slides I have seen on a regular basis the past week must have been too much. That's OK. It was a good excuse to continue up PCH and take Kanan Dume. I saw more slides as I zipped up the "super two" lane canyon road. I remembered the first time I took the road and blew my clutch. A day so unlike today. Still I was in awe as the first time. Today it looked like the Hana highway on Maui. Flush green, waterfalls by the side of the roads, wet rocks, fog. It was gorgeous and I was so happy to be able to experience this on the drive to work.

I  realized more succinctly that risk is an important part of my life. My morning drive with the risk of mudslides, falling rocks, curvy canyon roads emblazons me to live fully. Being fully alive and aware of your death at any moment. Of course I don't want to die. But anyone, even you, can die in an instant - in the next instant or a future far beyond.

So I make the choice. I drive my stick-shift around the canyons, I take the blue highways, I look with awe on the mud slides and I drive with delight through the freeway puddles splashing the wet dust onto my waxed black finish. I'll die - that's for sure - and I hope it won't be in my sleep. Until then, I'll live by the seat of my pants. I'm glad the snob has headed seats.

Comments

[gloria]

Driving is a fab exercise to test your "control" ability/necessity. To be on top of it and able to let go. I remember driving high speed in the crazy, rush hour traffic in Rome just to test my alertness (and, of course, for the heck of it!). The adrenaline feeling that always come with living danger. The even more powerful feeling of knowing that there was one only instant in between, in control and out of control.
When my brakes gave up in a windy tunnel at 75 mph, and I found myself perfectly calm to instinctively make the decision which saved my life, I decided I'll try to live the rest of it often swinging from "in control" to "out of control". I never regretted the decision. Living becomes like dreaming. No matter how much intent and goals and lists you set for yourself, you still get stalked by the unknown and unpredictable, and happily go with. How beautiful!

[Carson]

Yeah, sometimes called being in dreaming - so then the q. becomes whether the direction is a dream you'd like to live, and is it lucid?