To a Friend in Puerto Lopez

I received word from Dannimal today, he is in Ecuador on the Pacific Coast in a town named Puerto Lopez. A fishing village no doubt, and upon looking up the town on Google Earth, I see that it is nestled into a sandy bay with hundreds of boats resting in the relative shade of the southern cliffs. He tells me he is taking it slow:

I picture a cup of coffee in a white porcelain cup while he sits at a rickety table outside of a shop, no view of the beach from where he sits but he can hear the sea birds begging and fighting for scraps and the smell, he notes as he sips his coffee, is something that he has never experienced before it's a combination of an afternoon on-shore breeze and the loose dirt kicked up in the streets. It's the sea and the earth combining in that moment, in a new hemisphere, in a time of silence. Maybe he will walk directly to the beach upon finishing his coffee or maybe he will find Chloe with her camera in hand and they will foot the path together. And upon reaching that final track of dry land before the ocean seperates the two worlds they'll leave the camera still, for this sunset is theirs and theirs only.

But I share none of this with him. I don't want to influence his action and I don't want to impede on my version of his reality so I respond to his e-mail with the following:

I imagine you down the railing from me checking the surf, both with coffee cups clad in our hands, eyes fixed on the horizon thinking thoughts of two separate worlds. Each paddling out at his own speed, each surfing his own way, in his own style, and for his own reasons. Two people existing in the same time and in the same place, seemingly doing the same thing, but in reality, each conquering or capturing or configuring his place in the swell, in the world, and in his mind. And soon enough my friend, you'll have wisdom unmatched to share with me and I'll learn it in the silence of watching a quiet sage, a nomad walking on water like a myth brought to reality by the hands of one who is blessed. We will surf together soon my friend, we will surf together soon.