Beauty No.8: Slipping Glimpses

Had a great surf today, small waves but really nice and clean: felt like a treat after all the wind recently.

I remembered, while I was sitting in the water, of what the American painter Willem de Kooning said about how he felt about painting. I loved it and always remembered it:

"When I'm falling, I'm doing all right; when I'm slipping, I say, hey, this is interesting! It's when I'm standing upright that bothers me: I'm not doing so good; I'm stiff. As a matter of fact, I'm really slipping, most of the time into that glimpse. I'm like a slipping glimpser."

And the reason I thought of it: after experiencing a very beautiful moment in the surf. The kind of unforseen moment we surf for - live for. I duckdived under a pile of whitewater (fairly unsuccessfully of course,) but when I emerged amongst the foam the sun was catching the bubbles all around me. Sparkling like some magical potion; it sincerely felt like I was paddling amongst the stars. The beauty of that 'glimpse' was overwhelming. I felt like I had emerged somewhere else.

The sun was warm on my back, my summer suit perfectly fine on this balmy November day. The clean waves were peeling beautifully. And surfing. Slipping glimpses. Wonderful...