It’s Thursday. I’m sitting on a rock by a dock at a lake in New Hampshire, Lake Winnipesaukee, in the town of Wolfeboro.

What better place to be than in early September on a lake? The start of fall brings an eggshell-white clouded sky and the earthy smell of pines. The lake water’s a dark blue when close, pale in the distance. The world seems to be slowly rocking, lulling me and all of life as the sun emerges. I’ve found two of my favorite books here at the cabin to entertain and inspire me, The Magus, by John Fowles, and Hemingway’s short stories.

I’m at peace. Calm. Happy. I love it here. For my birthday yesterday, I had a long paddleboard around some islands of the lake, and later a long run through the woods back in town.

I started working on my next book too, based on my time in Japan.

The biggest decision to make today is when to go for a paddle, wondering if the weather might change. I think it’s apt, because all of life is like weather. Every force of nature is out of our control, just like every thought that pops into our head, every occurrence of happenstance.

We can roll with the thoughts and randomness of life, or try to fight it, change it, run from it. The passing clouds are just as natural as the sun. The clouds and the sun need one another. We can’t appreciate the good without the bad, because it’s all life.

I love mornings like this. Just swam around the island. I think the longest swim I’ve ever done. My body feels strong, good from the swim and relaxation. The wood beneath my feet and the wind on my skin feel wonderful. My spirit feels alive, my soul at ease, excited for where I am and the days that stretch before me.

I get so much satisfaction from reading and writing. And what a place it is to read and write, on this little green island of pines and wooden docks, surrounded by shades of shadowy blue, the colors of an ancient, natural world.

I’ll miss it. We long for these sorts of vacations when at home in our routine, and appreciate home and our routine when we’ve spent some time away. Life is what it is, and we can fight it, or simply float down the river of time.

I’m reminded of a passage in the Tao Te Ching:

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

A soft golden light falls upon the pages of the book in my hand, The Magus. I listen to the lapping waves while reading about the azure waves of the Aegean. The pages feel coarse, weighty, and they too are gold, the way pages are in fiction. Turning each one feels like turning something that took time, thought, effort and dedication.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

The main character Nicholas Urfe reads this line from a book he comes across on the beach, and it speaks to me; I imagine after years spent traveling, I’ll return to where I’m from, California, the United States, Los Angeles — whether it’s where I live or just visit — with a newfound appreciation, wanting nothing more in time to be surrounded by my family and friends and by love. That’s all that matters in the end.

Friday morning on the dock. It rained last night and through the early morning, where I turned off the fan to listen to the sound. Now the clouds drift above, keeping the wind at bay. Today I want to put into practice a teaching from the Tao:

Practice non-doing, and everything will fall into place.

Non-doing is doing in itself. Resisting the urge to make ourselves busy. There’s nothing to force here, only to be. The waves lap against the boat and dock and dance against the rocky cove.

Bugs produce a symphony of calm. I could sit here all day watching the clouds move across the sky, rolling towards eternity, looking out into a never-ending distance, where the light shines upon far away shores, and I see green, life, harmony, people puttering in their homes like me or maybe they’re gone, back to life and the necessities of reality. But what is reality? Nothing but imagination, the confines of our mind, art feels like salvation, the truest thing we know, freedom through creation, acceptance of change like the amber leaves beside me that’ll sleep when winter comes.

The lake will freeze over. Dreams will look and feel different, cast in the icy blue of future moments, just as sincere as late summer clouds, asking me to stop and stay a while.

Nothing’s perfect. Destiny calls. Not through forcing but living, not striving but letting go. I feel at one with my surroundings. Ants scurry atop my feet, slipping through the cracks in the concrete dock, their destiny entwined with mine, at the whim of the seasons and the sharp edge of time.

I think about the warrior poet. He unsheathes his pen like unsheathing a sword. To write and to swim, to train and to read, exercise the body and the mind; he knows how to rest. Able to enjoy all the gifts that life gives.

The American flag flutters in the wind, thapping against the flagpole. There’s the hum of insects in a range of tones, and the rumble, faint and soothing, of a boat in the distance. I thank divinity for the gift of hearing. Ears to hear the music of life, strumming and rolling, drumming and drawing, blowing in the wind in all pitches and timbres.

I thank creation for the gift of sight, that I may view the green pines of distant islands, the colors of the flag and the shimmer on the lake. I watch the direction of the wind on the crest of the water, feeling it on my face and shoulders.

With eyes I observe the color of a bright orange floaty that sits before me on the coffee-brown wooden bench beside vivid red potted flowers. Behind me there’s a house and a forest. In front of me a sea of steely blue and slate grey clouds. Rocks beside the dock are silver, rusty red and burnt caramel orange; the wooden slabs that make the dock are dove grey and faded, black as an iron skillet. The clouds pearlescent, as if concealing heaven.

Sunlight changes everything. I swim with goggles through a dark green wilderness. The deeper I go, the darker and hazier it gets like a strong beer. So I roll on my back and gaze into the bluebird sky. When the sun breaks through the clouds it pierces the water. The green slides a shade from green to golden-green like a dried-out lawn. Today when it was cloudy after rain and I was hesitant to swim, I thought about the people in the UK who swim every day in the clouds and cold, and I said fuck it, this is what I do.

On the day we leave, people are talking about an impending storm — they say there’s potential of a tornado, hail, thunder and lightning. Whoa. It’s windy in the morning, giving way to a placid afternoon. It’s bittersweet to leave, but feels fitting for today. I’d love to stay a couple more days, but it also feels like that’s the right time to go — I’ll miss it here. The feeling’s of summer’s end, slowing down, fewer crowds and colder days to come.

We drive the boat to the dock in town to fill it up with gas.

Getting ready for this big storm? The kid working the dock asks with a smirk. Everybody’s talkin’ about it, I reply. Are you from Wolfeboro? asks my girlfriend, whose family has owned their cabin here since the 1800s. Ya, he replies, this is my favorite time of year.

The transition — summer to fall — is so beautiful in places like this. It reminds me of my hometown, Malibu. The summer crowds die down, and what remains are lingering rays, fond memories, and unexpected moments of reflection on where you’ve been, and perhaps what’s coming next. We drive two hours to Boston to catch our flight home, and on the drive there’s rain, a touch of melancholy, new music, and stories from The Moth, reflecting on one of my favorite trips, a birthday I’ll forever cherish.