Waves are the Recipe: Be Surf

I can feel it on a cellular level when I need the ocean.

“Salt water heals,” my buddy Ollie said this summer. Age nine, budding surfer, she gets it.

I met Maddie at the beach today. She was soaking up as much heat as possible in the car, having been out for hours already. “It’s more fun than it looks,” she said. “Promise.”

And it was. 1-2 feet with random sets skewing on the 2+ sets and just plain CLEAN. No wind, sun was out in full force for the most part, and very few people out.

We started near Rest’s but the current sneakily pulled us north until we were nearly on top of B.H. It was ok. It was good.

The water. It really feels like the Source for me. It IS the source for me. It wipes everything clean, it refills the well, it does all the things that water does so well.

My mind is constantly whirring, like so many people’s, but when you’re surfing, even on a small day, you’re just looking at the waves, assessing, wondering “Will it go?”, wondering “Am I too far in?” wondering “Is this going to toss me?” These visceral in the moment thoughts crowd out those Dark Wolf thoughts that love to roam and lope and tear things up.

Waves are the recipe. Waves force you to be in the present. So all those questions, and then the paddle, and then you’re up and all you’re doing is riding the face and trying to throw something maybe, or just trying to wedge in and chill, and then some sort of energy geyser erupts and you’re just thinking “Weeeeeeeee!” Suddenly Dark Wolf is gone and you’re free.

Trust your Gut: Be Surf

I woke up on Monday and hemmed and hawed about getting up to the beach but I knew based on the forecast and life it was the best day to go for the next week—offshore, low wind, not terribly cold. I figured if I just started putting on my wet suit though, I would inevitably find myself driving north. That worked (though if I hadn’t had it on when I went up to say bye to Nick, it would have been game over. He’d put the pink salt lamp and the fireplace space heater on and it was the coziest little walnut of a bedroom ever. It was a matter of fierce will not to forgo the whole plan!).

I looked out the window before I left and realized how foggy it was over the water.

Hmm I thought.

My hope was that it would somehow magically dissipate or somehow magically not be there when I hit the beach, but the highway was foggy and as I pulled onto 1A, I saw I couldn’t even see the water from the road. When I reached the beach, I couldn’t believe how socked in it was. I pulled up just north of Rest’s. and I could literally not see the waves. I could only see the water from them crashing to the shore.

Ergh, I thought. I’ll just walk down.

It was spooky as hell, white all around, like King’s The Mist. I walked to the edge of the water and strapped my leash on. I’d never felt so unsure about paddling out. There was Fear and Doubt and a feeling that it wasn’t a good idea.

I’ll just try for one or two, I thought. I paddled out and was completely unsettled. I could barely see my car and the houses on the shore—they were obscured by the thick white gauze of the fog. What complicated matters was I was fairly certain I wasn’t close to the rocks by Rest’s but it was so foggy I couldn’t even see boils on the water if I was close to rocks.

I nabbed two and went in. I definitely found my edge and it just seemed stupid to be out there alone when people couldn’t even see me. If I’d been with Maddie or Steph or someone, I might have felt a little better but I felt invisible and alone and blind.

I stood on the beach as the sun rose higher thinking Am I just being a scaredy cat? but your primitive body speaks to you in ancient wise tongues and I feel it’s important to listen. So I jumped in the car and headed home.

Saturday's Surf Sesh. Two words: AARon BrrrRRRR.

Newsflash: It wasn’t even that cold!

I met Maddie and her buddy Lou at LS at 9:30am yesterday. Absolutely NO wind and sun was shining. Temps read 20 something Fahrenheit and I’m not sure if it was the standing around a bit, the wet Wet Sox I’d put on at home or the fact that Google had lodged a nut in my head in the morning: The weather is 11 degrees but it feels like 2. Have nice day! that set me shivering early on.

I hadn’t been out in a couple weeks and so the already brutal paddle out felt heavier, and I felt slower. The currents were incredibly strong and sometimes I was paddling sideways. I did everything I could to avoid turtle rolling but that’s always a fools errand and lasted about five minutes. There was SO much water. We’d gotten a storm early this week and I think it just pushed a ton into the ocean.

After twenty minutes or so, I finally got through to the other side, not before I realized I’d been pulled a quarter mile down, toward Restaurants. Shit, I thought.

I made my way back to Maddie. The waves were big with surprisingly little push, meaning you had to commit to sitting right under the lip essentially to nab one. I was having trouble hanging with this and the waves were breaking inconsistently, and also often double waves, which was even more confusing.

Not going to lie.

It was a frustrating session for me.

I hate admitting that. I try to make surfing a place in my life that has no pressure to perform, to be anything other than what it is, but I really wanted to snag some waves yesterday and it just wasn’t my day. I was dropping too fast down the face when I caught them, I was NOT catching them because I was resisting how far in I had to be and then two hours in I was slipping from cold feet and just face planting right into the water.

It’s true that I was out with buds, the sun was shining, we were bobbing in the ocean. Overall, we were winning.

But I walked back out onto the shore thinking: I can’t go this long without being in the water again.

I thought about it as I drove home in my wetsuit (changing was not happening) and as I stood in the hot water of the shower and I recommitted to surfing. It quite literally is one of the sources of my power in my life and I need to be tapped in to it more. It’s my church.

YEW for silver linings.