First Surf Post Partum

7 weeks and a day post partum

Today was my first day back to the beach with my surfboard after the birth of our daughter Sunny and after my unplanned C section.

I’d put some feelers out to a few girlfriends to see if they wanted to join but being that I was going early and it was Easter, I didn’t have any takers. I was ok with this—I love going out solo and it felt just fine for my return to be a private, quiet experience.

I gathered my gear up yesterday—my wetsuit and booties, mitts and wax, board and a belly board in case that felt more appropriate as I’m getting back on my feet (belly board was courtesy of Maddie, which is courtesy of Becca, which is courtesy of Jamie). I grabbed my bathing suit, changing towel, regular towel, beach shoes and figured I was set.

In the morning, I was about a half hour delayed from where I wanted to be, which made it better that my friends were unavail. I wanted some toast, my coffee a little leisurely and I wanted to kiss Sunny’s head approximately a hundred times before going.

“I’ll be back by 8:30!” I said to Nick, then internally wondered Where’s my surf watch? Luckily it was right where I left it in the center console. I put my board on top of my car—it felt just fine to lift it, I just went impossibly slow, then I threw on Maggie Rogers and drove north.

The ocean was bereft of other surfers, it being low tide and “knee high for a mouse” as Steph F would say but I was just happy to be there. I truly didn’t know if I’d be able to get my wetsuit on—that can be a major ab workout to get it on and off in and of itself, but I did it. It felt a lot tighter than it had last time I wore it, it squeezed my incision and I had to go really slowly but it worked. My old routine just felt like clockwork.

The tide was really low and it felt like I walked for a mile. Hoisting and carrying my board was just fine with my incision. Getting knocked in the gut by a wave didn’t feel great (you take for granted how you usually just absorb that) but lying on my belly and paddling, there was no pain at all.

The waves were perfect—infinitesmally small and clean and I got to ride a couple just on my belly. I held back from popping up—that quick snap / crunch didn’t feel right to me yet but I’m on the path, and it felt a lot less clumsy and less painful than Id expected to feel.

 It was pure joy, as it always, always is.

Maddie had lent me the belly board and normally I would have just left it in the car, and stuck with my familiar old reliable blue board. But something about having a baby and being thrust into the unknown and ejected out of my comfort zone meant I found myself marching back up to the car to grab it and test it out.

I mostly flailed about with it, having utterly no clue what I was doing but I was glad to try a new board and a new activity. And then, it was time to go.

When I got back to my car, I found myself thinking “That was perfect. I can’t wait to come back. And I can’t wait to get home and hold my baby.” And for that feeling, I am incredibly grateful.  

Sunny Daze: On Confidence (Hint, It’s Missing)

I’d been wondering why my confidence felt so flimsy in the last few weeks—why I felt a little unsteady, tilted. There’s the obvious fact that my whole world is different with a small human to care for, who was cleaved from her little home (me) just 6 wks ago. But it dawned on me that the typical source of that feeling of confidence and power (running and surfing) have been on hold for me for months. This is partially science: Those endorphins I get from running surfing are gone and haven’t been replaced by anything else but it’s also part of my identity and my social community

As I approach the 6 weeks post partum mark, the one where I’m supposed to feel ready to start to jump back into those activities, I’m not feeling ready, which is both discouraging necessitates honoring that as well as making space for the need to be flexible.

For surfing, Maddie suggested trying out a belly board which would get me back in the water riding waves but I wouldn’t need to pop up (I would spare my abs that motion they might not be ready for.) For running, I’ve got an uber conservative return to run program sent to me by my friend McKenzie. Even the slightest hop tugs at my surgical site right now but I’m thinking I’ll give it a try. It will help me find the line and then I can go from there.

Logistics aside—this feeling of unsteadiness and hanging my head, feeling uncertainty—it confirms what I’ve intuitively known all along - confidence comes from competence, action is the antidote to despair. Sunny and I have fabulous walks and we’ve been checking the waves every day on long coastal drives but there’s no substitute for a good sweat and a good wave. And so I think the name of the game is mercy, flexibility and patience. 

Soon. Soon. 

Second Book Is Out: A Guide to Growing Wings: Words after Mum's Suicide

“And the Day Came When the Risk to Remain Tight In a Bud Was More Painful Than the Risk It Took to Blossom.” – Anais Nin.

After nine years, one million drafts, one upstate New York workshop (shout out to Matt Leone, Joni Tevis and Colgate Writer’s Conference), a zillion moments of self doubt self sabotage etc etc, my second book A Guide to Growing Wings: Words after Mum’s Suicide is out, available as an ebook or paperback on Amazon.

<<Breath>>

What to say about this project? It began and came to fruition because I’m a writer and when things happen (actually even when they don’t happen) writers write. And so, when my mother took her life on March 16, 2013, it wasn’t long before I picked up my pen. I knew I had to tell my story, and I knew I needed to release a tribute to my mother. Mostly I needed to write my way out of the woods. That’s where I would still be, I’m sure, without writing this and without the myriad forms of grace that found their way to me in the last nine years, which I recount in this book.

Author Cheryl Strayed has an interesting notion called ghost lives—all the lives we might have lived that we simply have to wave to from shore, like a ship going by. Any artist, writer, maker, knows that projects have the same thing: A million different ways the story could be told, the wood could be shaped, the painting could come to life—a million different ghost lives. It’s bittersweet and necessary, to make decisions about how to proceed in a creative work, to finally say “This is done. It’s imperfect and blessed and done.” Over the years I took the book in so many directions, squandered much time (necessarily) but last fall, with my belly growing bigger with our daughter, I realized I just had to commit and finish the project.

I am proud of it.

Throughout, I wanted the book to be tight like a fist and beat like wings. That was my mantra, my north star. I hope in some places that’s how it feels. What I know is I feel good, that it’s out there, that my mother is remembered, that my song of her, of us, of me is lilting on the wind. I wrote a small poem years ago and it went like this:

i let my regrets fall away

into the sea.

they became the song of whales.

-sara dyer

When we tell a story, we engage in alchemy. Our story becomes a part of who reads it, a part of the world. It’s released from the bony birdcage surrounding our heart where it’s been working to claw its way out.

And, as Anne Lamott would say, we can get on with things.

❤️