Alone and In the Water

The compounding of strange weeks has sent me down an equally strange internal path, winding– not spiraling, back towards something older within myself. Cooped up in a San Francisco apartment, surrounded by COVID outbreaks and burning forests, it’s been difficult to look outward without recoiling behind closed blinds (and windows). I’ve found myself falling backwards, in a “trust fall” sort of way, to pieces and habits that I’ve thought were long shed. A candy addiction for one, a poetry binge for another. I’ve also retracted my exposed limbs like a shy or nervous turtle, creating extended moments of solitude myself, and rubbing my tongue along a blade of loneliness to feel its sharp and delicate edge. 

The most obvious manifestation of these particularly introverted feelings were two, back to back, solo sessions out at Ocean Beach. Although not necessarily by choice– it can be difficult finding friends to paddle out to sub par OB, there was admittedly a fair amount of intention as well. A little less enthusiasm on the phone and a couple fewer exclamation points in the texts and I, unsurprisingly, found myself floating at Rivera Street peak by myself. 

A steady onshore breeze rolled in from the blind side of the horizon, dragging a layer of thinned fogged behind it. With my mustard yellow board beneath my toes I sliced the mushy lefts like room-temperature butter as I quietly moved across the waist-high waves towards the makeshift channel. Back outside, I watched a pod of dolphins swim north towards the Golden Gate. One, taking a sharp right turn, launched itself straight towards me from the center of an unbroken wave; disturbing me from the peaceful moment and causing me to produce an involuntary sound, which ultimately disturbed me even more. It’s humbling to be at the mercy of so many things at once, both pleasant and not. 

I find myself feeling things more strongly when I’m alone, and out in the ocean, these feelings are exacerbated even more. The bobbing in the waves. The low lines of Pelicans that shave the edges of the surf. The way your breath and the wind start to keep pace. The culmination of meditative moments enhances one’s perception of self, and alone, out at sea, there is nothing that can break it. Both the good and the bad. The peaceful and the horrifying. They all come together to create a hyper-aware state, undisturbed by human contact. 

With all this being said, the freshly induced isolation has brought with it a coattail of memories, and the feelings of memories, of a time and place that I’ve tried so hard to move away from. Through the tail end of high school and into the early years of college, all I could be was alone. Most evenings I solo wandered the campus and on weekends scavenged the coast for waves and places to car camp by myself. Even in the presence of my closest friends, I was never really there. And while that time of my life taught me the many, many positives of an extended period of solitude, it was the difficult moments that ultimately brought me there.

I would never compare these few surf sessions alone in the water with what I felt during those late adolescent years. Although I would also be lying if I said this quarantine period hasn’t sent ripples of sadness and loneliness in my direction. Sometimes a solo evening on the water feels like I’m dipping my toes back into something treacherous. But I still to this day, find myself teasing these feelings and truly feeling them for what they are. The good and the bad. The peaceful and the horrifying. 

Sitting out the back, alone again, I scanned the sea for bumps, which would turn to peaks, which I would ride towards the shore. It’s fogless, but not cloudless. Still, the sun blazed through cracks in the sky, leaving the ocean with a refreshing, deep green hue. There was a bit more size out in the water today, and the inside bar boasted its classic Ocean Beach power. In those two hours on the water I didn’t say a word. And, without the threat of dolphins leaping on me, I don’t even think I made a sound. 

Instead, I rode waves and thought about home, and school, and work, and the people that have drifted into my life and the people who have drifted out. I thought about myself, who I was and wasn’t, who I am and aren’t. I got to be afraid and excited and sad and hopeful.

Solitude has a way of doing this to a person, and the ocean has a way of helping.