The End of Winter (and Two Other Things)

This morning I drove my cat, Alfredo, to a pet hospital to get his fuzzy, gumball nuts chopped off. He meowed for most of the way, obviously annoyed, but oblivious to the testicular massacre that loomed just a few hours in the future. I hoped that one day he would forgive me, or at least forget to associate me with the newfound vacuum tucked below his butt. 

Right around the time that Alfredo’s carrying case was transferred between my hand to the vet’s, the sun began to leak out from eastern rain clouds, spilling a pink drink into the blue and purple sky. The early drop off time gave me an excess of vacant minutes before work, so I took the time and made my way across the street and towards the coast.

From the lip of Pacifica’s cliffs and the base of its hills, I watched out over the tight sheet of the Pacific, tucked snuggly into the crack of the horizon. Today, the ocean looked childish in comparison to its face the past few months, where long period swell dug grooves into the surface for weeks on end. Simply put, there’s just less energy than before. And besides a few late season pulses that are usually married to a stormy onshore wind, the ocean will continue to lose energy as an urban spring manifests in the weeds that split the cracks of sidewalks along the street. 

This winter was one that we will hold on to, and compare others with, for a while. The swells that we saw online at Pipe, Hale’iwa, Sunset, Jaws, and Mavericks were jaw dropping. They were epic. Undeniably so. But I’d argue that the actual lived experience of watching your local spot wake up and pump day after day after day, and surfing it until your arms are jello and the pterygiums in your eyes double in size, is what will make it so memorable. 

Every year we get a swell or two that lights up the internet like a spark does to summer-dried leaves and we suck it all up like the wide-eyed fans we are. This year, the clips didn’t stop. And at a certain point, is 1000 clips of Mavericks that much better than 100? Is an entire flood of digital triple crown entries that much better than a handful of edits from the local crew? This winter was insane, but I’m not measuring it by the viral highlights. 

Instead, I’m measuring it by the collective consciousness of all west-coast surfers, at every level, who now look out at the flattened ocean and exhale a slow and deep breath. 

It’s a conflicted breath, no doubt. Filled with regret for missed sessions and relief for the mornings you were on the beach before sunrise. It’s a breath filled with countless stories, multiple strike missions, and a handful of “sick days” in the water. It’s the release of months worth of tension, anxiety, and excitement and the last drop of hope that one more swell might show up on the charts. 

I’m surfed out. We all are. But we also want more. 

This winter of waves was unifying in pure stoke, its consistency smoothing down the sharp edges of even the harshest crowds. Morning after morning, week after week, we showed up, wet wetsuits and all, and made the most of this unforgettable run of surf in the middle of an equally unforgettable year. 

Looking north towards San Francisco, I thought about all of the waves that berated this coastline in the span of three months and then noticed the silence of the now lake-like sea.

Jeez. I miss it already. 

At least there is next winter.

Unfortunately for Alfredo, his balls are gone forever.