Springtime Reflections

Over the past week or so I’ve noticed a new influx of pretty moments. Spring is rounding a corner and I can see it in the green weeds sprouting between bricks and the purple lilies popping from the canopy in my backyard. Evening light is lasting longer. The temperature suits a short sleeve shirt. Things are changing. 

The lack of surf was disappointing for a bit, but I’ve already grown accustomed (maybe I should say “reaccustomed”) to The Bay’s inconsistency. I’m less picky about paddling out, and when the surf is good, you’ll find me in the water with no questions asked. 

Just the other day I surfed mediocre Ocean Beach in that (growing) sliver of light between the end of work and dusk. The crowd was eggy and the surf was just a bit too big for the inside bar. For about two hours, I got skunked out there. I couldn’t catch a decent wave to save my life. Two months ago I never would have made it for that long. Then, like a flipped switch, I caught three epic ones in a span of ten minutes. Three heavy double up closeouts in a row with visions and travel time long enough to feed my tube hungry desires. Sometimes, definitely not all times, things just work out like that. 

Driving back up Noriega Street with frozen digits and an erupting sunset in the rearview, I passed three buddies, Duncan, Nelson, and Jamie, as they raced down to the beach on bicycles. Smiles wide and faces golden with the sinking light. Beers in hand, of course. There is something about this time of year. Celebrations, be it as small as a sunset with your friends, deserve to be had. We survived winter, after all. 

We’ve survived a lot of things. Just this past weekend I made my way down to surf Half Moon Bay for the first time this season. I brought an old friend and new resident of the Bay Area, Mason Comerford, along. Having never surfed north of Ventura, Mason was itching to get in the water up here. 

The first spot we checked was off of an avenue at the southern end of the bay. The wind was sideshore and the tide was peaking high, but Mason’s newcomer stoke was enough to get us out in the water anyway.  The water was icy but the sky was cloudless. Could be worse, I thought to myself. 

Turns out I was right. Not ten seconds after we made it out to the lineup, we were turned back around by an abrupt shark sighting. “The thing swam right below me,” a bearded man explained back on the beach. Welp. That was heavy. I promised Mason that it was not always like this. 

In a list ditch attempt at some peace of mind, we drove to a beachpark about a mile north. The wind had shifted straight offshore and the surf was picking up before our eyes. The culmination of good waves and the wet wetsuits stuck to our bodies was enough to forget (as best as we could) the shark encounter less than half an hour prior. We were paddling out again and we were stoked about it. A sunny, offshore day in Northern California will do that to you. 

For the better part of that morning, we shared a-frames off of a river-mouth sandbar. We caught too many waves to count. 

In an uncommon lull, I thought back to all of those days, both good and bad, that I spent navigating this coastline back in college. I thought about the friends who first took me here and the friends that I’ve taken. I thought about those nights car camping in these quiet coastal communities and those early mornings alone in the water. All the barrels. All the frustrating sessions. It all came flooding back to the point that I became overwhelmed. 

Being out in the water at Half Moon Bay was unlocking something that I had deeply missed but was hesitant to experience again. My best memories overshadowed by my darkest times have created a twisted relationship with this place that, since moving to San Francisco, I’ve actively avoided. But as the session wore on, my comfort levels began to rise.

This wave, this random rivermouth sandbar, acted as a bridge between my memory and my current lived reality, giving me the ability to acknowledge where I’ve been and recognize how far I’ve come. Surfing this wave as a 25 year old vs. as a 19 year old , my mental health, these realities, they could not be more different. Yet the beauty, the timelessness of this spot, it’s all the same. 

Some things are turning and other things have turned. But I think that I’m ready to go back and rekindle the relationship that I’m ashamed to have let go. Spring is here. New life is sprouting. Things have just been hibernating for a little while, that’s all.