On Land and At Sea

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m getting hungry. Why does it always take me so long to put these posts together? I swear I spend the entire week journaling and thinking about the next article but when the day comes to put characters to google doc, it all just blows up into a mess of run-on sentences and half baked ideas. 

Anyways, the surf was kind of firing this morning. I didn’t go, unfortunately. But I watched it for way too long from my computer monitor. Honestly, it put me in a pretty bad mood. Offshore Ocean Beach is becoming more and more of a luxury as we creep further from the solstice every day. Damn. Why’d OB have to do me like that? On my busiest morning of the week? 

Mind surfing beachbreaks is the worst, too. It always looks so dang good! Even when the surf is bad there are always corners to be had, especially when your eyes can teleport you 100-yards up and down the beach in an instant. This morning was a tough one. But such is life. Really, I can’t complain. I surfed twice since we talked last. 

It’s been a good little run of surf this past week. I started things off at a secret point break somewhere between Santa Cruz and Pescadero. A powerful storm system was grazing the West coast a little too close for comfort. Usually this means big surf, short periods, and onshore wind. Somehow, a clean window was carved into the madness and, naturally, I hit it hard. 

According to the charts, I had between the hours of 6:30am and 8:15am to score some big offshore rights before the wind switched again. To my dismay, this meant a 4:30am departure time. But what was I going to do? Not go? (I’m looking at you, Duncan) When I arrived before sunrise, it took a few extra senses to figure out how the surf was. It sounded big, yes. And the wind felt offshore on my skin, right on. The air smelt sweet so I knew that the sets were– just kidding. Long story short, the surf was obviously good, and I was going to be squeezing into my wetsuit in the dark. 

I spent the next two hours picking off sets up the point from the small crowd on the inside. I was on my 9’6 gun and was therefore able to chip doubleups that sent my only companion of the day to the beach with a broken step-up. It wasn’t giant, by any means. But it was big on the outside, where all the energy seemed to consolidate. The fact that I was the only person on a big enough board to catch the sets meant that I could have any wave that came my direction. It also meant that I spent almost the entire session by myself. 

It’s a strange feeling being alone in the water. The solitude is literally drowning and the insignificance that comes with facing the earth’s largest body of water is enough to shatter any ego, albeit momentarily. 

Sitting out the back, 100 yards closer to the horizon than anyone else, I began to think about my place in this world. I see how this could be an overly dramatic thought. Sure. But I don’t mean it as such. I’m not saying that I’m some puzzle piece that completes a whole, or a gear that will get this giant machine up and running. But rather, that we all (me, you, that high school teacher who made an impression on you but who you will probably never speak to again) take up space and also share space. 

I used to think that solitude was a sacrifice that I made on behalf of others because I was strong enough — mature enough — to be on my own. Lately, I’ve been deconstructing this idea slowly (and painfully), ultimately reevaluating my place on this shared planet and within this shared reality. By recluding into my own thoughts, I was no longer giving. I was sucking. Sucking the benefits of my insurmountable privilege like a thick milkshake, without providing anything in return. 

Sure, this can be blamed on introversion, or depression, or countless other factors. But as I waited between sets, I came to realize that these diagnoses don’t even really matter. What matters is that I can recognize my fears, take a deep breath, and then give back bits of myself to the people in my life. 

This passage from Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, has been ringing in my ears since I read it a few weeks back: 

“Apparently he thought he deserved only to be loved – from a distance, though – and given what he wanted. And in return he would be… what? Pleasant? Generous? Maybe all he was really saying was: I am not responsible for your pain; share your happiness with me but not your unhappiness.”

Sure it was scary surfing by myself. The wildlife, the reef, the risk of hitting my head and passing out. But when every set is all mine, and there is no one to get in my way or paddle behind my back, I’d say it’s worth it. But I’m coming to realize, as I mentioned early in this article, that really my big board was the only reason I was up the point from everyone else. Maybe my impact vest mitigated the risks to the point that I had little to fear at all. 

Of course in this surfing scenario, I’d pick this situation again and again. But outside of the water I am trying to do something different. For so long I’ve relied on a series of privileges stacked on top of each other to ease my self-imposed isolation from the people around me. It’s easy to shrink back into a shell; it’s the scariest thing in the world to give pieces of yourself to the world around you. We share this experience together, and to run away from difficult conversations in fear of shame or embarrassment is, more than anything, disrespectful to the people living this life with me. 

By the time onshore winds came rolling in like an invisible fog, I was ready to get back to the shore anyway. Yet another set had appeared before my eyes and in a few hard strokes I was bottom turning around the bowl of another bomb. I don’t think that I could ever give this up. But back on land I have some work to do, communities to support, and people to live with.