Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Angry Sea
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The Malady of Surfing
"Surfing is not a sport, it's a disease." Big Wednesday
Early on in my surfing life, my dad grew increasingly concerned that mere passion had begun to devolve to what he considered unhealthy obsession. As obligations and responsibilities yielded to sloth and wasted time of a selfish pursuit, he implored: "It's okay to surf, to be someone who surfs...just don't be a surfer."
"But Dad," I argued in my adolescent petulance, "I am a surfer! It's my part of my identity; it's who I am!"
Of course, I rarely won any arguments with Dad. In possession of (obscenely) high, innate intelligence, and educationally armed with degrees from Harvard, George Washington University, and U.N.H., not to mention having guilt and shame on his side, my resistance eroded over time in the attritional battle between us. Oh, I still stubbornly surfed and continued to underachieve, yet I gradually learned to accept his supposition that I was only, someone who surfed, not a surfer.
Yet I was not happy. Depression draped over me like a heavy wet snow through the years. Marriage. Parenthood. Career. Failures all. Leaving me naked and alone at mid-life, wondering just who the hell was I? What purpose I did I serve in this life?
The road back to myself has been frought with peril, injury, and much heartache. Though some have hailed my perseverance as courageous, I liken my journey more akin with a salmon, pre-programmed to swim upstream, jumping rocks and waterfalls, defying all, even death, to get back to their beginning. Not courageous so much as what I was meant to do, what I had to do...
And in the process, I've recovered who I am. I made it back to my beginning and I've been re-born. I survived to learn that I am stronger than I ever knew. And I discovered that Dad was not always right...not about me anyway. Dad raised me and taught me many things and I love and miss him immensely for it. But nobody, not even Dad, gets to define who I am. I am me and that is for me alone to define.
Surfing is not a disease; surfing is my salvation. Surfing is my friend; surfing stood by me all those years. Surfing gave me life. It is something I knew I had to do from the first moment I knew of it. Like that salmon heaving itself upstream, it is what I was meant to do; who I am meant to be.
Of course, surfing does not wholly define me either. It is not all of my identity or all I am. There is much more to me, and I am discovering more of myself each and every day. But, I am not only someone who surfs...I am...a surfer.
Early on in my surfing life, my dad grew increasingly concerned that mere passion had begun to devolve to what he considered unhealthy obsession. As obligations and responsibilities yielded to sloth and wasted time of a selfish pursuit, he implored: "It's okay to surf, to be someone who surfs...just don't be a surfer."
"But Dad," I argued in my adolescent petulance, "I am a surfer! It's my part of my identity; it's who I am!"
Of course, I rarely won any arguments with Dad. In possession of (obscenely) high, innate intelligence, and educationally armed with degrees from Harvard, George Washington University, and U.N.H., not to mention having guilt and shame on his side, my resistance eroded over time in the attritional battle between us. Oh, I still stubbornly surfed and continued to underachieve, yet I gradually learned to accept his supposition that I was only, someone who surfed, not a surfer.
Yet I was not happy. Depression draped over me like a heavy wet snow through the years. Marriage. Parenthood. Career. Failures all. Leaving me naked and alone at mid-life, wondering just who the hell was I? What purpose I did I serve in this life?
The road back to myself has been frought with peril, injury, and much heartache. Though some have hailed my perseverance as courageous, I liken my journey more akin with a salmon, pre-programmed to swim upstream, jumping rocks and waterfalls, defying all, even death, to get back to their beginning. Not courageous so much as what I was meant to do, what I had to do...
And in the process, I've recovered who I am. I made it back to my beginning and I've been re-born. I survived to learn that I am stronger than I ever knew. And I discovered that Dad was not always right...not about me anyway. Dad raised me and taught me many things and I love and miss him immensely for it. But nobody, not even Dad, gets to define who I am. I am me and that is for me alone to define.
Surfing is not a disease; surfing is my salvation. Surfing is my friend; surfing stood by me all those years. Surfing gave me life. It is something I knew I had to do from the first moment I knew of it. Like that salmon heaving itself upstream, it is what I was meant to do; who I am meant to be.
Of course, surfing does not wholly define me either. It is not all of my identity or all I am. There is much more to me, and I am discovering more of myself each and every day. But, I am not only someone who surfs...I am...a surfer.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Lesbian Lament
Straight woman often lament upon meeting a new man to whom they're strongly attracted, only to later discover is gay: "Why are all the best ones gay?!"
Sometimes gay woman, conversely, express the same lament: "Why am I always attracted to straight woman?!"
A few days ago a dear girlfriend, who is (regretably!) not my "girlfriend," called to announce that she'd run off to a JP and got herself hitched to her boyfriend!!! Never mind that she's been living with this guy for the past two years and they're expecting a baby any day now...I'd still held out hope! Delusional? Most definitely. But I learned a long time ago, the hard way, that we can't help who we're attracted to...
Guess I'll have to cast the net again...oy!
Sometimes gay woman, conversely, express the same lament: "Why am I always attracted to straight woman?!"
A few days ago a dear girlfriend, who is (regretably!) not my "girlfriend," called to announce that she'd run off to a JP and got herself hitched to her boyfriend!!! Never mind that she's been living with this guy for the past two years and they're expecting a baby any day now...I'd still held out hope! Delusional? Most definitely. But I learned a long time ago, the hard way, that we can't help who we're attracted to...
Guess I'll have to cast the net again...oy!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Dream World
While driving down to my sister's house on The Cape for Thanksgiving one year, my youngest, who was about 5 at the time, marvelled at the bright lights and nightscape as we drove through Boston. From the backseat he exclaimed: "It's like DREAM WORLD!" What struck me most was his childlike sense of wonder at the world around him and it ocurred to me that I hoped he would never lose that.
Today, while sitting in the lineup on another gray day, the late setting sun suddenly poured through the fracturing clouds and lit up the sky, the sea, and the waves around me. Now it was already a good session: Waist-high with just a whisper of offshore wind and my board was well suited for the clean, but slightly mushy conditions. But omg, in an instant, the gray water turned rippling shades of magenta and cyan, reflecting the pinks, oranges, and blues of the clouds and sky. Spray fanned off the tops of the waves in burnished golds and the wave faces hued emerald green. Silvering water droplets beaded on the wax covering my lavender board. White hulled gulls soared against a backdrop of God's rays and a distant rain shower pouring down from gray rimmed clouds scudding over the horizon. I sat in wonder inbetween sets, taking it all in, my jaw gaping I'm sure, thinking how blessed we surfers are to see, and feel, smell, and taste, and experience glorious moments like this that most land-bound people will never know...and it ocurred to me...it was like DREAM WORLD...
Today, while sitting in the lineup on another gray day, the late setting sun suddenly poured through the fracturing clouds and lit up the sky, the sea, and the waves around me. Now it was already a good session: Waist-high with just a whisper of offshore wind and my board was well suited for the clean, but slightly mushy conditions. But omg, in an instant, the gray water turned rippling shades of magenta and cyan, reflecting the pinks, oranges, and blues of the clouds and sky. Spray fanned off the tops of the waves in burnished golds and the wave faces hued emerald green. Silvering water droplets beaded on the wax covering my lavender board. White hulled gulls soared against a backdrop of God's rays and a distant rain shower pouring down from gray rimmed clouds scudding over the horizon. I sat in wonder inbetween sets, taking it all in, my jaw gaping I'm sure, thinking how blessed we surfers are to see, and feel, smell, and taste, and experience glorious moments like this that most land-bound people will never know...and it ocurred to me...it was like DREAM WORLD...
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Quebec Surfers
Dudes, seriously, why do you always travel in packs? No offense, as I've met and spoken to a number of you and almost always find you friendly and engaging, on an individual level. But, you're not gonna ingratiate yourselves to the local surf populace when 8 or 15 tumble out of a van or RV, with 22 surfboards piled on the roof. Is there like some massive surf club up there or something? Are you all surfing's version of a "flash-mob" that shows up suddenly at some unsuspecting spot, to swarm out to the line-up and instantly over-capacitize it? Spread it out. Thin it out. Maybe a car of two or three. Try some of the other spots; there are many around here. Seriously. Dudes.
Recon
sometimes, on days like today when there's a bit of swell but the wind is all wrong, I like to drive around and check different spots and see the potential...some are spots I surf frequently, some only occasionally, and others I've never surfed, but keep hoping to catch them on a magic day...for example, there's this jetty near where I live...on the south side the waves usually pile up in a chaotic mess of closeouts, though I have surfed it a few times in the past...now on the north side, is a spot I've never surfed, and yet I keep checking it, hoping...it looks very similar to Sebastian Inlet down in Florida, right down to the same bend in the jetty...and yet, I've never seen anything worthy of a go out...oh sure, you could say it just isn't a surfable spot, but, I can't help but think I just haven't caught it at the right time, with the right conditions...there's so many variables involved with surfing in Maine: tides can range a dozen feet or more; with the convoluted coastline, there are shores that face virtually every compass direction; winds can blow from all directions too, and sometimes be veered and disrupted by landmasses, headlands, or even man-made structures...you can never be sure that a spot isn't worth a check unless you've seen it under ALL conditions...and that could take a lifetime...so I keep searching, hunting...hoping that one day all the variables will align for a magic session at a never before surfed spot...recon; patience; perseverance...
Ean's Rock
...fishin around my purse the other day, came across a rock, yes a rock in the bottom of one of the pockets...now this rock is not very special at first glance, just a somewhat wedge shaped, whitish quartz with some rusty reddish spots, a few mica flecks and a greenish tinge suggesting algae...but when I tried to think back how a non-distinct rock ended up in my purse...that's when I remembered...about a year ago I went to the beach with my friend Kristina and her two boys...in the process of poking around a cobblestone beach, skipping stones, and both boys managing to get soaked in tidepools (you cannot go to the beach with these two and expect them NOT to get wet!) Ean, the younger of the two, and 5 at the time, found what he considered to be the most fascinating rock ever discovered by Mankind...he asked me to hold onto it for him while he continued exploring, hence, the rock in my purse...and come to think of it, THAT is what makes this rock so special after all!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Gray November...
Okay, so here's my first post; inspired by today's surf sesh:
Most New England surfers will tell you that Autumn is their favorite season. Of course there's the foliage, flaming reds, rust oranges, golden yellows as you drive to the beach, and the still tepid water (read not yet frikkin, frigid cooollddd!) and after a long torporous summer of heat, humidity, and no surf, the ocean comes to life with tropical swells and nor'easters. What's not to love? But gray November, though often monochromatically bleak, and numbingly cold, has much to offer as well.
Witness my morning surf at a well known (but not often surfed) beach in my corner of the Maine coast. Adhering to the surfers' code of not divulging spot names, I'll call it "Clamdiggers," which has a double meaning, not the least being that that's for much of my session I went digging for clams on takeoff after takeoff. To be fair, I brought the wrong board for the swell. Le Platypus (my board) was designed as a "mushbuster" for small days and though the waves were not huge (waist to chest high with some outside bombora sets that doubled those dimensions) the power and steepness of the whumpa-thumpa beachbreak at Clamdiggers had me walloped, ragdolled, and pretzled time after time. To be even more fair, after a rough coupla years of injuries and surgeries, and alot of time out of the water, I got a lot of polishing to do to clean off the rust of my surfing skills.
Yet, despite my struggles, it was a glorious and awe-inspiring session. I surfed solo with the entire break to myself and only the odd beach stroller to witness my rides.
Some things I saw, feelings I felt:
Though I'm 52 years old and have been surfing for 37 of those years, I still get butterflies of anticipation as I scramble frenetically into my wetsuit before I go out...
While first paddling out, I saw a loon get tumbled over the falls, bouncing down the face of the wave; I've never, ever seen a seabird get caught by a wave like that; they always seem to have an innate intuition for bobbing over or ducking under without getting nailed...later, another bird (don't know what type) surfaced right next to me after a dive; apparently he didn't see the wave bearing down on us either as he tried to take flight at the last second but got swatted as the lip came over...
The sky was gray, the sea a faintly greenish-gray, and just a whisper of offshore wind; perfect surfing conditions; later, as I was leaving the water, the sun broke through with the passing front and the wind increased velocity exponentially...an evening drive-by after work, revealed by the light of a full-moon, that the swell had dropped considerably...I'm dawn patrolling it tomorrow but I think it will have gone flat...
Though I didn't manage to get inside any of them, there were tubes aplenty; there's an indescribable beauty of seeing a crystalline lip hurl over and barrel from an in-the-water perspective that nobody but a surfer can fully appreciate...
I did catch a few waves that didn't annihilate me; le Platypus, while not designed for thumping shorebreak, did lay over really nice and carve on rail off the bottom; real surfing is all about the RAIL, baby!
I tweaked my left bad knee on one wipeout, then on stepping off my board in the shallows after my last ride, I tweaked my right bad knee; both are throbbing now...
My session lasted for almost 3 hours and I had it all to myself; there's a certain peace in a solo session that also cannot be described...
After all these years, and all my travails, and though it is gray, and bleak, and dead, and I'm into the 5mil wetsuit, booties, gloves, and hood, which means it's cold, and it's gonna stay cold for the next 6 months...I still dig it; there's still nothing better than a day in the water...in Maine...in November...
Most New England surfers will tell you that Autumn is their favorite season. Of course there's the foliage, flaming reds, rust oranges, golden yellows as you drive to the beach, and the still tepid water (read not yet frikkin, frigid cooollddd!) and after a long torporous summer of heat, humidity, and no surf, the ocean comes to life with tropical swells and nor'easters. What's not to love? But gray November, though often monochromatically bleak, and numbingly cold, has much to offer as well.
Witness my morning surf at a well known (but not often surfed) beach in my corner of the Maine coast. Adhering to the surfers' code of not divulging spot names, I'll call it "Clamdiggers," which has a double meaning, not the least being that that's for much of my session I went digging for clams on takeoff after takeoff. To be fair, I brought the wrong board for the swell. Le Platypus (my board) was designed as a "mushbuster" for small days and though the waves were not huge (waist to chest high with some outside bombora sets that doubled those dimensions) the power and steepness of the whumpa-thumpa beachbreak at Clamdiggers had me walloped, ragdolled, and pretzled time after time. To be even more fair, after a rough coupla years of injuries and surgeries, and alot of time out of the water, I got a lot of polishing to do to clean off the rust of my surfing skills.
Yet, despite my struggles, it was a glorious and awe-inspiring session. I surfed solo with the entire break to myself and only the odd beach stroller to witness my rides.
Some things I saw, feelings I felt:
Though I'm 52 years old and have been surfing for 37 of those years, I still get butterflies of anticipation as I scramble frenetically into my wetsuit before I go out...
While first paddling out, I saw a loon get tumbled over the falls, bouncing down the face of the wave; I've never, ever seen a seabird get caught by a wave like that; they always seem to have an innate intuition for bobbing over or ducking under without getting nailed...later, another bird (don't know what type) surfaced right next to me after a dive; apparently he didn't see the wave bearing down on us either as he tried to take flight at the last second but got swatted as the lip came over...
The sky was gray, the sea a faintly greenish-gray, and just a whisper of offshore wind; perfect surfing conditions; later, as I was leaving the water, the sun broke through with the passing front and the wind increased velocity exponentially...an evening drive-by after work, revealed by the light of a full-moon, that the swell had dropped considerably...I'm dawn patrolling it tomorrow but I think it will have gone flat...
Though I didn't manage to get inside any of them, there were tubes aplenty; there's an indescribable beauty of seeing a crystalline lip hurl over and barrel from an in-the-water perspective that nobody but a surfer can fully appreciate...
I did catch a few waves that didn't annihilate me; le Platypus, while not designed for thumping shorebreak, did lay over really nice and carve on rail off the bottom; real surfing is all about the RAIL, baby!
I tweaked my left bad knee on one wipeout, then on stepping off my board in the shallows after my last ride, I tweaked my right bad knee; both are throbbing now...
My session lasted for almost 3 hours and I had it all to myself; there's a certain peace in a solo session that also cannot be described...
After all these years, and all my travails, and though it is gray, and bleak, and dead, and I'm into the 5mil wetsuit, booties, gloves, and hood, which means it's cold, and it's gonna stay cold for the next 6 months...I still dig it; there's still nothing better than a day in the water...in Maine...in November...
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