Monogamy

 

I’m monogamous by nature.  One lover at a time, thank you.  Don’t understand the whole “casual” thing.  I allowed myself to be manipulated into a one-nighter once…once.  The perpetrator in question suckered me in with just the right (slow!) pace, said all the right things at all the right times…played me for the sucker and I, all too willingly, went along.  We shared a lot of words and philosophies for the better course of a couple months.  Then on the night in question, we warmed up with a nice evening stroll by the ocean, followed by a succulent Italian dinner, and deep, deep conversation.  Drinks back at my place and the next thing I knew, it got all hot and heavy.  I expressed reticence, was swayed, again, by the right moves, the right words.  Gave in and allowed myself to be had way with…Woke up the next morning with a stranger in my bed, who seduced me again, and I played along…

 Long story short, I received an email reply to numerous phone calls a week after the ill conceived, fruitioned liaison: “Sorry, don’t really wanna be in a relationship; no hard feelings, huh?”

 Huh?

 Sucker.  It’s been over two years now and I’m still mad at myself…

 Nope.  That ain’t never gonna happen again.  I learned a lot about myself from that episode.  Unfortunately learned a lot about people too.  Some will use you, hurt you, and have no compunction at all about it…

 Aside from my dog, who’s loyalty and love are impetused most by his DNA (okay, maybe that’s a little cynical; I KNOW he loves me unconditionally!) there’s been only one enduring relationship in my life.  It might sound a little sad or pathetic to anyone who does not understand surfing or surfers, but my enduring love is for my local surf spot: The Rivermouth. 

 Yep, that’s right, I love a surf spot. 

 Me and the River go way back, all the way back in fact, to the very beginning of my surfing life.  We’ve been through it all; I’ve seen her every mood.  She’s not always beautiful; she’s sometimes downright ugly.  Sometimes she’s cranky and onshore, closed out, funky washing machine, peaky, fickle, frustrating, CROWDED (how DARE she cheat on me with so many other lovers! Yet…I forgive her fooling around on me; I know in my heart that she and I are hopelessly entwined soulmates…)   

 I’ve cursed her with great vehemence as she rolled me under her waves.  I’ve yelled and screamed, and carried on like a psycho at times when she did not treat me well.  At times, when she’s gone flat for weeks at a time in the summer for example, I admit, my mind has wandered from her; I’ve coveted other breaks, other locales…

 There have been bad times, rough patches, times when I was ready to forsake her…but oh, there have been good times too.  And the good times…oh baby!  Those times, have made me forget that any other place existed.

 There was Hurricane Belle back in ’76…OMG!!! Dream waves, offshores visible from my family’s cottage across the Ogunquit River, spraying back in rainbows, above the height of the dunes…BIG, BIG, BIG…and perfect!

 Another day, another dream day…I paddled out on this funky little 5’4” that I’d made, the tail was wide with a rounded swallow (think a beautiful female rounded hind end!)  It had 4 fins that I’d slapped on, years before the quad revolution, just cuz I was fooling around in the shop, creating the weirdest board I could envision…that board sucked most of the time, but that morning, on overhead walls, whispering offshores, golden sunrise glowing through the faces, and only myself, Dave Carson, and John Clancy there to ride it, ooooohh, oooohhh, OMGGGGodddd! I drove that little 5’4” across and through some of the longest barreling sections I’ve ever had in my life…Clancy and Carson, after witnessing some of my looooonnnnggg rides on that short board kept screaming: “Did you MAKE that wave?”  And “Fuck! How did you make that?”  Best session of my life…

 There was that mid-winter day when my old surfing buddy Lucas Merrow and I paddled out alone into HUGE waves at dusk.  My leash snapped on a closeout wave that broke about 100 yds outside the point.  Though I’m a strong swimmer, Lucas sacrificed himself, clutching his board and getting rolled at each new wave, just to stay with me as I stroked for the beach.  By the time we both made it to shore, it was completely dark with only the lights of the Norseman Hotel (which we’d drifted all the way down to!) to guide us over the dark beach.  Somehow I found my board and Lucas and I just looked at each other in the dimness…and laughed our asses off!

 Another big winter day, all the “boys” watching it from up near the lighthouse.  The only board I had with me was a longboard; Laura Breen had hers too.  Two chicks paddled out into what all the guys were declining.  I had to wait for maybe 10-15 minutes in the swirl behind the point, using the rocks to shield me from the smashing sets, until I spotted a narrow window where I thought I could make it.  Paddled my ass off  and somehow got out there with only the last wave of a set nailing me.  Outside, with the usual point takeoff maybe 70 yards inside of me, I watched Laura get nailed a few times, but with perseverance, she joined me out in the lineup.  Two surf chicks waited, while the boys watched from the parking lot.  When my wave came, I two stroked into a massive wall on my 9’0” longboard, feeling like Greg Noll, a bug atop that infamous Makaha wall back in ’69…somehow I made the drop, turned, and then hung on for a bumpy 200 yard ride all the way to the inside where the final closeout section, a thumping overhead wall, just utterly annihilated me!  After I washed in, I left the water, my day, my deed, done… I think Laura caught a wave sometime after that but she was so far out that I couldn’t really see her…the parking lot boys were quite impressed…

Not every day, every memorable swell has been necessarily huge though.  When the River is really working, the sand piled up just right on the bank, you feel like you’re surfing Kirra or Burleigh or somewhere legitimate like that.  And I’ve caught so many small day, solo sessions where guys drive up, look, and drive away, while I laugh and keep catching fun little rides…can’t even count…

Yep, the Rivermouth is my lady…though I sometimes surf other spots, I’ll always return to the River.  It’s where I started, and hopefully when my days are done, whoever I might leave behind, I hope they spread my ashes there so I might surf those waves I love so dearly…

 Me and the River, living in perfect harmony…for eternity…