Yes On #1

I do not like labels. Not applied to people anyway.  But apparently there is some human need to classify, label, and categorize other humans.  It’s all bullshit.  It’s all about control, subjugation, and domination.  Humans seem to need to separate themselves from one another, to perpetuate their inherent presumption that their group, tribe, or ideology are superior to those they wish to control, subjugate, or dominate.

 

On the Maine ballot this election is a referendum on “Gay Marriage.”  The question being whether marriage between two people of the same gender should be allowed to marry.  Seriously?  We are even arguing this?  Still? 

 

Those opposed seem to be primarily heterosexual individuals who do not want their marriages to equate on equal footing with those of homosexual individuals.  One group trying to subjugate, dominate, control the rights of another group.  First of all, wtf, is “Gay Marriage?”  Why not, just “marriage,” period.  No, it must be classified, labeled, just so one group can point out that it is different…  Different from what?  Are we to believe that heterosexuality, and couplings between individuals of different genders are the norm, ie. “normal?”  Is there such a thing as “normal?”  Despite what anyone might argue to the contrary, both homo and hetero sexualities have existed since the dawn of Humankind; in a very real and basic sense, both are, “normal.”  The concept that one (homo) is aberrant and contrary to the laws of nature is absurd.  “Grow up,” is what I would suggest to such people who cloak themselves in this belief.  “Gay” people are every bit as legitimate to human existence as “straight” people…to borrow from Bill Belicheck, our hooded, Obi Wan football guru down in Foxboro: “It is what it is.”  Get over it…already, for cripes sakes.  People are people, humans are humans, and love and attraction are love and attraction…who the flying fuck is anyone to say that their love and attraction is more legitimate or more real than another’s?  Control. Subjugation. Domination.

 

Then there are the biblicals.  It is against God’s will…they propose.  Really?  You speak for God?  Presumptuous, are we?  For it is so written in the Bible, they argue.  Really? Show me where.  Leviticus?  God’s words?  Really?  And though there are those who will insist that the words and concepts contained within the pages of the Bible (which Bible are we to go by, btw, and who makes that decision…and why the Bible, not the Torah or Qur’an or other religious handbooks?) are the actual word of God.  Really? Is this not simply your belief?  And should the rest of us be subjugate to your beliefs?   I mean, really, are they the actual mouthed or written words and concepts spoken or penned by God, or, are they merely Man’s interpretation of God’s thinking, a collection of words and concepts and beliefs of various individuals, later distilled through the further interpretations (and in far too many cases, perversions) of clerics and biblical scholars, bible-thumpers, charlatans, and the armchair righteous?  Control. Subjugation. Domination.

 

Oh, and let us not neglect the condescenders.  Those who preach “tolerance” of “diversity.”  Tolerance?  As if, people who are different (different from what?) should be tolerated?  As if diversity was something to be tolerated rather than something that just is.  The control, subjugation, domination is more subtle here, but it is there nonetheless.  You are different than me but that is okay, I will tolerate you and your right to be different…somehow with the presumptive undertone that the one being “tolerated” is still in an inferior position.  I will “grant” you the right to be different, or in this case, marry, because, though I view you with a diminished eye, I don’t really care what you do when it doesn’t directly affect me…as if to say, if one’s very existence and right to that existence, is only dependant on the condition that I don’t directly affect anyone else around me.  Condescension.  Control. Subjugation. Domination.  People, don’t diminish others because they are different; we are all different in our own individual ways.  Don’t condescend to tolerate me because my difference is different than your difference.

 

There is no such thing as gay. There is no such thing as straight.  These are labels.  We are all, merely people.  And this is a country where we’re supposed to respect the rights of individuals, and groups, to differ from the thinking, beliefs, and practices of other individuals and groups.  Marriage is a social construct, not merely a biblical or religious mandate or privilege.  Nobody has the right to deny another from the advantages, privileges, or enjoyment of this social construct, as long as we are trying to abide life in a constructed society based on personal freedom and the right to pursue our individual happiness.  This country was not founded on the principles of control, subjugation, or domination…at least not in theory.  Might does not make right, nor does majority win out over minority when pertaining to inalienable rights of all individuals.  Labels are divisive and damaging, hurtful and…bullshit.  It’s not “gay” marriage, it’s just marriage…period.  Let’s be done with it and move on, please…there is much more important work to be tasked.

 

 

 

Deception

Sometimes all the elements align...right wind, strong swell, sunny, blue sky, puffy clouds...but like a beautiful but bitchy woman, or handsome but assholey man...looks can be deceiving; you cannot always judge a book by its cover...yesterday, October 21 was one such day.  Paddled out only to be ragdolled and thumped around, abused and frustrated...caught one ride that didn't close out on me...oh, there were rideable, makeable waves...I just wasn't on them...herewith lies the evidence of beauty and the beast behind the mask...pretty, huh? do not be deceived...

SIZE DON’T MATTER…

 

 

Under the file of:

“Stupid Questions and/or Commentary Posed by Tourists or Bystanders on Seeing a New England Surfer Either Egressing or Ingressing The Water with Wetsuit On and Board Under Arm.”

Or,

“Confessing to a Non-Surfing Fellow New Englander That You’re a Surfer.”

 

…somewhere between the entries of: “Is the water cold?”

 

“…was it rough out there?”

 

or:       “…you can SURF around here?”

…you’ll find this boilerplate gem:

“The waves aren’t really big enough to surf here, not like Hawaii or that Mavericks place out in California, right?”
 
Standing atop the dune the other day, while inserting my earplugs and zipping up my suit, I was accosted by a smugly grinning dork who glanced at my board and said: “You’re not actually going out in that water, are you?”  Mind considering this possible response: “Um no, I just thought I’d put this rubber suit on and lug my board around on the beach for awhile…” yet mind yielded to politeness as I smiled and nodded instead.  “Cuz, it’s 55 degrees!” he followed. 

“It gets down to 35 in the winter,” I said, still smiling politely, “and yes, we do still surf then!”

“Wow, you’re crazy!”  he said, apparently not considering it rude to accuse a total stranger of mental infirmity while standing atop a dune.  Then with a glance to the surf, which was knee-thigh with waist high sets, and really glassy clean, he probed further, still sporting that smugly sarcastic grin on his dorky mug, “Is there really enough there to push your board?”

PUSH my board I thought…Smug Dork, the waves don’t push the board, I wanted to say…but then, I didn’t have time to explain wave dynamics and the physics of the displacement hull under my arm…I chuckled instead, smiled some more, then turned my back and headed down to the water, leaving him to ponder whatever a smug smiling, dork atop a sand dune might ponder while heading towards the parking lot after an encounter with a “crazy” surf-chick on her way to the “freezing” water with her wetsuit and board.

“It isn’t always about size,” I explained to a less smug couple later who asked if the surf had been “good,” as I headed back to my car.  “It’s the quality of the wave, the shape and form.  And yeah, it was pretty good until the wind came up.”  This time it was they who smiled politely, I’m sure completely uncomprehending of what I meant about “the wind, the shape and form.”  We nodded and smiled mutually as we continued on our respective ways.

 
No, it ain’t about the size…so much.  I mean, sure, it’s gotta be at least big enough to “push” my board.  And yeah, it can be exhilarating when it comes “rough” and thumping. But it’s the quality…the shape and the form that really counts.  Take this particular day in question.  As I said, only knee to thigh, with the occasional waist high set.  But until the wind came up it was clean and glassy and the long walls were well suited to trimming with my displacement hull board.  I caught a few fun little rides, side-slipping around sections with the slightest of ankle adjustments, milking the waves the way only a D-Hull can, all the way to the beach, stepping off in knee deep water to paddle out again.  And I had it all to myself…3 miles of beach break and not another surfer in sight.

But it was more than the rides, the waves…it was the experience of it all.  In between sets, I sat on my board, gazing out to the horizon.  A dozen or so yards beyond me, a raft of eider ducks congregated.  Gulls swooped by, some gliding only inches above the water, others, circling high overhead, backdropped by a hazy blue sky and wispy clouds.  A lone seal popped his head above the surface, checked me out with his curious eyes, dove under, then surfaced again a little further down the beach.  I gazed into the emerald water, clear enough to see the rippled sand bottom.  Water beadlets spiraled down the curled tendrils of my hair, like those spirally bead toys that so fascinate toddling children.  I closed my eyes to the sun, opaque pink light through my lids.  The warm air breathed the faint onshore wind on my face.  Peace, serenity, though I was only about 50 yards offshore…within easy sight and shouting distance of the bundled beachgoers, sitting in their folding chairs with books in hand, or strolling the sands, heads down to spot the beach detritus of broken shell and dried rockweed, and perhaps a rare treasure of a sea polished bit of glass or stone.  Rarely did any of them look out to sea, towards me on my board; I might as well have been just another bobbing sea bird, or curious seal to them.  And it amazed me, how little distance one must travel, to get away from humanity, to meld with the more natural world…as we once did…embraced by nature…only 50 yards offshore. 

I caught a few waves, trimmed across their faces, watched the sealife, the seascape around me…until faint ripples of wind appeared outside, ruffling the surface, presaging the coming crumblies.  And I caught my last one as the wind arrived, rode until the sectioning face closed out impossibly before me, straightened out…rode it in all the way until I stepped off in knee deep water.  Then I lifted my board under my arm and headed up the sand to the dunes.  Atop the crest, I turned for a last look…the wind had already chopped it into a mess.  I smiled with wry, perhaps even a wee bit of smug satisfaction, before turning and heading down the backside of the dune, for the parking lot…where a smiling couple asked me how big the surf was…and if it had been any good…