Friday, December 6, 2024

Jump off line: Tell me all about it

I went surfing. My instructor Lily is part of the only women-owned surf school here in Oahu – the North Shore Surf Girls. Lily looks like a supermodel – tall, fit, blonde with blue eyes. She is radiant, jovial and just beautiful. She grew up here and has been surfing in these parts since she was 6.

She starts with teaching me the techniques, the dos and don’ts. Towards the end she asks me ,“are you ready?”. My reflex answer to that question is “I was born Reddy!” but before I could respond, she exclaimed “you look ready!” I don’t know why I thought it would take me another 2-3 weeks of physical therapy and exercise to attempt surfing.

I walk into the water, it’s rocky and the water is just right, not too cold. Soon, I get onto my longboard and start paddling. I am hit with shock mixed with surprise. I blurt out “it’s so soft!” Lily looks at me puzzled. “The water.. it’s so soft I don’t know why I was expecting it to be hard. It’s like.. like water!” I can’t believe myself. I had unknowingly been bracing myself for this moment for weeks now. A habit I seem to have developed in preparation for doing things I deem hard. Here I had somehow equated my ability to surf to be proof that I was ready to go back and face the world – what had seemed so hard the last few months. I had thought of surfing as a high bar for a tired, moody, chaotic me to achieve.

Lilly helps position me to catch my first wave. “Push up!” She says. That’s my cue to start paddling as fast as I can so that I can get on the board just as the wave starts to roll and so I get on my board, find my balance but the wave peters out… “Ahh you need a longer wave! Hold on” This next one I paddle, get on my knees and then my feet, I wobble, find my balance and then I stare out at the beach and palm trees with my jaw wide open. I caught a wave. And it lasted a loooong time. I drop back into the water and can hear Lily screaming and cheering me on. I catch another. And another. And another and many more. I start asking Lily tips on how to get better and what’s good versus great and how long it would take to not be a beginner and what that means. She answers my questions, we chit chat about her life and my life. She later says, “I just surf for fun. I enjoy the small waves, nice and mellow. I don’t care about the big waves.” That’s when I decide that I am not gonna aim for the big waves, I am just going to have as much fun as I can. I am keeping surfing as my fun thing. And I might extend that philosophy to all of life. My fun thing.