"Wipeout" Doesn't Even Begin to Describe it...

Warm tears spilled down my face as I dragged myself out of the ocean and up the bridge to camp, thankful for the unrelenting rain that was still spattering from the sky, a watery camouflage to mask my choking sobs.

It doesn’t fucking make sense. I swore angrily at myself, unable to grasp the reasons behind my piss poor performance in this morning’s lesson. Two times I had stood up for longer than a couple of seconds. Two times in a goddamn hour and a half.

Pathetic.

“I don’t understand, you should be turning by now,” John had said to me, after what seemed like my 257^th wipeout. He’d meant well, he’d wanted to rile me up, help me channel my anger and frustration into surfing. But I was too far gone. I felt like a failure.

The lesson had been only half finished, but he’d seen the exhaustion nestling in behind my eyes and sent me out of the water before I could get hurt, or worse, grow more disheartened.

“You and I are going to get in a lot of arguments,” he’d said yesterday, a comforting smile painted across his face. “Because I think I have more faith in your feet than you do.”

His words played over in my mind as I stood eyes closed under the shower, willing the scalding water to wash away my salty tears. I wanted to have faith in my feet, I really did. I wanted to “just jump up” and “look forward” and “keep your weight over your toes” and “don’t think about it” and ahhhh there was just so much to remember and I couldn’t. Stop. Thinking.

I collapsed into bed with heavy eyes and a gloomy spirit, and fell asleep the instant my head felt the soft give of my candy-striped pillow.

***

“It’s really nice outside,” Curtis said, waking me up. I’d been asleep for a few hours and I could see the sun streaming across a bright blue sky through the window in our cosy bedroom. “Want to come for a surf? See if you feel better?”

I rolled over, away from his touch. “I hate the ocean,” I mumbled, still groggy and feeling no less miserable.

But as he changed into his boardies and pulled on his favorite Rip Curl rashie I bought for $7 at a thrift store in Melbourne, I wondered if maybe a surf was what I needed. A chance to put back together the pieces of my shattered ego, and remind myself that I actually could surf.

I changed in a hurry and followed Curtis out to the surfboard racks. After selecting the two best boards and rummaging around for some wax, we headed out to the water, and I finally caught some waves.

It wasn’t my best surf, the waves were messy and, though small in size, came pounding in one after another making it difficult to paddle out. But I stood up. I stood, and I turned, and I kept my weight over my toes and my gaze on the tree line in front of me. And even though I’m pretty sure I was still “thinking about it,” I could feel the confidence creeping cautiously back into my body.

I didn’t realize when I signed up, but in addition to a surf course, the Academy is going to be an all out war inside my head. Each day—each session—a battle of its own, some (like this morning’s) resulting in mental destruction, and others more victorious.

I am not a quitter, but I’ve come to realize I can be easily discouraged, and I have a feeling that tackling this mental obstacle will be my most difficult undertaking in the eight weeks to come.

So to my brain I say, bring it on.

ts…

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"I Surf Because... What Else Would I Do in My Backyard?"

So there are some things I need to finish. Updates that beg desperately to be made. Stories that nag at me, pulling impatiently at the hems of my mind. Post me tomorrow, they say, tugging. But I have things to do, I protest, stomping my foot. I have a life to live, a soul to search, and so in turn, this blog suffers and has remained highly uninformative about my journey. And for that I apologize, to the both of us.

The missing posts will materialize (hopefully) and the stories with endings untold will arrive (in time) at their conclusions.

But right now, I want to tell you about TODAY.

After weeks of waffling over whether or not to stay here at Spot X, after warm, salty days of trying to sort out a plan without the help of my ever-trustworthy To Do Lists (because what did I even have to put on them?), and after nights spent dreaming about the thrill of adventure and tossing in hot nightmares over the binding chains of responsibility and time… Curtis and I decided to stay and begin a two-month long Surf Academy to become qualified surf instructors.

How random is that? And yet, fitting.

Day One of (Surf) School

There is supposed to be a beach here...

Here there was a volleyball net. Oh ya, and a field.

The rain pelted down from an unrelenting sky as we huddled around what seemed to be the only dry picnic table in the eating area, plates piled high with eggs, bacon, pancakes, watermelon and an assortment of other breakfast tidbits. “There’s no way he’ll make us go surfing in this weather, right?” one of us wondered aloud. A dozen heads turned in unison towards the ocean to watch the angry waves, murky brown with storm debris, crash chaotically into one another.

Around 8am, our instructor John strolled into the eating area, totally unfazed by the messy weather. He shook his head casually, sending beads of water flying off the hood of his sleek Rip Curl rain jacket. “All right, let’s get into it,” he said in a thick Aussie accent, and waved us inside the adjoining movie room.  

For the first couple of hours we trudged through usual start-of-a-new-class obligations; paperwork was passed around, names and details were recorded, class structures and schedules were outlined, and tea and coffee was sipped noiselessly as the rain pounded on the roof, stubbornly refusing to yield.

“Who’s ever been caught in a rip?” He asked, watching a couple of hands shoot up in affirmation. “Well that’s what we’re going to do today.” His voice was matter-of-fact but his smile was cheeky and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that staying for the Academy had been the right decision.

We sprinted back to our cabins, speed our only ally against the driving rain, and changed into our boardies and bathing suits. I struggled into my skin-tight thermal, a moisture wicking long sleeve surfing top I bought on impulse in Byron Bay (which has surprisingly turned out to be one of the most useful purchases I’ve made in Oz) as the rest of the crew wrestled their bodies into rain-soaked wetsuits.

We grabbed surfboards and made our way down to the creek that feeds into the ocean, which, though calm and stagnant on most days, was raging wildly this morning and looked very much like a Class V rapids. The rain stung my face and my exposed legs, like being pelted with handfuls of pointy icicle tips, an assault on my already chilled skin.

“Mind that your leg rope doesn’t get caught on the rocks,” John cautioned, before tossing his surfboard into the rushing water and launching his body on top of it. In a matter of seconds, he was flying towards the ocean, grinning wildly and beckoning us in for the ride.

Like penguins on the edge of an iceberg, we tumbled in one by one after our fearless leader, leaping onto our boards and into the vacuum of muddy water. The lesson this morning was to get a feel for the way the water moves. We rode the rip out to the waves, then turned the board around and, while still lying on our stomachs, rode the waves back to where we entered the rip.

It was a chair lift-ski slope cycle of sorts. Only, more salt and less clothing.

It was unbelievably fun, and I laughed for just about the entire hour in the water, despite being tossed around like I was stuck inside a really wet tumble dryer. When it was time to go, I rode my last wave in to the beach, and struggled to pick up my board. The wind howled back, nearly knocking me over as I fought my way to the bridge back to camp.

“I’m going to leave my leg rope around my ankle,” I yelled over the elements to Anne and Anna as they looped their leggies over their boards. “Knowing me the wind will catch the board and I’d have to run after it!”

I reached the bridge shortly behind Anna, and watched as she waded up to her waist before making it safely up the stairs. I stepped into the water and felt the current rush around me, threatening to carry me back out to sea. I approached the bridge steps and passed the nose of my board into Anna’s outstretched hands, and in that instant, my legs buckled under the weight of the rushing water.

I struggled for balance, grasping for stability with my feet, and clawing at rocks with my hands until soon the leg rope grew taught and my left ankle was jerked to the surface by the tension. 

I looked up to see Anna doubled over, arms outstretched and clinging with all their might to the nose of my surfboard, to which, 15 feet away, I was still attached by the leg. I exploded into a fit of giggles, which, of course, made standing all the more difficult, but eventually (and not so gracefully, I would say) I managed to climb to my feet and wade to the bridge, and to safety.

I am salty, sandy, and soaked to the bone, but above all, I am filled with excitement and anticipation about learning to surf and about where this course might take me. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to be postponing real life for just a little longer.

Emblazoned in bright pink on the back of my Spot X hoodie is the company slogan. Find Your Mojo, it says. And that’s exactly what I plan to do.

So much love,

the traveling stahr...

** Title quote courtesy of Andy Irons

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