I started this blog one year ago. Last year, I was out on my own at Blackies on Father's Day, the June Gloom blanketing everything in its soft, insular gray. Today, I sat on the beach with Surf Sisters Heidi and Ashley, watching the waves and five of our other sisters brave the 2-3 + conditions -- emphasis on the + for sure. We watched the sets roll in, watched the gaps between sets, and watched other, more experienced surfers go toes to the nose on wave after wave. I can see more clearly now -- see when waves are coming -- a skill I didn't have a year ago. See the gaps where I might paddle out, and have more patience to sit on the beach to wait for that gap. But most importantly, I have a community of like-minded warriors to accompany me on my journey.
A year ago I wrote, "So this is my deeper aspiration for surfing: finding balance, peace, and equanimity among the waves. Cultivating a mindful awareness and staying in the moment. There is a deep part of me that believes when I am finally able to be at one with nature, communing with Salacia, gliding on the waves at will or floating peacefully on my board in calm waters, it will deepen the inner peace I am beginning to feel in my land dwelling life. One practice serves the other: mindfulness helps me surf; surfing helps me practice mindfulness."
Mindfulness meditation teacher training began in February; surfing began in May. This blog began in June, and then I started therapy with a clinical psychologist who is also familiar with mindfulness in October. All of these practices have worked together to help me make massive progress toward my original goal of finding balance, peace, and equanimity in my life.
The teacher training has been intense! I have met twice each month with my group to discuss strategies and practice our teachings. There are many videos and supplemental readings each month. My meditation sangha (community) is beautiful. We are a perfectly international group with a similar intention and purpose, and over the year, we've grown quite close. If I ever get to Europe again, then I'm sure I have six places to stay! I have a dream that we will all meet outside of Zoomland in Chillie's yurt in Denmark on a cool summer night, the glow of late night sun lighting our way.
I surf most every weekend with the girls, have done so many lessons, and have been to two camps for more intensive practice. Surfing itself is very special. I am so lucky to have found it and found a welcoming place to practice it. According to many sources, but summed up here quite well, surfing is special for healing and promoting equanimity for many reasons:
Connection with nature -- I am a nature lover and gardener, so trees, flowers, and other green things have brought me peace for as long as I can remember. Growing up on the midwestern prairie gave me a love for fireflies, fresh tomatoes, wildflowers, and farm fields as far as the eye could see. After I got divorced, I spent hours at Elawa Farm Garden digging and planting and weeding and talking to a pear tree named Mavis. It's been many years since there's been dirt under my nails and I feel that loss. However, I have also been a water baby my whole life. My grandparents had a cottage in Port Austin, Michigan, on the "tip of the thumb" looking out to Lake Huron. I spent whole days on that beach. Living in the Midwest, I was never far from the Great Lakes, the Third Coast. I lived by Lake Michigan for many years; my home beach north of Chicago was Sunrise Beach in Lake Bluff, Illinois. So my lifelong dream of living by the sea has now been fulfilled after a lifetime near freshwater oceans. The water is my home. A healing home.
Waves, negative ions, neurochemical highs -- Whether it's the calming rhythm of the waves or the micro conditions of being near water and their effects on my brain and body, I leave the water after a surf session invigorated. Saltwater is definitely healing. Whatever worries I walked onto the beach with, they disappear when I hop on that board and stay gone for a long time afterward. It simply feels good. I'm reading the book Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols about the human-water connection. He writes in his Blue Mind Rx Statement, "Neuroscientists and psychologists add that the ocean and wild waterways are a wellspring of happiness and relaxation, sociality and romance, peace and freedom, play and creativity, learning and memory, innovation and insight, elation and nostalgia, confidence and solitude, wonder and awe, empathy and compassion, reverence and beauty — and help manage trauma, anxiety, sleep, autism, addiction, fitness, attention/focus, stress, grief, PTSD, build personal resilience, and much more. Chronic stress and anxiety cause or intensify a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. Being on, in, and near water can be among the most cost-effective ways of reducing stress and anxiety."
Mental clarity, balance, focus, present moment awareness -- Nothing else pins me to the moment like surfing. It is totally demanding. As one of these posts read, I am "moving on something moving," so this activity requires my total attention, total situational awareness, so many different variables at play in any given moment. Exhilarating. Any accomplishment is massive, because this is the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. Someday, I'll completely enter the flow state while surfing, but right now, I'm in the struggling to do it part of the learning curve. While I can totally lose a sense of time, it's not feeling very flowy right now -- unless getting high-fived in the face by a wave feels flowy (not).
Both community and solitude -- I have found a beautiful community in the ocean and there is ample opportunity even on the busiest days to drift off on your own to have a moment of tranquility and peace while you are rocked gently by the current. There is nothing I like better than sitting outside in the line up in my own little world, staring out to sea, feeling peaceful, then turning around to see my surf sisters laughing and talking behind me. They often holler out at me to come back in, I'm drifting too far. What a lovely tether -- I am both connected and given space, "both held and free," as Glennon Doyle wrote in Untamed.
After a year on the water, I'm just starting to stand up in very small, baby wave conditions. And while surfing itself is very special, the surfing is less important than the community of surfers to which I belong. I cannot understate the joy my surf sangha has given me. The Surfing Sisterhood is amazing. I love these women. We have so much fun -- I haven't laughed so often and so hard in so long. We help each other grow. We support one another; we show up. I admire each of them for the strengths they bring and the love they share. The momentum is building after a year together and I cannot express how much joy that brings me. These are safe people, generous and kind, and that huddle of safety helps me enormously.
Writing this blog has been a way for me to process all of the lessons I'm learning as I tend to internalize ideas when I write about them. It is also a way for this recovering, formerly invisible, people-pleasing perfectionist, far more comfortable in the shadows, to take up space and be seen. Taking my inner life seriously is an important step, as I'm learning from reading the Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson book about Emotionally Immature Parents again. (There are now several books.) I like playing with writing, and if nothing else, this will be a beautiful memory book of experiences and pictures from this first year of surfing that I can look back on in my dotage. ;) But I do think it is serving a really important purpose in my life.
But the most important thing I've done is to go back into therapy. I am eternally grateful to the universe for putting Buddhist Therapist Guy (BTG) in my path. His particular combination of clinical psychology skill and mindfulness practices have been so powerfully healing. What BTG has done so well is to create a safe space in which I can do the work. It is a rare and wonderful thing how often he meets the moment in our sessions. I feel very held -- like he's really got me. He's way ahead of my mental machinations and it comes as a total relief that I can't squirm away. I am so grateful for the kindness, gentleness, and compassion he models for me. I am able to be kinder to myself because of it. I've been in and out of therapy for 20 years, and I've never made so much progress in such a short period of time.
Many things prepared my mind for such progress at this moment. First, all of the therapy I've had before. I'm not coming into this experience new at it. I understand how therapy works and how helpful it can be. Second and probably most importantly, I taught a class on Positive Psychology for 8-9 years at my old university. We meditated every class, read a lot about emotional intelligence -- identifying, understanding, and managing emotions -- and how to apply those skills in every day life. I also read a lot of Brene Brown's work. Her ability to discuss shame openly (and with a sense of humor) normalized talking about it. Her ability to clearly define shame and give us strategies for dealing with shame has given me the ability to face my own more directly. I can identify it and name it, so then I can deal with it. It's not swimming around outside of my awareness, a vague and uneasy feeling. It is a canyon dweller I can see.
I'm sure all of these things -- surfing itself, my experiences teaching, the mindfulness training, the surf girls, writing, and therapy -- are working together right now to help me find a peace and equanimity I've never before felt. I'm finally learning to stand up on my emotional waves with some grace. So much further to go, and what a wonderful set of goals for my life! Surfing -- in the ocean and in my mind -- handling the physical and emotional waves that inevitably come, seeking a flow, a oneness with the joy of being. Developing a new definition of strength and adulting in the process.
Next year will be all about my body: building strength and flexibility, loosening up my hips to allow the flow (and a better pop up). Reclaiming my body from both the very real health issues I've been experiencing (menopause, Hashimoto's Disease, aneurysm) as well as from those who took it and abused it. I can reclaim my sense of power by being on the sea and seeing a new definition of strength evolve. Not one that works like the bouncer or the fear boulder blocking any and all human encounters to keep me safe, but one grounded in confidence, ease, and trust in myself. Surfer strength is more fluid and flexible.
Allowing myself to flow with the conditions, the water, the energy of the ocean. Feel the waves and proceed with balance, equanimity, and grace.
Understanding the laws of physics -- not intellectually but bodily -- the natural order of things, and working with it. Flexible, attuned, noticing. Noticing subtle changes in the waves, in my balance, and making adjustments to keep flowing. Secure and stable on shifting seas.
Fully accepting whatever comes floating by and understanding that I can reckon with it. Reading the conditions, knowing my limits, and finding support when I need it.
Popping up quickly, standing on my own two feet with glee, joy, enthusiasm. Start from there and then play -- cross-step, hang ten, enjoy the fish and dolphins and sunshine and foggy marine layer. Going for it, delighting in whatever comes along, knowing there is always more to learn, more ways to grow. Not taking everything so seriously.
Greeting the mutuality of the ocean with an open heart, vulnerability, and care. The water and I surf together. I interact with the community of the ocean -- all of it, the fish, birds, and mammals and water, sun, and seaweed.
This is an empowering strength that I can build. It has nothing to do with anyone else; no one else needs to be punished or invalidated for me to build this strength. It's not rigid and stiff, tight and ready to fight, but loose. Hang loose, people.
Another wonderful surfing weekend is in the books. Saturday, we went down to Doheny Beach, a place I wasn't keen on initially because it has a rocky bottom. The last time we went there (only once), the tide was low and it was MASSIVELY crowded. Rocks the size of bowling balls under the waves made me very nervous, as did the very large sea lion who swam very close by the line up. Saturday, the tide was higher, so it was OK -- plenty of space to fall and not break a hip. Doho is a great place for beginners, but it gets super busy, especially in the summer. It was really busy on Saturday, but the slow rolling waves spread down the whole length of the beach, so there was plenty of room. Most people are forgiving of beginners at such places, but we did encounter some less than accommodating figures. So disappointing to experience that, but it has been quite rare. I feel so grateful that this surfing journey has been blessed by the Nereids; we most often find support among other surfers.
We then did a pop up clinic together at a park near the beach. Lantern Bay Park in Dana Point was incredible: 180-degree views of the ocean. I love that we explore other places together while we learn. The clinic was put on by a lovely couple, the Independent Surfer. Very knowledgeable and kind, we each got a 1:1 video analysis and feedback on our pop ups! (The first video is what the pop up should look like. The second is what I managed. LOL.)
On Sunday, we took what we learned back to Blackies, conditions quite big as you can see in the photo above. I wasn't up for that challenge, so I sat on the beach, very much enjoying watching the waves and the surfers. Heidi sat with me. We talked and watched the more experienced surfers and how they popped up (a long Cobra with a little twist seems key to a longboarder's take off). Ashley went in to surf, but got nailed right away, so came back to the satiny sand to join us.
It was so comfortable and warm, sitting with my girls, the sun peeking out as the marine layer burned off; some actual blue sky for a change! I feel at home here. After a year in the sea, I have found a home. A home on land in a place, for sure, and spiritually within a community I love. But most of all, I've found a home within me. Like Derek Walcott wrote in his poem, "Love After Love," at home with myself, sipping from a glass of saltwater, I am finally able to feast on my life.
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
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