Golden Girls

The alarm rang at 4:30 am, but I was already awake. Meeting Surf Sisters Sherri and Haley at 5:15 for the hour drive up to El Porto in Manhattan Beach for the Queen of the South Bay all-women's surf competition (that is not really a competition), I didn't want to be late. Haley's 8-foot longboard fit neatly inside my upside down 9 on her roof rack. She had purchased new straps for the trip to hold our boards atop Rustica, her dark orange Subaru. Her shortboards were inside the car; Haley was competing in both sides of the competition: long and short. She did 7 heats that day, eventually claiming 5th place overall in the longboard Shredding Betties age group (24-40). I am in awe of her. I barely survived my one heat. Sherri was there to cheer us on; she didn't want to participate. Sherri said she would need to get better at surfing before she could compete; that she would need to get better on her hardboard, she didn't want to ride her foamie in a competition. I do not have these concerns. I am ride or die with the Admiral, still, after all of these years. I was there to have a beautiful day hanging out with two women I love doing something we love together. The surfing itself was secondary -- joyful and brilliant, but definitely secondary.

QOTSB organizers do not call it a competition. They refer to us as participants. It's a celebration more than a competition. One organizer described it, "QOTSB is an event that celebrates women in surfing, and gives all of these women a chance just to have space at El Porto to surf without a lot of crowds. We try to make it so that it's not just about surfing, it's about community. A way to serve part of the community that wasn't being served." All ages and skill levels are welcomed explicitly. Another organizer said, "It's a bit of a festival really." There were vendors from women-owned businesses, other activities like yoga and lei-making, as well as lunch and a raffle. Haley won a new short board! One organizer described the day, "It's a time for women to have time in the water at a typically crowded surf break. Women are enjoying the water a bit more. Women just want to be in community. It's just a great time to be together." She went on, "It is not a contest. What I keep telling the participants is that you are not a competitor, you are a participant. You are here to lift women up and to celebrate all the women who are here with you."

And it was definitely that. It was so beautiful to see all the really young girls surfing who could already SHRED. Someone has supported their passion and engagement with surfing so much that they can take on 4-foot waves by ten years old. Teenagers who could already cross-step on longboards. A healthy contingent of older women like me who relish being in the ocean; most of them cruising on those four-footers with elegance, grace, and huge skill. The best part was seeing all of the support in the crowd. Families showed up with signs and had t-shirts made on behalf of their little girls. Huge encampments sprang up early to joyfully spend the day at the beach cheering women on. Announcers interviewed the surfers and commented on their rides during the heats, just like the men have gotten to experience for decades. This is the third annual QOTSB competition. I think of the young women growing up who will look at this kind of attention and support like it's normal and how that will help their own internal sense of worth and agency out in the world beyond surfing. I'm remembering all of the women showcased in the documentary Girls Can't Surf and how this competition stands on their shoulders. I wrote about the effect of this documentary on me and how we're not quite there yet a couple of years ago. QOTSB renews my faith that women will be taken more seriously in sport moving forward. Valued equally in our society in this way among many others.

My goal for the day, in the Golden Girls category (55+) was to catch one wave. Each heat is 15 minutes long; you catch as many waves as you can in 15 minutes. Just let me get one wave in 15 minutes, I said to myself. Considering the conditions, I was delighted to catch anything. By the time I went in at 2 pm, conditions were completely blown out: 8 knot winds, 4-5 foot waves, and a northbound current so strong it would have carried me to San Luis Obispo in 20 minutes if I let it. I was stunned to have four scored waves by the end of my heat. I never left the whitewater. Didn't even try. But I did stand up on a couple. I was absolutely tickled and exhausted by the end of the heat. Haley and Sherri met me with leis, making a big deal of my first solo competition. It was incredibly thoughtful. The whole day was about being a participant and what that really means: feeling real -- feeling like a real person, loved and considered, worthy of equal participation in community. My Golden Girl era has begun with an examination of what that really means.

There is something about putting on that jersey to compete that makes me feel so good. The colored jersey is about being seen -- the judges can't see your face way out in the ocean, don't know you, but my white with pink sleeves jersey tells them who I am. I can be seen in the water. Getting a scored wave means someone has observed my attempt and considered it. Like the father I never had, the judge gave me some feedback in the form of a score. FOUR scores, adding up to a 3.77, 4th place out of 4 competitors in my heat. I was thrilled. I heard my name called from the announcers over the roar of the crashing waves at one point: they saw me and commented something. I didn't hear what they said, but the announcers had been funny and encouraging all day to others. I was there. Others saw me. I was seen. I was a real person that day. After a lifetime of being invisible, I felt real.

Over these past few years, the ocean has helped me feel real. Getting slapped around by Mother Ocean means I am a body in space being acted upon by the water. I can feel the edges of my body in the cold expanse. Feel myself getting spun under the waves or flowing above them. I cannot think my way into a wave; it's my body that responds to the energy of the water. My mind and what it can do are irrelevent. It's my body that's doing the surfing. A consequence of neglect and abandonment is to feel invisible. I mean that literally. I am continually surprised that others see me and remember me, remember details about me. That Haley remembered this was my first solo comp and brought leis with her to gift to me meant a great deal to me. She held me in her mind when I was not in her immediate presence. To be thought of that way helps me feel like I'm a part of her life. An equal participant.

The cold water also regulates my nervous system. I feel better all over, calmer, more peaceful, just tickled by the sight of a leash around my ankle in the green sea. Being in community all day, at ease, looked after in a number of ways and looking after others was also healing an aspect of my nervous system. Another consequence of neglect and abandonment is that I feel like I'm on my own. I only have myself to rely on. Dangers can come from anywhere and it is up to me to keep myself self. A hypervigilance develops which never lets go. Being an equal participant means I can relax that quality of mind. We look out for each other. Someone has my back. I feel good and safe with Sherri and Haley, because over time, they've been there with a loving awareness and joy that I share with them.

So, my surf sisters have made me feel real. Haley and Sherri's thoughtfulness helped me feel important and worthy of the day together. I love hanging out with them. There is an ease with them. I can relax. Casual conversation throughout the day together, laughs and support, it was fun. Kindness. Consideration. Joy. Everyone on time, sharing funds, helping each other out. It reminded me what the Sisterhood was at the beginning. A place to feel an easy belonging. People showed up for each other as a matter of course over those first two or so years. It was beautiful.

For about the last year, though, the Sisterhood has faded for me. Queen of the South Bay was with two people who started the Sisterhood -- the OG's -- and it felt that way. Initially, Sisterhood was about inclusion and belonging, generosity and support. Everyone showed up nearly every week. That has changed. The whole has not felt that way for me for a long time. As it is with humans, preferences take over and the whole has divided up into little groups, not at all of which welcome everyone. There are many days I don't know who is available to go surfing with -- again, I find myself on my own. I did a relationship autopsy the other day -- an analysis I do when romantic relationships end, I take stock of what happened. It's a lesson in impermanence to see how it slowly fell apart from my perspective. I stress "from my perspective" because the group still exists, it is just very different from where I sit. It doesn't have the same feel anymore. People got complicated. So this is my version of the story from my unique perspective at this moment in time. As my perspective on my childhood has evolved, I expect this interpretation will evolve, too, but this is where I'm at today.

Different things have happened to break up the original group. One person broke an ankle and doesn't come anymore. One person moved away. Another got busy with family, another with work. Every day problems got in the way of people showing up. A big thing for me, though, was that a smaller group of sisters separated themselves off into their own chat. I think it started innocently enough -- a desire to not slam the big chat with daily surfing logistics. But over time, those people got closer to each other and stopped inviting the rest of us to go out with them. It continues to be a hurtful exclusion. A breach of our unstated ethics of inclusion and generosity. Between the originals who stopped coming, and the people who separated themselves, I have been left feeling like I have no where to belong. New people have come in and have been lovely, but they haven't felt like "my people." They are more interested in surfing than relationship. So, for me, the Sisterhood has become a source of pain, a place where my old wound of invisibility gets activated again. While Queen of the South Bay day was a return to the beautiful feelings of when we started -- I didn't have to doubt that I belonged -- the current state of the Sisterhood thwangs some very deep buttons for me.

BTG told me a Buddhist story the other day that helped me see the wound more clearly. It is the story of Pakati, a woman in India of the untouchable caste, at a well where Ananda, the Buddha's close cousin and advisor, came to get some water. Someone who is an untouchable is not allowed to share water or anything with someone not in her caste by law. Some people don't even look at untouchables. There are various tellings of the story, but essentially, Ananda spoke to the woman with kindness, asking for some water, and letting her know that her caste did not matter to him, only her ability to give him some water. She fell in love with him and went to the Buddha with a desire to serve him. The Buddha told her that it was not Ananda who she loved, but kindness itself. She should practice kindness for herself and others. The Buddha invites her to join the sangha and she becomes a nun, so she may do just that.

BTG shared this story and his commentary. He said that Pakati was looking for Ananda to save her and that she sought a dependence on him. BTG's initial focus on "saving" really pissed me off. I always pay attention to these strong reactions, because they usually bear fruit if I stick with them. This one did too. For perhaps obvious reasons, I identify with the untouchable in the story. Neglected, I felt invisible. Not a lot of kindness around me. I muttered to myself for a week about this story and BTG's assertion that Pakati needed to be saved and when we next met, I let my anger speak.

First, I took it personally. I took it as BTG was telling me that I was looking for relationships to save me, that I was seeking a dependence on others. A voice inside me roared, "I do not need to be saved. I am the saver!" I am the saver. Wow. What the hell is that? After much thought and discussion, I realize that my way of relating to people has been in this dynamic of saver or saved. Either as the one who is saving someone else or one who needs saving. I'm either positioning my self above or below other people, usually above as the saver. Other people didn't show up for me. I saved myself. I'm on my own. I'm not only used to this dynamic, it is safer in this dynamic. My real self is not entirely present as it would be in an equal relationship. I am not quite rejected when those relationships fail, as they will inevitably, because I am not quite all there. I'm protected as the saver -- serving another, but not being known myself, not even knowing myself. I never actually learned another way to be. My parents were in a codependent dynamic. Saving was the only way of relating that I knew how to do: one person is needy and the other takes care of them. Caretaker - Abandoner. Like Pakati, I needed to be shown another way.

After more reflection and vehement, angry discussion (on my part), I realized that Pakati didn't need to be saved. She needed to be seen. Being an untouchable, Pakati saved herself thousands of times from the worst humankind has to offer. She never got to know kindness, because no one was ever kind to her. She was entirely dehumanized by the mirror held up to her by the world -- how could she realize on her own that she was worthy of kindness? Of humanity? She was utterly excluded, both from society and from herself. And in that exile, she had to keep an eye on everyone else to keep herself safe. She watches everyone else like a hawk, knows everyone else's strengths and weaknesses, because they will affect her eventually. There will either be harm or there will be a mess to clean up, and it's on her shoulders to sort it out. Other people are problems to solve. This hypervigilance didn't allow her an opportunity to get to know herself. She didn't exist to herself or to the world. She existed to serve. When Ananda showed up, she thought, "Hell yea, if I'm serving someone, let me go serve the nice guy." Of course she followed him.

I heard my own voice and it was hurt and angry. She watches everyone else like a hawk, knows everyone else's strengths and weaknesses, because they will affect her eventually. There will either be harm or there will be a mess to clean up, and it's on her shoulders to sort it out. Other people are problems to solve. No wonder relationship is hard for me. Abandoned, I had to do that. I have not been included in the care on an equal basis.

Ananda did save Pakati, but the saving is not the sweeping-in-on-a-white-horse kind of saving, live happily ever after, dependence kind of saving. In a world that dehumanized Pakati to a degree I can't begin to understand, what Ananda did was reflect her humanity back to her. His kindness allowed her to see herself in a new way. When we are reflected in this way, a whole new world opens up. Of course she wanted to follow that. She now has an opportunity to experience a new way to be. The Buddha gave her an opportunity to have an entire community like that -- a sangha in which she could play an important role, giving and receiving. Not dependent, but interdependent. Instead of being in exile from her own goodness and society itself, she now has a chance to be witnessed with kindness and compassion, allowed to grow in communal protection, see others in a new light and be seen. A whole new world appears, because her eyes are opened to a new way to be. She has people keeping an eye on her now and she has some time to explore her own being. Sangha is the container in which we learn about ourselves. Pakati can now be met in a container that includes her.

That is why the Sisterhood is such a loss for me. The Sisterhood was a container in which no one needed to be saved. I could exist with them freely and explore, play. We held each other in a way in which we were all safe. I wasn't saving anyone else and no one was saving me. Yet, we were all interested in each other in a personal way. We delighted in each other. All of these women are strong, capable, really amazing people. And I was among them. An equal participant. And I have rarely had that experience on a personal level. Professionally, I've had that experience a ton of times, but personally, only rarely. QOTSB was a return to that feeling. A celebration of women. "It is not a contest. What I keep telling the participants is that you are not a competitor, you are a participant. You are here to lift women up and to celebrate all the women who are here with you." I miss that.

BTG holds that container for me. On a side note, how nice to express anger to another human and have them handle it so well. I'm sure I've never experienced that before. I misunderstood BTG's meaning and got defensive. He meant that Pakati was saved initially by the kindness and needed to be shown some different options. I couldn't hear that, because I was so reactive. BTG sat solid and listened, like always. All of my emotions are welcome there and held. Another new experience. With this kind of container, I found my own way to a better interpretation. My own view of what the container could be. An interdependent, mutually supportive celebration of each other. Seeing and being seen. Held. Allowed to explore. Imperfect. Angry. Sad. Sarcastic. Equal participants. It is through these discussions in therapy that I find myself. I am allowed to be real -- both to myself and to the world, and have my humanity reflected back to me as acceptable, as lovable, as fully human. I am allowed to grow in safety.

So this is a slow process of becoming real to myself first. BTG, the ocean, the competition, and some of my surf sisters help me feel real. I miss the original Sisterhood and have been stuck in its lack, in the open space it has left in my life. At the end of the day with Sherri and Haley, I thought why in the world would I want to spend any more time worrying about people who do not show up for me? Why do I keep looking over at people who are not looking back? Feeling real means I can choose now. I have choices that I am actively making. I am choosing to spend my time with people who give back to me with that generosity of spirit I felt at QOTSB. A natural, flowing golden light of love and thoughtfulness. This is new. I am no longer chasing the father that didn't show up for me and I wondered why I wasn't good enough for him. I am no longer performing perfection in order be loved by a mother who had to have me a certain way to feel good about herself. I am my own person now. Enough people have reflected my humanity back to me that I feel real. Some freedom to be myself and feel ok in my own skin. I can choose now. Choice is freedom.

An additional responsibility here is to choose my path without blame or anger to others who cannot accompany me on it. One of the Lojong phrases is: drive all blames into one. It means to learn from everything that happens to us. What can I take away from this experience? What can I learn? As my own person, how do I want to be in the world? I have combed through my own suffering to end up here, what is the point of that other than to see that the whole world suffers? Sherri did not want to participate in a competition, because being seen is somehow threatening to her. She cannot bear the scrutiny. The separating surf sisters didn't want to participate in the whole group anymore. I can invent all kinds of reasons why that look through the lens of my own shame and suffering, but I'm not going to do that here. For weeks, I have been sifting through my reactions and possible reasons why, but I can simply look at the behavior without assigning intentions of my own invention. They simply aren't playing anymore. I feel sad about that, but the sadness is mine for the lack of inclusion. They might be quite happy together. It may have been a good choice for them. I can quit looking selfishly at the lack, taking it personally, and understand that we all make these decisions on behalf of ourselves. What do I choose?

I choose to spend time with people who share my values. Belonging, inclusion, support, joy, love, ease. People who put relationships first -- put their relationship with me as a priority as I prioritize them. Mutual. See and be seen. This is new. The choosing is new and choosing mutuality is new and understanding that we all make these choices for our own best interests is new. I have spent a great many decades welcoming in anyone who floats past, happy to have companionship, not feeling like I was very worthwhile myself. Seeing all failed relationships as a personal rejection. I no longer need to see things this way. A new clarity is here. Paths diverge for lots of reasons. Most often, it has nothing to do with me. I want to welcome people who are with me for reasons that DO have something to do with me. I want to be seen. As Sophia from The Golden Girls said, "This is what friendships are built on: loyalty, mutual respect, trust."

QOTSB showed me that I was a worthy participant. All day, I was seen and loved and included. I gave support and received it. Shared joy and smoothies. There was an ease to the company. Having experiences like this soothe my inner abandoned child -- show her that she can be seen and it's fun. It's loving. It's ok. We can participate with people and it's ok. We don't have to hide anymore. Being a Golden Girl means including myself in the circle of compassion and love and light. The four Brahmaviharas of loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity exist in a field -- like a magnetic field. I can participate in this field, plug my self into it, receive as well as give. It flows through me as it flows through others. Spending time with people who also participate in that flow is what surfing is all about. A celebration, not a competition.