Saltwater for Breakfast

It was one of those June Gloom days when you couldn't tell the difference between ocean and sky.

All pictures from pexels.com.

This is the first time I surfed alone. Sunday morning at 7 am, Father's Day 2023. My crew was off doing other things, so I went out with my new board in the gray gloom of June in Southern California. Blackies north of Newport Beach Pier is always busy, so I wasn't really alone. I am beginning to learn and it is amazing.

For my 55th birthday this year, I bought myself a series of surf classes at Endless Sun Surf School. (I found the alliteration and the irony appealing.) I am new to Southern California and am constantly surprised by how much California lore lives in my head. Surfing is one of those things this former Midwesterner often dreamed about in Januaries past. The classes were for women only so felt a bit safer to me and gave the added bonus of possibly meeting new friends.

I am not fit. I am very overweight thanks to menopause and the recent pandemic, during which I liberally employed carbohydrates as a coping strategy. If you are not trying surfing because you feel inadequate to the task, let this blog serve as your inspiration to not let good sense stop you. All of the pictures we see online of surfers in bikinis gliding through waves, getting barreled, tan, lithe, and strong - that is not me. That is not even close to me.

It's not even close to most of reality, turns out. For perspective, if it takes 10,000 hours to learn something and do it reasonably well, I am in hour five. From my initial observations, it seems 97% of surfing is waiting. Waiting for the next good wave to catch. A full 50% of the rest of the time is missing that good wave you were waiting for or falling off of the board nearly immediately. So if surfing is really only 1% of what we see in the pictures, then I'm doing just fine.

And I've yet to see a surfer in a bathing suit, let alone a bikini. The water is cold here in SoCal, so everyone is in full length wetsuits. I even bought wetsuit booties after this Sunday, my feel were so cold. And I'm sure a future blog will be about the dearth of wetsuits for plus size women. Wriggling into a neoprene onesie at the class I felt like a stuffed sausage, so when it came to buying a wetsuit myself, I purchased a two-piece. You are welcome in advance.

Ostensibly, surfing is a way to motivate me to get fit. But really it gives me joy -- a pure giggling happiness and abiding sense of joy. Learning is fun in general for me, and learning surfing is a dream come true! This time out on the waves (my second time apart from class), I worked on balancing on the board. It's a new board, so finding the sweet spot, sitting up and laying down without tipping over, and paddling around were enough of a goal. I haven't quite worked out how to be facing the beach yet looking backwards so I can see a wave coming. Every time I tried to paddle into a wave, I missed it. It flowed right under me -- which was better than it tipping me forward into a faceplant under water, so I count that as a win. I only caught one wave by accident in an hour. I was aiming for a wave, paddling my little arms off, but it scooted through me. Without much time to be disappointed, another one was right behind it and carried me into the beach. I stayed on my belly the whole time and felt the surge carry me in. It was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

Surfing demands my entire attention to balance. I checked the time, I fell over. I waved to someone I knew, I went in the drink. Thus the title of the blog: I drank saltwater for breakfast. 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.

I have been practicing mindful meditation for many years. I started meditating when I went through a divorce. The first book I read was Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be by Lama Surya Das and it started me on the path. I taught meditation as part of a class when I was a professor at a university in landlocked Dallas. Now, I'm studying to be a proper meditation teacher in a program that will last two years. The meditation class began in February, my surfing class was in May. I choose to believe that this is no accident. There are so many similarities between the two practices, I can't help but think that as one improves, so will the other.

Lots of older people start surfing. It's a thing I can do into my eighties. I just saw Mindy Pennybacker give a talk about her book, Surfing Sisterhood Hawai'i, and she's still catching waves. There was a GREAT Facebook post in the Girls Who Can't Surf Good group about older people (50-60+) starting surfing and the replies last night filled my sagging arms with hope and my heart with joy. There are heaps of us out there! And a wonderful article in the Guardian discussed the Joy of Mediocrity. I feel certain I can achieve the goal of being "a below-average surfer." I'm sure I'll be prouder of that milestone than my PhD.

I am in awe of the ocean and that I am on it regularly. I am humbled by this experience and have a deep respect for the ocean and for surfing culture. Taking a surfing class was a bucket list item for me. I never expected to actually love it so much. I never expected to be the owner of not one, but two surfboards, and contemplating getting a third. I have wetsuits hanging to dry in my shower. There is sand all over my car and my apartment and my dog and my bed. And I couldn't be happier. Join us on Sunday mornings at Blackies. Saltwater is on the menu.