the first time i ever went surfing was in La Punta of Puerto Escondido in 2004. from what i’ve heard, it isn’t exactly a common place to learn…
in this life we don’t always get to choose our teachers, or when and how we are gifted our lessons. it’s like the family we’re born into. regardless of how it happens, our formative first experiences change our understanding the world.
(if you know then you know i am sure…)
surfing is a beautiful flow, an incredible metaphor for life, and connection to the ocean’s immense wisdom…in addition to being an endeavor with one of the most powerful forces on the planet with the potential of significant physical consequences.
there is incredible reward in paddling out, and sometimes, very real risk.
dawn patrol on the east cape, 2011
mediated and meditated risk, mind you.
that’s why most people don’t start skiing on black diamonds. that would be stupid.
(if only we were intelligent all of the time…and oh! how boring that would be!)
surprisingly, nearly dying my first few times surfing didn’t turn me off the sport, probably because i have a near-obsessive love of the ocean and decent dose of crazy.
it may seem strange to some, but i’m far more obsessed with the ocean than i am with surfing. sometimes i don’t consider myself a ‘real’ surfer — to me, it’s great if there are waves, but if there aren’t, i’m happy to swim…surfing was never my only priority, and yet, nearly always and to this day it feels like an escape. it has a flavor of dessert for me, a gift that i give myself, something i do at dawn after camping out on the beach.
maybe there are waves, maybe not.
ni modo, todo bien.
cherry on the top all the same.
still, my origin story with surfing created a pattern…or perhaps a frame in which to enact an unconscious narrative of my life. rather than being about FUN, surfing (life) was about 1. survival, and 2. proving i could survive.
it took me a while to realize that. too busy surviving to thrive it seems.
some years after those first experiences in Puerto Escondido, i was living in San Diego. i remember going out to surf with this mentality of “i’m just going to do it.” regardless of my ability, the board, or conditions, surfing ceased to be about anything other than the decision. on some level, it truly didn’t matter to me — all of that was secondary to the first and only thing, which was GOING SURFING.
looking back, there was something vaguely masochistic about it. a confused sense of discipline. it’s like a friend once said — “you have to learn to love the beating” — which to a certain extent is true…and yet still begs the question, “in which conditions and with whom do you decide to engage?”
these things matter.
the ocean ususally doesn’t beat you down unless that’s what you expect.
it’s all a mirror really — what we encounter out there in the waves on some level or another reflects what’s going on inside our heads.
what movie’s playing inside your mind?
are we able to be empty of thought and truly present? or are we paddling out there trying to surmount countless emotional demons?
if you expect to get smashed, most likely you will.
you see what i mean?
that’s why surfers are some of the easiest people to fall in love with…and potentially so infuriating — good surfers are true zen masters, independent and non-attached, focused on little else than the present moment.
it’s precisely not about you…or them.
it’s just presence…plus speed, style, power, and flow.
and of course some ego, for those of us still evolving.
somehow i thought it was natural and necessary to try and surf 15 foot waves the first week i ever surfed…
or perhaps, it is closer to the truth to admit that regardless of my ability i wanted to be out there in the ocean with that energy…. even if i DIDN’T know how to surf.
now we’re getting somewhere.
…
it would be funny to find pictures of that trip.
it was spring of 2004 and i was 22.
while in college i studied abroad for a year, with one 2-month stint in Mexico. a few years later when i didn’t know what else to do with my life, i decided to perfect the art of “running away to Mexico,” as my best friend called it.
(seems i got pretty good at it. eventually it turned permanent.)
at the time, however, it was just an intern gig as a photographer in Oaxaca City. i flew into DF, wandered around the Zocalo for a bit, then made my way by bus to my destination. i booked into a hostal for the first few days, pierced my belly button, and met a French surfer who insisted i visit the coast before i start my job.
we went to the bus station together, me with my mochilla and camera and him with his board. one of those travel encounters where you end up heading off with no strings attached in two separate directions after a few days of sharing everything. in a plot twist moment, while i was waiting for my bus my camera got stolen.
(come to think of it, that’s probably why there are no pictures from this trip)
after landing in Puerto Escondido, i headed to the Cabanas Buena Onda where friends of the French surfer were staying. i remember walking from the bus station down a narrow dirt road. it was close to sunset and roosters were squawking.
the hostal was run by four extremely friendly humans who were probably in their 30s, a variety of Europeans and at least one Mexican, who led me to a sweet cabana with a hammock, right in front of the La Punta, just down the beach from Zicatela.
Mexico’s Pipeline. lol.
i didn’t even know they called it that.
i’ve been thinking a lot about this trip after recently going to my first surf contest. i wasn’t there as a participant, but rather as a vendor offering Somatic Bodywork. it gave me an opportunity to observe a whole surf ecosystem. the faces and the families. the dynamics of support and competition. the waves. the excellence. the trophies.
it all felt oddly foreign.
my own relationship to surf has been primarily personal. floating alone in the ocean. solo missions to the beach. sliding into the lineup all over the coast, rarely speaking.
thing is, after all these years sitting on the quiet outside i’m finally being called to hang at the target take-off point. i want to catch the full wave, not just someone’s leftovers, which means being in the middle of all the dudes whether i like it or not.
so here we are, just waiting for the set to roll in.
i moved to Europe right around my Saturn return, and the following year came to Baja for the first time. it was an odd cosmic pairing, surf and turf, shall we say.
it was as if i planted an oak tree and a palm tree in the same year in two different parts of the world and unintentionally made myself bi-polar in the most literal sense. most of the next decade was spent land-locked in the city of Berlin looking for ways to get to the ocean and escape for a few months, and whenever Mexico got too Mexican i would fly across the ocean to a place without so many potholes where people actually showed up for meetings.
whenever Baja called me back i would paddle out with my amigos. most had been surfing since they could remember and none of them were conscientious instructors. that means, of course, that we weren’t going out at Old Man’s or Acapulquito.
more like San Pedrito and La Curva, lol.
the most thorough lesson i ever got went something like this:
Lesson #1: Go Surf. Lesson #2: Go Surf Again.
Zen koan, that.
thing is, because i was an ocean water baby, and because my first impressions of surfing were at advanced breaks, none of this really phased me. i had integrated on some subconscious level that surfing was naturally intense most if not all of the time.
more than anything, i didn’t want to be “that girl”— that helpless girl who needed a guy to tell her when and where to go to paddle.
i’ve seen that movie too many times and it usually doesn’t end pretty.
fake-it-til-you-make-it became my unspoken manta, and alas, that just meant i kept repeating the same old traumas — paddling out in huge waves i didn’t have a chance of surfing. surviving, yes, while also getting smashed around on completely inappropriate boards (a 9 foot gun, for example). paddling out after boys who didn’t look back. learning by default the protocol and unspoken rules of the lineup.
(don’t you dare drop in on me)
etc.
…
back in the day in Puerto Escondido, i did have a surf instructor. i remember him being local, or maybe from Acapulco. one time we had dinner together and he took me to a place that made a Pescado a la Diabla that has never been matched. i used to walk downtown to use the internet and get juice, and he lived somewhere in the middle.
i don’t remember what his name was, or how we met. he was more than just my surf instructor, that i recall. he took me to learn at a little bay nearby, where i made him laugh by doing yoga poses on the board. in theory this was my actual first impression of surfing, one i often forget.
our minds have a tendency to footnote the traumas rather than the highlights, and therefore this innocent beginning was quickly overpowered by my subsequent experiences in La Punta.
(i should add that he was furious when he later found out i went out at the point. apparently i was explicitly told NOT to do that.)
thing is, sometimes you feel the call, even if you’re not ready.
that day i paddled out at the point as a novice, i did so cleanly, responsibly. i paddled out, hung out in the lineup a bit, and eventually made my way back in. didn’t ride any massive waves, truth is i didn’t ride any, but i survived — no trauma, no crisis, no fearing for my life.
then this big Italian guy pressured me to go back out with him, told me he knew how we should go. just follow him, he said.
ha! famous last words.
i stupidly went back out (another formative lesson there about following others versus listening to your intuition), only to then get caught on the inside with that idiot for what felt like an eternity until we both finally managed to crawl back up on shore, gracais a Dios and gasping for breath.
it was insane, really. i should have listened to myself. he should have listened to me.
now those are the famous last words.
i have similar formative memories in Shipwrecks during my first trip to Baja.
it was the morning after the full moon and i was sitting on the beach with Bobby staring at the massive sets coming in on the point. we were both nervously joking about going out. i had butterflies in my belly and somehow decided (once again) that the most logical thing to do would be to paddle out anyway on the tiny red board that had been lent to me by a friend.
looking back, i now see how often i treated surfing like cliff jumping, which i suppose is the only other thing i had done up until that point with a similar amount of intensity. in those situations, all you can really do is jump. that’s the point. thinking about it will only make it worse.
until of course i was exactly in the position to take off with no idea what to do — there in the middle of an enormous A-frame wave, witnessing in slow motion frame by frame as the wave brought itself to its peak….and then i go crashing down out of that two-story window into the asphalt of the wave.
(some might say i have PTSD with surfing…i might agree!)
still, that’s what i went to do this morning, and what i’ll probably do tomorrow.
paddle out, avoid the crowd. just let the waves come to me.
she can feel my energy, Mama Ocean.
what can you say, she’s a great teacher who gives powerful lessons.
in all this time, i never imagined anyone other than my mother watching me surf.
for a little while in my 20s we lived together in San Diego, and occasionally she would come to the beach with me. there was never anything strange about it, even if i did sometimes feel like a kid in Little League with her mom on the sidelines.
surfing provides such a generous analogy. i hear my mother using these phrases sometimes, about paddling out, waiting for your wave, going with the flow — and she’s never once been on a board.
it’s beautiful. there is an incredible transmission and transfer that happens even just from watching someone ride a wave. it’s art, really.
and yet, after watching all the surfers at the recent competition it struck me as odd how much i avoid even thinking about other people watching me surf.
i’ve never seen video footage of myself, and the above image, taken relatively recently by a surf photographer, is probably one of the only photographs i have.
apparently i have it in my mind that i don’t “deserve” to have pictures taken of me because i’m not good enough for that…or else i’m just afraid of seeing what i look like.
odd that i find that scarier than a 15 foot wave.
the day of the photograph i had paddled out for a quick sunset session in 9 palms and somehow there were only 6 other people out. the waves were nice and the light was good and when i was coming out of the water a woman ran up to me saying she had taken pics of me.
i was both surprised and flattered and eventually fascinated to see the images, even though in many of the images i looked so serious! aren’t we supposed to be having fun here? eventually i found one in which i was smiling, because here i am, surfing, finally and still after all these years.
when i got to the beach the ocean was pumping multiple swells simultaneously, inconsistent and bumpy with the occasional big outside set. instead of stepping in with 25 others at the prime break, i went next door, where i often go, to a much quirkier wave, that on occasion and especially when the tides are shifting tends to offer a near-constant washing machine. some people call it Marshmallows.
there i was, me and the ocean, having the same conversation we’ve had for 20 years.
i’m paddling out to infinity with everything i got, with this question hanging in the back of my mind — do you actually want to catch a wave?
i just want to make it out past the break. get to the point.
(life metaphor anyone? apparently i’ll think about surfing after that)
then it dawned on me that 20 years later i still have no idea what i’m doing, and seeing as everything in surf is an analogy, what does that say about my life? suddenly there i am in the water, spiraling into an existential crisis.
i admit that i never imagine other people watching me surf because so often what i see in my mind is embarrassing. when i observe my surfing from the outside i see myself taking too many stupid risks, often going the first wave in the set, or dropping in late, and basically doing everything i can to land myself in the whitewater with waves crashing on my head because that is my paradoxical safe space.
it’s what i’m used to.
sometimes i feel like a liability, to myself and others. it’s the same habit that makes me go all in while playing poker and jumping off cliffs.
just a tad bit of anxious attachment to life there. going all in before you’re all out. sometimes it’s a good move. most times one could consider other options.
suddenly i start hearing a voice in my mind commenting on my current mission like it’s a World Cup match. like i’m in a contest, just me and myself and El Mar.
it’s hilarious.
There’s Howland going for the next one ! oh!! aaand she missed it folks. but there’s another one coming, let’s see how she does !
i need more of this please.
mas risas y sonrisas y diversion y cervezas en la playa por favor.
it was a beautiful semi-cloudy morning as i drove out to the coast early on a Tuesday, and it felt luxurious. i was skipping out on class. for once, the important won out over the urgent.
it was probably just before 7am when i paddled out and wouldn’t you know one of the only people i’ve ever had the pleasure of telling off in the line-up was there with his bff talking shit as usual, reminding me why i don’t surf the “good spots,” in the right spot — it’s all the people, gathered together, sometimes floating less than a foot away.
normally i’m happy to smile and nod, offer a thumbs up. occasionally ask someone’s name, or the truly energetic extrovert gets me to talk, and that’s enough.
in the case of the resident asshole, he rolled up to the line-up some months back talking in English about how he was the only local out there. mind you, he’s Mexican, but apparently he was trying to impress some gringo.
funny enough, i happen to know the actual locals, the real locals, which consist of one particular Choyero extended family who have been residing in and around that arroyo since anyone was ever there, and this chavito was most certainly not a member of that family. but no matter, right? it’s only assholes who claim false locality anyway.
needless to say, the human didn’t appear to have forgotten me, so instead he chose to ignore me like he ignores most women who aren’t wearing tiny bikinis in big waves.
eventually others paddle out, and suddenly we are having a refreshing conversation about how much they enjoy watching women paddle for waves. there is only one other woman in the line-up at this point. she is a 6-figure business owner who probably makes more money than all of those lads out there and we are both raising our eyebrows and exchanging glances with the unspoken question, is this 1952?
of course they like watching women paddle, it means they get to look at our ass.
i can’t tell you the number of times i’ve received unsolicited surf instruction from random dudes in the water, or the amount of times i’ve heard an old guy say some version of “good girl!” when i catch a wave. conscious or not, misogyny in the water has definitely affected how i learned to surf.
precisely because i didn’t want to be floating with 10 other dudes at the peak take-off point fighting for a wave, i’d sit inside, and often get smashed. or else sit further out and exhaust myself paddling for waves i was never going to catch, and likewise get smashed if it didn’t work out.
if you hang around long enough you’ll see it all. there’s a whole dynamic out there that pairs testosterone and adrenaline with the potential for patience and generosity.
sometimes it’s fun, and funny…or else just tired and loud and makes me want to go swim where i can be a mermaid in the ocean rather than another dude in the water.
(let’s just say that most people talk more than the ocean does, and apparently unconscious misogyny never goes out of style)
when i was at the surf contest watching the younger women rip, i had a sense that they were in a completely different mindset and lineup. that the vibe in the water for them is significantly different than it was or is for me and my age group.
one time i was out with nearly all women. there was something like 8 or 10 surfers at the break, and i think there was only one guy. it was surreal. those women meant business, and they weren’t giving favors to anyone, but the good old girls certainly had more class than the good old boys, that’s for f-in sure.
the ladies were talking, but they weren’t talking shit.
mind you, the good ones, male or female, always make it look easy.
the one and only Stosh Lindsey doing what he does best
i met up with an it’s-so-easy-being-steezy amigo recently and commented on just that — how he makes it look so easy, and how easy it apparently is.
“a lot of people don’t know what they’re doing.”
surprising or not, that’s the first thing he said.
which i guess makes me feel better? at least i’m in good company, me and the rest of us who have no clue what we’re doing paddling around out there.
thing is i know something….less than many but more than some.
i know when i see someone like myself in the water. that person who keeps trying, often going for the wrong waves, smiling apologetically. neither one of us really know what we’re doing yet and i give him two thumbs up this time.
maybe that’s the trick — surfing’s not exactly about being a beginner, or intermediate, or advanced…. it’s about knowing what you’re doing, and at this point, it feels good to admit that i don’t. before i was so focused on pretending to know what i was doing that i precisely missed learning what to do.
now, even though i can’t always articulate my why beyond an unquestioned love of the ocean, i find myself able to paddle out with a more confidence and self-awareness.
some people go to church, some go to the gym, and others surf.
it’s all about devotion.
me and Mike Dawson after i bought my first new board, cerca 2017
this morning i drove out just after sunrise to La Fortuna and found a few regulars paddling around in the diminishing swell. it was a perfect day for where i’m at right now, just enough of something to ride but not enough that everyone gets aggressive.
i’ve joked on various occasions that surfing is my on-going assertiveness training for any and all entrepreneurial ventures, and it’s true. very rarely will someone give you a wave. sure, it happens, but it’s the standard that we need to read the set and the surrounding circumstances, and when it’s your turn, paddle and go for it.
dale con confianza!
there’s one character out there that i enjoy more than others, and this morning he was hanging out on the inside catching wave after wave with one of the old-timers who probably wouldn’t want to be called an old-timer.
Let’s call them JJ and Tony.
at one point a little wave was rolling in and Tony said, ‘go ahead, take it,’ and while i debated whether to paddle JJ scoffed and said, ‘prick…’ — loud enough for Tony to hear. then turned to me and said, ‘Never trust him if he gives you a wave…..this wave coming now is a much better wave and i’m gonna go burn it!’
as a bit of background, Tony is the kind of surfer that has opinions about everything and no problem expressing them. all’s fair in love and war and surfing, at least to a certain extent, so i didn’t take it personally that he offered me a bad wave.
just go back to the default, nod and smile…
later on i asked him where he was from and it turns out that Tony is an original Cali boy, born and bred in Santa Monica, Venice, before migrating down to the Baja 20 years ago. gets up every morning at 4am, the official dawn patrol.
by now JJ had gone in and Tony paddled up to me and asked, ‘so what’s your movie?’ — as in, what’s your story, your soundbite? seems we had broken the proverbial ice.
a few minutes later a nice one came through and i’m looking over to my left and a long boarder chic is paddling and i’m in the right position but i hesitate and Tony shouts, ‘Go for it girl! Don’t worry!’
so i did… and i caught it…. and it was a good one. it was my wave.
i cruised all the way into shore so i could say hi to my pups, and without warning started tearing up. i’ve been having this whole conversation with myself and the ocean and the cosmic line-up and there he was, good old boy Tony that i was just warned not to listen to, suddenly becoming a genuine cheerleader and momentary teacher.
go figure. for all the times i’ve heard good-intentioned white-haired men shout at me in the lineup and how much it pissed me off, and then there’s Tony here telling me not to worry and just fucking go for it, and that was exactly what i needed to hear in the moment.
the humility of it all is what made me tear up, and blessedly no one could tell because it’s all water anyway. so i paddled back out and just said, “Thanks Tony,” and no more than a few minutes later caught an ever better wave all on my own (lol), and got to cruise that baby all the way in past a smiling Tony who was paddling back out again.
a surfer i admire recently posted this meme.
dear surfing, thank you for teaching me to be Humble, Brave, Kind, Patient
this also made me a bit emotional. what if i wasn’t being stupid all these years paddling out into big waves i wasn’t yet able to surf, but actually, i was being brave ?
Brave. Valiente.
it’s not a word i would necessarily use to describe myself, but it is a word that others have used to describe me. once a girlfriend dubbed it as my nickname, specifically in reference to the character of the Disney movie.
it was a moment that caught me off guard — so that’s how you see me?
it all came together out there this morning: the humility, the bravery, the kindness, the patience. no matter how good you get, you’re still learning the same lessons.
so here are my final words, for now…
Dear Surfing, thanks for accepting me as i am. thanks for always sending waves in my direction even if i don’t know what to do with them. thanks for believing in me even when i don’t believe in me. thanks for teaching me to be brave….
speed, style, power, & flow.
todo llegue, poco a poco.
as within, so without….
see you in the lineup.