Gray Day

Where is the sun anyway? (It occurs to me to just look out the window.) Never mind. There it is. But where was it during my session this morning? Yes, I was cold. But since the chill was caused by an offshore wind, I didn't do much complaining. So, I went to the home break, hoping upon hope that there was something to surf. There was. In fact, the waves looked kind of daunting from the shore. Then once you paddled out, it was hell trying to catch them. The tweeners didn't have a lot of push to them. The only ones worth anything were those with steep faces. Taking those meant you were going to get slammed when the wave eventually closed out, but it was worth it. One of the crew told me he saw me catch a good, larger wave. He said it looked like I hesitated once I popped up. He thought I wasn't going to get it. Then he said I flew down into it. Again, I don't remember. If it weren't for people telling me of my waves or someone catching me on film, I wouldn't know half of what I do during my sessions.

It's time to prepare for winter swells. The summer waves were so damn anemic that I'd forgotten what it was like to get worked. Frankly, I don't think it's good to forget something like that. It occurs to me that I haven't done much surfing over the last two winters. It rained so much last winter that there weren't many days when any of us could safely get in the water. And two years ago I was working a 60-hour a week temp job for the County of L.A. (Yes, folks, I was an Election Assistant II, meaning I traveled all over the county teaching pollworkers what to do on election day.) This will be my first real winter in the water in two years. I'm looking forward to it. I want to see if the things I've learned (this year especially) show themselves in the bigger, stronger, scarier waves.