Thanks, Mom!!

No, not my mom. I'm talking to Mother Nature. She delivered enough of a swell to give me a session that was close to perfect. It's a given, right? If it's Friday, I'm surfing. Somehow, my manager understands that I want Fridays off and has been nice enough to oblige my wishes every week. Once again, plans were made and broken. CYT and I are anxious to return to LPB. When we talked two days ago, we made tentative plans to make the drive there. But, upon checking the surf reports and the tide charts last night, I realized that the morning's high tide and relative lack of swell would mean LPB was out. A beach break was in. We stayed local and hit up the beach break we've been frequenting for the last month or so. Whiff is now at my home break. The irony is that many of the locals there are, like me, looking elsewhere for surf. The waves there just aren't good enough. They're not as good as they can be and have been in years past. Many of us from that break simply moved down a few miles to another break.

It took me some time to really start surfing. In fact, it took some yelling from CYT and Victor from ZJ's to make me surf. The full-time work thing is tiring. Today was my first day off in a week. I needed to kind of sit and vegetate for a bit once I got into the lineup. That meant, of course, that I was either letting waves go by or was making half-assed attempts at paddling for them. I wasn't feeling it at all. I guess CYT and Victor got tired of watching me sit there looking stupid. They both told me to start charging the waves. And with that, I started surfing in earnest. I'm giving thanks to Mother Nature for sending the waves I'd been waiting for. These waves were so good that after each one of them, I was ready to go home. I'd had perfect rides and felt like staying in for more would just ruin the session. Did I get barreled? No. Did I hang ten? No. I don't need either of those things in order to label a ride as "perfect". What I did do was feel 100% in the moment on each ride. Those two rides made me realize what it means to be a soul surfer. Everything about those rides was perfect, almost surreal. On the first one, I could tell something was different. Usually, I paddle, pop-up, and surf. I think about very little while those things are happening. On this wave, I knew something was up as soon as my feet hit the deck. Everything felt right at that moment. I was on the board's sweet spot. My body was loose. The wave was waiting. CYT and I took the wave together. For probably the first time, I was the one in the front. She got a bird's eye view of my ride. Anyway, I popped up and immediately felt like I'd done something extraordinary. It just felt perfect. And then the wave presented itself to me. And I took my time, carving up and down the face, using my body when necessary but not doing too much. CYT said I even did a floater. (Have I ever mentioned that I can do floaters without trying? I do them all the time and never give a second thought to that fact.) The second wave was pretty much the same. I got other waves today, but they didn't feel like those two. I think Mother Nature smiled upon me today. She knows I've been working too hard and was deserving of a great session. I thank her for that.

NaNoWriMo Update: I've decided to do a book of short stories. I simply don't have the patience to write a novel at this point in my life. However, I can't start the short stories until I do more research (which relates to something that occurred on September 11 and the World Trade Center). I've challenged Jason to participate too. I'm making this public in order to make both of us stick to the task at hand.