My first impression of surfing was that it sucked. I’d never enjoyed a sport less, in fact. Bowling was more fun. So was bocce. Even golf, with its myriad frustrations, afforded me the chance to hurl my clubs into the woods, drive around recklessly in a silly vehicle, and even purchase alcoholic beverages while playing—all to help alleviate the pain of discovering that I could be so bad at something. Surfing offered no such relief.
Surfing, you might say, isn’t ready right out of the box. You could go down to the park right now and play soccer, even if you’ve never played before. You might not be any good, but you’d probably be able to do all the things—run around, kick the ball, bury it upper-ninety off a bicycle kick—that make soccer, soccer. Surfing isn’t like that. There’s a long, flat section at the beginning of its learning curve that you might call “learning to paddle.” Odds are, the first time you try surfing, you won’t be “surfing” at all. You’ll be paddling around aimlessly, your humble goal simply to stay on your board amidst the crashing waves. At least that’s how it went for me. And it’s why my first impression was so dour. I’d signed up to surf, after all, to ride the waves, to shred. Not to float around, clutching desperately at my board like some schmuck.
Whatever my aspirations, the reality was that, at the ass-crack of dawn Sunday morning, I found myself bobbing around just behind the breakers, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. I had to laugh at my naiveté. The previous night I’d dialed in a connection on my dad’s laptop and watched all the YouTube videos on surfing technique I could find, focusing primarily on the “pop-up,” the act of standing up on your board after catching a breaking wave. I’d practiced the technique exhaustively right in the living room (while my friends and family did their best to ignore me). I went out that morning confident that I was equipped with the necessary skills, unconsciously assuming that the pop-up was surfing’s first real hurdle.
The illusion was shattered the second I hit the water. Just balancing on the board—without paddling—was difficult. Paddling only made it worse. Even intermediate surfers make paddling look so effortless—only one arm at a time in motion, their bodies perfectly still—that I’d assumed I would pick it up effortlessly. My flailing arms, dangling legs, and rocking board, however, said otherwise. I tried several times to paddle out through the breaking waves, only to be turned back each time, knocked unceremoniously from my board. Only by swimming out, with the leash dragging my board along behind me, was I able to make it into the lineup.
I’d yet to even try to catch a wave, and already I was exhausted. I was lying prone on my board because it was the only way I could stay on my board; each time I tried sitting up—another skill I assumed effortless—I tipped over, the board squirting out from between my legs. Sometimes it happened in slow motion, my body slowly leaning too far to one side, the opposite edge of the board gradually rising out of the water, towards the tipping point...and I would watch it unfold, completely aware that if I didn’t do something fast I was going to fall off my board again and have to suffer the humiliating snickers of the more accomplished surfers around me...and yet I was hopeless, my limbs as rigid as the Tin Man’s, unable to rebalance. I always tried to play it off like I’d meant to topple over, as if I just needed a swim to cool down....
The waves were too big. The board was too small. My suit was too hot. And I was getting frustrated, and seasick, and, well, it sucks to suck, and I had that weighing on my mind, too. The saleskid had recommended I stay out of the water the night before, the night I bought my board, the waves being double-overheard barrels and all. Fierce rips, punishing waves, and a strong current—even I wasn’t so thick to think that any first-timer, myself included, belonged out there. That morning, however, the waves appeared reasonable, but in hindsight, they only appeared that way in contrast to the monsters that preceded them. Four- and five-foot waves don’t appear that big from shore, from the cozy vantage point of a beach chair with an umbrella, a good book, and a pina colada. But looking back over my shoulder, prone on my board, the five-footers looked like giants.
So I bided my time, waiting for a wave that didn’t look bent on homicide. All the while, I was melting, Wicked Witch-style. Waves of heat literally rose out of the collar of my new wetsuit, and for good reason: the suit, it turned out, was too thick for summer-use. (That wetsuits would come in different thicknesses seems obvious enough, but it hadn’t occurred to me to check at the time of purchase. It fit. The price was right. So I bought it. Oops. I probably should have asked the saleskid for his recommendation.) And the heat didn’t help with the seasickness. The waves were rocking me a queasy green. My stomach was starting to churn, my breakfast doing cartwheels inside, and I started to think about what happened after I’d ridden the Turkish Twist at the carnival all those years ago. Or even worse—when I’d hurled in the middle of the pack during the swim of a triathlon a few years back. I’d swallowed a gulp of salty water, and that was that. Complete and utter evacuation. (Imagine swimming through that!)
In the end, it was impatience that pushed me towards my first wave. I’d had enough of waiting around, getting sicker, hotter, by the minute. So I sized one up and started paddling furiously for a second or two, my arms and legs flailing in all directions, my board rocking, trying to slide out from under me. I hesitated for a second, unsure if I should continue paddling or try to reposition myself on the board. The wave, bent on death, seized the moment, building up under me, pushing me and my board up towards its peak, higher and higher. At the highest point, I found myself peering over the nose of my board. I couldn’t see the wave’s face, only the trough. I couldn’t see how surfing was possible. I froze. Then the bottom gave out. The wave drove me head first into the sea floor, and then vanished, too cowardly to offer me a rebuttal. I washed up on shore, embarrassed, beat, dejected, and $600 in the hole—wasted on the wrong board, the wrong suit, the wrong sport.
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I sat on the deck, watching the sun rise up in the sky. Everyone was still asleep, so the house was quiet. Only the gulls’ cries interrupted the chorus of crashing waves. My disappointment was childlike in its intensity. I felt lifeless, the energy sucked out of me, like I’d just discovered the truth about Santa. It was only my first day, of course. I had a lot of time to improve. But I’d gotten a glimpse of just how long the road might be before me, and I wasn’t sure that the surfer in my mind and the surfer in the water would ever be one and the same. I couldn’t even articulate what it was that I expected to get from surfing, but already I was afraid that it was too late, that I’d let it slip through my fingers. Over the course of twenty-four hours, surfing had somehow gone from a one-week-a-year, unrequited crush, to an obsession that would, for years to come, never stray far from the forefront of my consciousness. It had come to represent all the things I’d always wanted to try, but never had—the life I wanted to live, but wasn’t. I just hoped it wasn’t too late.
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