You wake up in your house, your apartment, your mansion, your bedside, your tent, your van. You have things to do. These things make sense. You have to go to work, to school, do paperwork, prep work, your taxes, your shopping. You have to build, renovate, organize, finish. You should get up and do these things. Doing these things makes sense. You are lucky to have what you have. You work hard to have what you have. This all makes sense.
Then you think. You think or you look at your phone. One or the other. The conditions are good. The waves are up. The wind is up. The wind is still, trade, kona, offshore, side-off, light-on. The swell wind combo is doing its thing, its usual, the unusual, its typical, its once in a decade.
You think or you look at your phone. You should just go surf. Both your brain and your phone tell you this. You should go surf, boog, bodysurf, you should go surf that wave with your friends. You look out the window at the flag, the puddle, the tree, the clouds, anything to give you a sign. You stop looking at your phone. You think.
Do the stuff, the things that make sense. Do the paperwork, the housekeeping, the décor, the coordinated floors and functional kitchens. Then there is the leak, the block, the molding, the dirty, the squeaky and the unpaid pieces of paper. There is the boss, the employees, the managers and the margins to think about. There is accreditation, verification, validation and certification all to be finished. It makes sense to do these things. Get organized. Be efficient.
You might be one of the lucky ones.
You think. You think and you listen to the universe whispering, you are one of the lucky ones. It says to go and you go. The universe says that it makes perfect sense, but none that your feeble human brain can comprehend. You can only do this without your phone because scrolling is not listening. Scrolling is like drowning yourself.
You have your coffee, tea, matcha, your hot lemon and water with your eggs, porridge, brined kippers, cured bacon, dried fruit. You eat your black-blood pudding or salt cod. You are one of the lucky ones. You know good food. You know that you know.
You decide the work, the school, the responsibilities, all that stuff that makes sense to do, can wait. The world is not going to end if you're not at the meeting, the practice, the rehearsal, not there to punch the clock, to serve the table, the drink, the customer, the client, to make money.
You make the call. You call in sick, you lie, you tell the truth, something came up, you just can’t make it in. Still can meet the deadline. We’ll re-arrange, push it back, schedule something further down the line. They’ll understand. This is not life or death. You are lucky that this is not life or death.
So you do it. You make the leap, pull the trigger, make the call, play hooky. If you lie it will make sense. After all, why else would you lie? If you tell the truth it might only make sense to you. If you can tell the truth about things, you are lucky.
You go to your garage, your boardroom, your wall, your corner, your cubby, under the house, and take your craft. You get your short board, your longboard, your step-up, your big-wave gun, your tow-board. You get your fins, your suit, your warmest, your toughest, your only (the one with holes in it already). You don’t forget your helmet, your sunscreen, your impact suit, the ear things, your float. You have to make sure you float. You check that the radios are charged. The conditions are good.
The sun is coming up or it’s raining or snowing or hailing or ice has consumed the world, making it bright and celestial. You have to drop the kids at school first. Sometimes you thank the Lord and all she has created for schools and teachers right after you thank her for your kids.
So you hop in your SUV, your pickup, your electric car, your bike, your rust bucket, your fun wagon, your scooter and you head on up to the spot, the point, the bay, the strand, the beach, the jetty, the inlet, the cut, the pass, the shore , the bommie, the cove. You see your friends.
Howzit? Hi! Tudo bem? Que Pasa? Whassup? Yo! Da Story? The Craic? Alright? Hey Bro! Yea you!
It’s good, it’s pumping, cooking, maxing, flexing, bottoming out, top to bottom, dredging, warping, ledging. It’s round, square, cornering, standing up, dropping out, heaving, guttering, spewing and eating itself.
And you think, does this make sense?
Will I die? Break my neck, my back, my femur, my finger? Will I hit my head and watch the spinning lights go dim? Will I drown then? Will I be rescued and resuscitated? Or just the usual reconstituted, reenergized, rekindled and revitalized, recharged. Ready for more.
Who’s out there? Are they shredding? Ripping? Charging? Who got the wave of the day? Who won the heat, the championship, the event, the title, the tour? Who is the greatest? No, but who is the greatest of the underground? Who’s the best but doesn’t care?
You put on your boardshorts, your wetsuit, gloves, booties, because it’s cold. You're lucky but still cold as you walk down to the rocks, the reef, the sand, the jump off point. It’s here where you can see from eye level its energy. It looks bigger from here. You should have brought your step-up, your pin-tail, your slab-hunter, your elephant gun.
It’s a dry hair paddle out or a hell mission to the outer beach break, duck-diving for forty-five minutes. Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, four degrees Celsius. Either that or its shorebreak on sharp boulders and the barnacle coated key-holes. Features that scare locals. Scars for life. Watch the urchins. You are one of the lucky ones. You move like water.
It’s twelve foot, it’s two foot Hawaiian, it’s head high, it’s overhead, it's triple overhead. You paddle past the end bowl and go out back. You think of the things you should be doing, the things that make sense to do. The responsibilities. You have to make the money but you are glad to be one of the lucky ones who can take a break and be out here with the wind and the waves and friends.
You wait for a long time or one comes right to you, you spin and you burn and you knife and you bottom turn and the next few moments you share with every surfer who ever lived.
You are barrelled, tubed, shacked, kegged, in the pocket, slotted, in the green room, behind the curtain. That moment you share. It does not matter if you're black, white, indigenous, a gypsy or a king. It does not matter if you're poor, rich, or somewhere between. It does not matter if you are gay or straight or him or them. In the tube, all the stuff that makes sense, all those things you should do, go over your head in that lip. Time slows down and you are aware of all, this is what makes you lucky.
You think you won’t make it, you’ll wipe out, pearl, poke-tako, eat it, biff, kook it, catch a rail, go over the falls, kiss the reef. But you don’t. You make it, you get through, get around, you come out, get blown out, get spit out, you claim, you don’t claim, you do a cutback, a snap, a whack, an air, a fly-a-way kickout.
Your friends hoot, they whoop, they holler, they throw fists, shakas, high-fives, they nod, they smile, they get pumped, they psych, they froth, they’re claiming, you are owning, you all are owning.
Yes, owning. Not owning a house or a car or a company or an account. Something much more valuable. Owning the awareness of the connection we all have but very few see.
The stuff you have to do, the paperwork, dims like the noise of a helicopter flying over the horizon, like the end of a bell’s bong, like the sound of the universe whispering when you grow up too much and make too much sense, fading.
You catch more waves. You have stopped deciding and let go. It does not make sense to paddle back and ride in again. You do it anyway. It does not make sense, this degree of gusto you have for this. You decide that the things that make sense to do, the money and job and career and degree and the margins, those things have not added beauty to the world. The beauty is in the non sense.
You decide to stop making sense.
