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DelMarvaNow!.com:
Life is better when you surf
Eight weeks, more or less. That's how much time we have left until spring.
Eight more weeks of single-digit wind chills. Eight more weeks of watching the buoy report ever-dropping water temperatures. Eight more weeks of driving back home, dripping wet from a 90-minute session that we stole between colliding weather systems, fingers and toes hurting so bad they feel like they've been run over. Eight more weeks without a heater in the beater, smearing the fog off of the windows with numb hands.
Or we could bag it. Cave in to the voice inside your head, telling you it just isn't worth it. Telling you that by the time you get suited up, surf and get home, you will have wasted half the day. Give in to the holes in your boots and gloves that threaten to do some serious damage to your already arthritic bones. Give in to the realization that the temporarily slack winds will certainly go side shore and wreck the little 3-foot wave before you get your first ride.
Eight more weeks; that's about 56 days. This week, we were lucky and got four days of surf -- two good ones and two marginal days of fin-breaking drainers. So let's just average it out to three days a week of surf, if you're really on it. That makes maybe 24 sessions. Twenty-four more surfs or 24 less in a year, what's the difference? Why put yourself through the pain, the bone chilling cold, the pile of soggy wetsuits drying in the bathtub? Why spend all that time every day tracking the weather, watching the cams, buoys, flags and everything you can think of that may give you a heads up when that all-elusive window opens up and the elements come together and you can actually surf a decent wave?
The answer is simple: Because you're a surfer. Just a normal, average, every day surfer. You're not sponsored, you're not on the QS. In fact, no one outside of your little circle of friends has ever heard of you. But you don't surf just because it's summer and it happens to be your day off and the sun's out. You don't surf just because it's the cool thing to do and your girl (or guy) is sitting on the beach watching.
You're surfing because if you didn't, then you wouldn't feel right. Because after you've gone out and surfed a decent session, your whole perspective on the world is just a little more in tune. Things may be just as screwed up at home or at work or at school as they were before, but it doesn't seem to bother you as much. You need it. It's a part of you that you just can't afford or would even want to put on a shelf for a few months.
I was researching a surf company online the other day and ran across their company mantra. It said, "life is better when you surf." I'm sure a lot of you out there would love to see your job put that motto up on the company bulletin board, but this company's profile went on to say that surfing had changed their lives.
Funny, when I was growing up, surfers were right down there on the bottom of the totem pole with bikers. Becoming a "surf bum" was something our mothers wanted us to avoid turning into at all costs. Today, the pendulum has swung almost to the other extreme. Surfing is recognized by many as a healthy lifestyle that can be continued well into your senior years.
Life is better when you surf. Even when doing so requires some sacrifices. Even when there is snow on the beach. Even when it's waist high and sloppy. It's worth it, even when your wetsuit isn't warm enough, or the heat isn't working in your car, or when some may think you're just a loser for chasing waves when there are so many other more productive things you could be doing.
Well, I'm going to surf those 24 sessions. I can't afford not to. So if you see me driving home some evening in the beater without a heater, look closely through the fogged up windows and you'll notice that I've got a smile on my face. It may be frozen, but it's a smile none the less.
Reach Roy Harrell by e-mail at RoyWOW@aol.com.
Originally published Friday, February 2, 2007
