Symbolism

I’m sitting, knees to chest, in the sand at Turtle Beach. Everything is monochrome. Sky, ocean, beach; muted. The ocean heaves in slow motion and I watch the guys catching waves, also in slow motion. I paddled out and felt weak. I felt watched. Like I didn’t belong. The ocean herself displaced me. Spit me out. I have no fight in me today.

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No Pressure

I walk out on the pier. The sun cuts shadows into the cement in a way that seems to slow everything down. My eyes have to adjust to make out the guys in the water. It’s windy; I have to tie my hair back.

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Girl in Just a Shirt

A package arrived at my door in the normal way. I saw just the shadow of the mailman descending the driveway as I opened the door to retrieve it. I sat alone at the kitchen table in the afternoon sun to open the box.

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Debby Does Katrina

I meet Alexis in the Lido parking lot for the second day in a row. We drive. Tropical Storm Debby is churning up the ocean and pissing rain on everything. We get out to look at The Street and the ocean is a stranger, the seascape so heaving and unfamiliar I get a weird sense of vertigo as we stand in the rain on the beach.

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One of the Guys [Part 2]

If you haven’t read Part One… click here.

11am Tuesday.
Me, Brad and John get out to take a break and decide to go have breakfast. I’m hungry as hell and dying for coffee. We eat omelettes and tease each other.

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One of the Guys [Part 1]

Monday 930pm text conversation:
Brad: Surfing tomorrow. Maybe East Coast. Maybe here.
Me: I’m in. Don’t care where.
Brad: I’ll be at your house at 530am.
Me: Ok.

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The Sweet Spot

The wind whips through my office window and I feel it in my chest, as if the sea and I are tethered by a cord that is tugged by the wind. I almost hear words on it, calling me to sea like the neighbor kids calling to me from below my bedroom window when I was little.

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It’s Summer Again

It’s Summer here. Officially. My wetsuits, gloves and booties are all packed away (OK, they aren’t packed away, they are on the bathroom floor where I pulled them out of my surf bag– same difference).

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Surviving the Flat Spell

Flat spell. Such an apt name. As a surfer, a flat spell can cast a shadow over my life so dark that everything looks grey and dull. I just read an article in Surfer Magazine about how surfing affects serotonin levels. Surfers, apparently, are less depressed than average folk because we spend so much time in the ocean.

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You Keep Me Safe

This blog is like me. On the surface it is one thing. But if the light hits it right, you can see through to the scaffolding that holds it all up. The exterior is arbitrary.

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