Surfing in The Moment

As surfers, we see life from a very unique and enviable place – the ocean waves. This place we call home, where the waves break into wonderful surf, allows most surfers to look at our regular lives from a distance. On a regular basis, we leave our scholastic, personal, and professional lives on an invisible border on the sandy shores and paddle out into the waves completely removed from the daily duties all-too-often demanding much from us.

Surfing demands your full attention you see, and every moment out in the water chasing after ‘the ride’ requires being in the moment. One second of inattentive surfing often leads to missed waves, escaped sets, or even worse, critical wipe outs. Although many activities and sports require the participant’s full attention, surfing is unique in that the playing field and playing conditions change at every given turn, on every given moment. It is truly alive!

I speak of being ‘alive‘ as I watch a nameless businessman standing awkwardly in a narrowly covered alley, shoulders scrunched up for mock warmth, smoking a cigarette. He is blankly staring at the sidewalk with a cigarette nestled in between his index and middle finger, and a thin wisp of smoke wrapping around him like a thin, white climbing vine. He lit that cigarette a few minutes ago and took a deep drag from the icy white stick, and then dropped his hand to his right outer hip … there it has remained since as he stood immobile and staring at the sidewalk. Is he in the moment? Is he enjoying the cigarette and it’s almost illicit pleasures? Is this his escape and source of contemplative perspective? I cannot say, and he does not share any hint or clue based on his facial expression. It is plainly blank.

I close my eyes, and like most days when I close my eyes I see surf and surfers coming down the line on my home break. It’s a unique ability to be able to return to your home break simply by closing your eyes … to always be able to go home at any given time. I can see the local surfers and the dawn patrol regulars as they paddle into wave after wave. Smiling, laughing, and happy faces. A can see their exhausted but exhilarated faces as they paddle out of the water back to shore … I can see their excited faces as they climb down to the ocean in happy anticipation of the upcoming surf session. I can see.

I snap my eyes back wide open as the loud honk of a black and yellow checker cab drives by the smoking man. Still engaged in a staring contest with the sidewalk – with the sidewalk only slightly winning as the man blinks from the smoke – and the rain slowly drizzling around him, the smoking man stands motionless. I look deeply at his face and try to find some expression, some glimmer of life, hope, or excitement. He doesn’t even seem to be enjoying the cigarette like the people in magazine advertisements … all happy and smiling at their ‘right’ to be able to smoke.

Perhaps he needs to get away from his daily life to gain perspective, and just maybe, a cigarette in hand for a few minutes a day just isn’t doing it for him. Perhaps an hour a day of being in the caress of mother ocean could grant him just that … if only we weren’t land locked. If only I could tell him about surfing and all the splendor it offers for the human spirit! I momentarily consider walking across the street and chatting him up regarding this crisis of the human spirit, but he flicked the cigarette on the wet pavement and ran back into the office building.