Tuesday, October 19, 2010

bon voyage


october: delivering.
day, after day, after day.
my arms are sore,
my face is sunburned,
my spring suit is back in the rotation, currently drying on the fence
from a 2 hour sunset surf
in balmy water.
the usual suspects are here to stay:
pods of sea lions,
myths of 18 foot sharks roaming neaby jetties,
rare sightings of valley kooks
plying 8 to 10 foot swells with soggy arms
eager aggression, completely out-of-place
(now that the ocean is showing real power)
funny, last night, a proto-typical male, 20-something,
short white surfboard with 3 fins,
all of the obvious markings
chest lifted (just high enough) off of his board to prove
that he surfs infrequently... arms, ineffective as paddles, pawing at water--
clearly, this male human was struggling with the intense inner sand bar beating
that makes and breaks days like these...
he arrives at my peak, finally, wobbly, uncertain.
this wave i love, a shifty right with a small takeoff zone
takes its own prisoners, has no mercy on this particular day
and of course, there is no room for error: things are moving fast and heavy, lots of water
but, alas a wave comes and i am in position, deep, just deep enough and my
new valley friend is sitting to my right, so i take off and call him off the wave as he starts to
flail in the direction of the shoulder...
he proceeds to purposefully drop in on me, then wave me on,
"bring it!" he waved at me... and all the while i am thinking,
"i would love to send this 30 pound single fin volan log your way, my friend, at your face, or
how i would love to send it right at your made-in-taiwan predictably
unoriginal foam and epoxy floatation device..."
but instead, i get my waves, sit back, laugh with friends in the line up and watch as
he sulks, then paddles deeper than me, to a totally unmakeable spot...
... a spot where he takes beating after beating, going over the falls, getting axed by
heavy lips of cold water... a spot that only a foreigner would mistake as a possibility.
perfect karma. i am happy. i get my overhead walls, steep and fast, crouched on the nose waiting for all hell to break loose as the velocity of all this water catches up with the inside
sand bar, all energy hitting the breaks as water flies overhead...
engulfed, swallowed, spit out. i go back for more, laughing, smiling. i am home.
this is my wave. i surf it every day. how dare you drop in on someone here?
bring it, is what he said to me... interesting.
sit on the peaks,
channel the karma.

6 comments:

turtle said...

"valley kooks...foreigner...my peak...my wave...I surf it everyday"

BRING BACK LOCALISM and the SUBVERSIVE nature of surfing in general. To save the soul of surfing, it may be the only way. When the waves don't regulate someone's got to keep the valley kooks at bay.

-valley kook and eternal wanderer

toptobottom said...

how funny ...

you said valley kook!

cold toes said...

it's obvious this guy was a complete a-hole and you did the completely right thing by establishing an order in the water by letting your knowledge of the wave let him clearly know the pecking order. it's great you scored your waves and you should be plenty happy for that. sharing with your friends is even better.

however, the tone and attitude of this posting is pretty lame. how long have you lived at this location so that now it's "your wave"? how long ago was it you were a non-local who drove from the valley to surf? do you not ever journey beyond your home break to surf other locations? aren't we all "travelers on earth"?

this guy was an easy target and worthy of ridicule, but claiming ownership of the wave: "valley kooks...foreigner...my peak...my wave...I surf it everyday" seems excessive. certainly you'd admit that a very good surfer who is non-local has the ability to surf that wave better than you do. what would you do in that situation, when someone can take the wave from you, by their surfing ability? how do you react then, when someone takes "your wave"?

why not just feel happy inside you caught waves, without feeling the need to share thoughts of violence and hostility.

anger and hatred and exclusion are ugly representations of the human spirit. truly ugly.

it's surprising to see it showing up here as i've come to expect it as a place that celebrates love and life.

toptobottom said...

cold toes

surf where you live KOOK.... without a leash!

karmic voyager said...

yes, i agree that the tone of the post was lame. what i should have called it was "reverse localism" as i meant to point out that the people in the water who are friendly, those who share waves here tend to also live here. the ocean has a way of bringing karma full circle without our humanity ever having to intervene. this blog does, and will continue to celebrate love and life.

i do not own any wave, any peak, any situation. as the author of a blog i admit that i use some artistic license from time to time in order to create a picture for the blog's readers. sometimes i fail. sometimes i succeed.

love, love, love... and remember, i too am human. i too have emotions of jealousy, frustration, fear, exile.

read on, i will not foster dark thoughts here.

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