Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived to surf....now watching from the shore

Once upon a time,
there was a girl who lived to surf. Since birth, the beach has been an magical place. As an infant, her feet first felt the pull of the ocean. As a child, she made sand castles, running back and forth to the land's edge to collect sand and water and  build and imagine against the backdrop of the blue sky, her dreams the passing clouds. As a teenager, she walked and ran along the edge between land and sea again and again- a constant amidst the constant change.

The shifting sand and shifting sense of self,
an emerging identity emerging in relation to the firsts, the memories that define her,
haunt her,
those she longs to recreate and those she longs to forget.

The many people who came and went. The many people and many tales who came (and went) through the beach house her family has had for 40 years.

The experiences that, that leave a taste that lingers ---

the salty ocean water, the joys and the sorrow.

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Surfing is one way of telling the relationship I had with the sea and 

moments of joy and sorrow, of 

loving effort and passionate surrender together 

as well as the 

fear and feelings I ignored. 

Even today I can embody my most epic surf experience: Barra de la Cruz, a right break, discovered by few, on no map, where waves break like those I paddled into and rode down the line. 


----

Being one with waves unparalleled to this day that are inscribed in my body, memories I relive. I do not believe my shoulder will ever be the same. I wonder if I should have held back, whether the pain and injury was worth the greatness of the experience of connection with this place. Then I think about how I would feel and if I would regret the great unknown had I watched those waves from the shore. Maybe I would not regret not embracing the situation as I would not have this daily reminder or maybe, like other crossroads in which I stood and watched in wonder, letting the people and places and opportunities pass me by I would be tortured in a very different way from the uncertainty arising from choosing a life less than fully lived. 

There once was a girl who lived to surf. As a woman, she's decided to watch from the shore. She stares at the waves, her right shoulder speaking to her the memories recalled by each wave that hits the shore. She remembers and wonders. She wonders if she will paddle out again.

Immersing herself in the ocean's water she felt the pull of the tides, learning how to swim with them. Fascinated by waves- the fusion of the moment of time with the timeless. She learned what it meant to be in connection with the present moment and experience that union, as she caught her first waves. A boogie board became a surfboard. She experience the high of standing up for the first time, a feeling that expanded the boundaries of  happiness. After the first ride she knew true desire and yearning, and the actions that result from that longing. She committed herself to being a stronger paddler by swimming while not at the beach, read surf magazines and watched "Endless Summer" which fueled her passion. She talked about surfing and learned from watching others out in the line-up. She got better and better - able to read the waves, when and how to paddle and pop up, how to ride then line and then to ride bigger and heavier swells of the east coast.

A passionate young woman, surfing, like running was one of the ways she lived her passions. She loved more than anything, the feeling of the warm sun on her back while sitting on her board waiting the next set having just paddled back out after a catching a chest high glassy wave. She  learned the fleetingness of life in the waves she let pass her by. Having fallen many times and paddling back out, on increasingly sizable waves, she was conditioned to be cautious. She became intimately aware of the consequence of her fear in the times she hesitantly paddled into a wave just to nose-dive over the falls or feel herself miss the wave's opening- the moment opportunity the water invited her to unite with it as it traveled to the shore.

She struggled -









 struggled to fine her way amidst others in the line-up, struggled to duck dive well enough to make it out past the break, struggled in the break zone after getting crushed to pull herself together. But, all of the struggles did not compare to all of the rides she had - the accumulation of the saturated seconds, moments that felt infinite - of  standing-up, zipping down the line and feeling so alive. Most of the time at least.

As the life experiences paralleled those of an aquatic life, also accumulating in ebbs and flows, higher highs and lower lows of the increasingly long and increasingly large human connections. Going out with boys became dating and relationships with men. Often intersecting with the beach, the ocean, the surf in intertwining heart opening surf sessions in union with another together surfing a session in search of waves. The waves break hard and fast on the east coast. But, her surfing widened to the west coast where she learned of how a wave could delicately unfold, how much longer a ride could last, how much more intimate the experience of wave riding.


She lived to surf and
 learned what it meant to love.

Years past.





She found herself traveling around the world as a strong, independent, fearless woman conditioned by her sense of self and identity as a runner and surfer and the deep foundation of experiences which lead her to feel able to conquer anything. Yet she longed to find someone to journey through time and place, a yearning for union that she carried with her as she blazed paths alone. She found herself surfing in Mexico, on a journey to find the perfect point break, and happened upon Barra de la Cruz.

A wave that tested the surfing ability she had cultivated, that pushed her to the limits of her fearlessness with it's head high plus consistent right break yet to be fully discovered by the world. She caught her biggest waves ever and also fell harder than she ever had into whirlpools of tides, pummeling waves, the piercing board of surfers passing overhead. She fought to  surface and emerged bruised and battered.

She paddled in an wondered was it worth it? Some waves are obviously not a fit - sizes that meant immanent death and others that she had outgrown and for which riding them felt as if she the equivalent of settling. Here was the wave that equaled her intensity for life and for surfing. The surf was good enough to stay here instead of moving on to the next break and she cultivated a relationship with the waves at Barra.

In the end, she experienced the beauty of the embrace in catching a wave and the length and amplitude of joy equalized the size of the wave, in awe in the moment and between the waves of the sea. 

During those sessions she also fell hard - again and again on her right shoulder. A goofie foot, right breaks blind her from reading the wave as her back is to the wave instead of gazing right at the face in a left break. Numb to the pain of her should while trading rides with falls, she continued to paddle past the edge of fear, knowing it was her only chance to catch the wave. But, between each session she noticed her shoulder aching more and more. Back out in the water, she found herself thinking about the waves instead of just feeling, heeding to her fear of a possible fall manifesting in paddling less than full force into the wave and inevitably not trusting her instinct led to a misstep in one of the many ways things can go wrong, leading to fall after fall.

Finally, she redeemed herself and left Barra both in visceral pleasure and the pain in her shoulder which she had to purposefully ignore in order to have the best chance at catching the waves she wanted - ignoring the voice of fear and not listening to her body or thoughts, even the feeling deep inside that she needed to paddle into shore . On the 20 hour bus ride back to Mexico City to fly home, her shoulder began to hurt more and more and by the time she was on the plane back to the US, her should froze. It took two weeks before she was out of the sling keeping her right arm still by her side and two months of massages and physical therapy before she could lift her arm above her head and hold weight in her arm.

Over the next three years later, she has faced and accepted that her right shoulder will never be the same. Not only is there a tear in her right shoulder that holds down her shoulder and arm that is most noticeable in yoga poses, but the shoulder injury has thrown her whole body off balance. Her left lower back and hip are rotated that structurally alters her bio-mechanics. The right shoulder holds tightly both the joyous memory and the experience of falling and hurt. . My everyday is affected because the right shoulder refers its injury to an instability my left knee that prohibits me from running most of the time.

 Being one with waves unparalleled to this day that are inscribed in my body, memories I relive. I do not believe my shoulder will ever be the same. I wonder if I should have held back, whether the pain and injury was worth the greatness of the experience of connection with this place. Then I think about how I would feel and if I would regret the great unknown had I watched those waves from the shore. Maybe I would not regret not embracing the situation as I would not have this daily reminder or maybe, like other crossroads in which I stood and watched in wonder, letting the people and places and opportunities pass me by I would be tortured in a very different way from the uncertainty arising from choosing a life less than fully lived.

There once was a girl who lived to surf. As a woman, she's decided to watch from the shore. She stares at the waves, her right shoulder speaking to her the memories recalled by each wave that hits the shore. She remembers and wonders. She wonders if she will paddle out again.