Vaya con Dios

Growing up, I had a serious thing for the ocean. We went to the beach fairly often, on vacations and such, but I think it had to do with living in the desert-- I still felt really tragic and as though I'd been deprived of something essential. How could my parents fail to understand my longing for, no, my deep spiritual connection to the sea? For a while, I even had it in my head that I'd drowned in the ocean in a past life. I still have recurring dreams about huge monster tidal waves coming to get me. It's always the same: I'm crawling on the beach, but the sand is crumbling underneath me, and for the life of me, I can't move quickly enough. I keep turning around to see this colossal wave of water about to crush me in slow motion.

This may be part of the root reason why I've decided take up surfing. The first time I tried it was in England, off the Southern coast of Cornwall, in October. It was cold, but probably no colder than the California coast on a chilly day. I had a mediocre first attempt, getting up only briefly, falling off, all of that. No matter, I thought. It's my first try. I'll get better.

I've surfed many times since then, in New Zealand and Mexico, in Hawaii, and mostly in California. Understand that I use the phrase "I surf" very liberally. I wear the wet suit, and I have a surfboard. Also booties, because the water is freezing. I paddle out. I get wet. I pee in the ocean. I sit on my board and keep my eye open for waves. Then I turn around and try to "surf" which usually just ends up being glorified boogie boarding. (I'm really good at getting to my knees at this point.) I think I'm too out of shape and uncoordinated to do a really stellar "pop up" (where, in one fluid motion, the surfer goes from being prone on the board to standing up and surfin' safari, baby). I took an all women's class in Pacifica, CA a few months ago, and have since been going every other weekend or so with two girls I met in the class. Fortunately, they also suck.

This weekend, K and I went to see a play called Point Break Live. Based on the 1991 classic, Point Break, the live version is low-budget, ultra kitschy, and tongue-in-cheek. The film stars Keanu Reeves as special agent Johnny Utah, and Patrick Swayze as Bodhi, spiritual surfer guru, in career-making roles. At Point Break Live, the role of Johnny Utah is played by a member of the audience. Four or five guys and gals get up and utter a few choice lines (and also bend over to show you their asses) and one gets chosen based on an applause-o-meter. A cue girl follows Johnny around for the rest of the show, and he or she reads off of cue cards. (The effect being, Keanu delivered his lines in such a way that practically anyone can replicate it, simply by reading off of cue cards). We had a great time, even though K was getting a cold, and we had to sit in bleachers with no back support. The cast members parody the over-the-top surfers featured in the movie (oh, they are also bank robbers, but really, this movie is about surfing) and do things like spray the audience with super-soakers and fake blood. It's a lot of fun, and I tend to really go for theatrical performances that require a degree of audience participation. I like interacting with actors, moving around in my seat, being surprised and amused.

Point Break is a fantastic movie because it takes itself pretty seriously, but is steeped in bullshit. We laugh at it because it's not exactly laughing at itself. Well, Keanu's definitely not... Point Break live is all ABOUT laughing at itself, something that surf culture doesn't do a whole lot of. I'm lucky, because I surf at a beginner's beach in Pacifica, and so far have come up against very little attitude. The two women I surf with are both ultra-liberal-and-liberated lesbians, and they definitely eschew the traditional macho bro culture that dominates most of surfing. The guys who rent us our suits and boards ask us every single time what our dress size is when getting us a wet suit. This past time, J, one of the girls I surf with, said to me right after, that what she wanted to say to surf shop boy was: "seriously, guy. Do I look like I ever wear a fucking dress?"

Amen to that, and I wear dresses all the time. I've been learning to surf for a while now, and I'm still not very good. But there's something inherently satisfying about sitting on your board after you've paddled out, going up and down with the waves, and feeling slightly nervous, because shit, that's a big one coming up, and it kind of looks like it's going to crash on you. While you're still waiting for the wave, you can pretend you're a "real" surfer, and not just delaying getting tossed off your board.