Chop Wood Ride Water

For my fourth cab ride with death I flew to Costa Rica.  Playa Jaco, south end.  Low tide.  9'6" foam core glass board, dual fins.  We'd been warned that the ollas were no bueno, but figured even a bad day of surfing beats a good day of fishing.  Surfing is not really an athletic activity.  Athletic components, sure.  But if you can do a burpee you can get on a surf board.  The skill is knowing WHEN to get on the surf board.  Wind, wave, speed, direction....as in comedy, timing is everything.  The more you know, the better you are.  I call this an intellectual pursuit, engagement with. . . nature is a pretty tired word at this point. . .I'm gonna say, the planet:  communion of the earth with its moon.  The sea and firmament and what they make together.  You should care about these things...deeply.  Be aware, however, that these things do not care about you.  Surfing will kill you, or worse.  No man is an island but everyone is a peninsula, bounded on three sides, sky, water, land.  Think what a joy it is to cross the causeways, swim in the sea of sky, the sea of land, the sea of seas.  Spelunking, a plane ride, open water swimming.  It's here we are reminded (taught?) our proper place in the order of things.  We mean nothing.  Gravity doesn't care.  It's got far more important things to do, like fight entropy.  You're gonna die you know?  And the sky will be cobalt, the seas wine-dark, the mountains towering.  Study these things not to bring meaning to your life, but to remind yourself where you came from, where you're going.

But so we'd been warned the waves just weren't coming with any regularity then.  They can be hard to read when the pattern is obvious; take away the pattern and you're playing roulette with forces that turn boulders to sand.  Actually we'd been told it was no good.  Now I know what no good means.  I got on a couple.  A couple means two.  They were breaking at different spots and closing out fast, difficult to stay with.  Every once in a while a a big swell would would look promising but an off shore breeze would stand it up tall, too tall, and the top would just drop, no curl, no break.  Just a terrific jutting up and instant water fall.  Not a backyard koi pond waterfall.  A class 5 rapid waterfall: crashing and pitiless.  Pitiless.  You are not a factor.

Fortune loves the brave.  Misfortune loves the flinching, the double-clutching, the hesitant.  I began paddling for what would turn out to be and attempted murderer wave.  Paddle 1-2-3-4 look behind,  1-2-3-4 look behind.  1-2-3-4.  oh. no no no.  Turn the board.  Not this one.  Starting to get picked up now.  Up or down?  dive underneath or try to squeak overtop?  All the while still getting picked up....overtop,  quick quick quick you can make it.  damn.  Uh.  Oh shit.  NO. WAIT.  Get UNDER.  NO.  Getting off a breaking wave you fall.  You fall OFF the water.  You fall as far as the wave is high.  Six feet, maybe eight.  Go stand on top of your extension ladder.  Jump.

I fell off the wave and in front of my board.  The wave gave me my board in the back, right on the traps.  I heard a crunching noise.  I was inside something unspeakably furious and violent.  My head and hands and feet were going in unknown directions in no relationship to each other.  I had control of nothing but my breath.  I could hold my breath.  HOLD.  HOLD.  My limbs, my thoughts, they weren't mine.  They belonged to the wave.   Very bad, I thought.  Very long I whispered to myself.  I wanted to pull for the top.  I didn't know where the top was.  It didn't matter, my arms weren't mine.  God this is too long.  I remember thinking that. THIS is TOO long.  HOLD!  I gotta come up.  I should be up by now.  Where the fuck is up??!!  Damn.  Awful.  Panic.  Terror.  NO NO NO.  HOLD.  NO.

Breakthrough.  Oxygen.  Half oxygen, half water.  Damn.  Choke.  Gag. Still not great.  Another one.  Not as bad. Whew.  Hold.  You'll be on top soon.  I'm on top.  Coughing.  Why can't I swim?  More seawater.  Jesus my neck.  Pull the leash.  HOLD.  Find the board.  Get on the board.  Another one.  Hang on.  Damn.  HOLD.  Can you stand?  No.  HOLD.  Find the board.  Hold onto the board.  Don't get on it.  Another one. HOLD.  Hold the onto the board, let it push.  You're gonna live. You're alive.

Seriously:  go outside.  Cardinals are singing.  Wisteria is blooming.  Thunderstorms.  Earthworms.  Zephyrs.  Cumulonimbus clouds.  We're alive and it's amazing.  If you're not amazed, you're sleeping.  Wake up.  It's late.