Surfer Girl

I went surfing again today, with my sister and two friends. We got lessons from Liquid Dreams on Long Sands, York Beach, Maine.

York is a funny place for me. I moved around a lot as a child (five years divided between Maine and New Hampshire; four years in Maryland; one year back in Maine; two years in New Mexico; six more in New Hampshire -- and all this before my wanderlust college saga). It's hard for me to pick a home state, let alone a home town, on some levels. If I picked one, though, it would be York. My beloved maternal grandparents lived there for years, and I remain more familiar with it, and nostalgic for it, than any other place I've been. Last year, for example, my sister and I were driving along the labyrinth of back roads behind Long Sands and she asked which road to take. I answered without thinking, choosing a road that I might not have been on in several decades -- and it was the right road. Yet I can't remember one single thing from high school chemistry class. Funny how the mind works.

Anyway, it just feels right that I'm surfing Long Sands. The instructor gives us few pointers, reasoning (probably correctly) that we can't think of too many things at once anyway. He occasionally positions a surfer and shoves her forward in a wave at just the right moment. I refuse this service; I've got to learn how to do this on my own. As gregarious and social as I am, I like to figure things out myself.

The water is freezing, maybe 65 degrees if we're lucky. The wetsuit is fine, but it doesn't do shit for my feet, and I lose all feeling in my toes within thirty minutes, though I stay out almost ninety. Wet, salty curls hang in my face. The waves surge and disappear unpredictably, maybe two and a half feet high on average, and I wish they were bigger, though I have no idea whether I could handle bigger.

I catch a wave perfectly sometimes, cruising in, focused on nothing but the board and the water. It may be the purest thing I've ever done or felt. Sometimes I wipe out, sometimes spectacularly, but that's the price, and it's totally worth it.

Surf words explode in my brain like an awesome saltwater fountain: gnarly; radical; dude; hang ten; point break. I am K-Dog, bobbing on the water, waiting for the perfect wave, and sometimes I find it.

I am alive; alight; incendiary.

And I can't fucking wait to do this again.