wipe out.

I've become slightly infatuated with surfing of late. I suppose it's an inherent risk of living in California, along the coast. Drive anywhere, at any time of day, and you're bound to see any make/ model of vehicle with a surfboard strapped on racks above, or sticking out the back. It's the subliminal messaging of the California coastline.

A week ago I realized I'd been too crazy busy, and hadn't taken any time to just hang out and enjoy my surroundings. To alleviate, on the drive down to Ventura Friday afternoon, I stopped off at one of the beaches on the PCH, took off my flipflops, and walked along the beach for a while. I make it sound very nonchalant, but actually, I was scouting for surfers during the drive, as I'd yet to see surfing, close up. The beach where I stopped initially had only one surfer, and I considered moving further down the coast, thinking I had misjudged the quality of swell at that particular spot. But soon there were more, and the waves were getting better, and I sat and watched until I was ready to get back on the road.

I'm not familiar with the Pacific, and it's been a challenge for me to get comfortable with it, let alone develop a love of it. It's cold, and harsh. The things that wash up on the shore in warmer, more tropical climates seem to introduce an area's marine environment; here, very little washes up, and so the dark water seems distant, mysterious, a bit scary. The surf can be big, and diving from shore poses a new set of cumbersome considerations. This has worried me a bit, considering that every reason I moved out here revolves around that big, scary ocean. I've taken steps to get more comfortable with it, like working in the harbor, scrubbing boat hulls, or simply exploring different beaches, familiarizing myself with the terrain. This is all helping, and slowly I'm becoming acclimatized, and slowly I'm getting more comfortable with all that's necessary for diving here, but it still feels as though something is missing.

Lately I've been thinking about my time in Thailand. Not intentionally, but memories, sensations will pop into my mind at the strangest times. When I lived there, I got on a boat every day to take people diving. I loved it. It was somewhat structured, but relaxed, and the diving was wonderful, not because we always saw amazing things, but just something about being in the water there. Between dives, we'd sometimes anchor in a bay for lunch, and even then, on the break, I'd be lying in the water, relaxed on surface, with a snorkel sticking off one side of my head. I loved it. The water was always inviting, and this is what I'm missing now. I haven't experienced that feeling here yet.

A funny thing happened though, a few days after watching the surfers on the PCH. Another day, driving, and stopping off at a beach to watch the waves. There was a feeling there, a tug of something, a connection to the water, an understanding of some sort, but all related to the waves, and surfing. So maybe learning to surf is the answer, the cure-all. In any case, it can't hurt.

Of course, there's another side to the surfing infatuation.

As regular readers may have noticed, I've come to refer to my male classmates almost exclusively as the *stinky boys. This was borne of the reality that, on any given day, in any given MDT class, one of those boys, and sometimes more, is going to smell unpleasant, whether it's the clothes he's wearing, or his lack of dental hygiene, or the gastro-intestinal response to the cheap tacos and beer he consumed the night before. But I also go to school with several guys who surf, and they are not stinky boys, neither literally (not that I've ever experienced, anyway. I'm sure they have their moments.) nor figuratively. For whatever reason, the surfers seem to be the nicest, most down to earth, normal, non socially challenged guys in the program.

I also have a crush on a surfer, and probably every other surfer I've seen in the water. There's something about the surfers I've met, a sense of ease, of relaxation, of acceptance. Maybe it's the endless time spent waiting on waves, being so into something one has no control over. I don't know what it is. But surfers have taken over the place in my heart heretofore reserved for soccer players.

And that's saying something.