Surfing, the actual sport that occurs on water, with a board, may or may not be one of those things one doesn't really get until one does it. It consists of long periods of time sitting out in the water waiting, punctuated by extremely short periods of time of high excitement. Then there's the whole editorializing: catch the coming wave or let it go by? Plus the language. Dude. Whatever.
I'm right on the verge of becoming a freak about surfing. I've done it twice now, and this weekend's foray to the Oregon Coast with friends didn't even involve long-boarding (what you might think of as true surfing), I borrowed one of my friend Ryan's body boards. Still, as with the last time (in Florida, when I actually did long-board), in the days afterwards I keep thinking about it. Mmm...surfing. The instant when you've caught a wave and you're propelled forward on the wake is the kind of thing that makes you want to look around and see who's watching you, as if you were ten years old. It's like a moment of Zen that lasts for ten seconds instead of the Planck Time-length instants you usually get.
The thing about surfing is that it's the perfect metaphor for what it actually is: you're literally riding a wave. All the things surfing brings to mind--patience, devotion, balance, going with the flow--all of those things seems like they're metaphors for things in life that then come back and are themselves metaphors about surfing.
A lot of things happened the last couple of weeks that I've wanted to blog about--the last book read, the last tv show watched, the most recent trip(s) taken, the state of the latest musical foray into which Mark and I have ventured, how school is going, and so on. They've all seemed connected lately, a zone where everything is related to everything else, everything a metaphor for itself. Or, you know, whatever. Dude.
Next: A metaphor for surfing!
Tags: Surfing, Meaning Of Life
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