Tracking

There was one day this past week where I actually felt well enough to get out of the house, so what I did was, I went surfing. The freedom I have, now that I'm not longer chained to a desk, is gibber-inducing; I could go on and on about how cool it is (it is), I could go on and on about making up for lost time with my family but that is actually painful. My daughter is 17 months old and by my calculations, based on time at work and the time I got to see her in the morning and just before she went to sleep...that time is measured in days, hours really, and that makes my heart hurt. I have to reacquaint myself with my child. (Still, I will not join the so-called Stay At Home/Work At Home Dad Revolution - it's the bullshit whining of upper middle classers who due to a combination of skills, education, and most of all luck get to stay at home with their kids; most dads will always have to go to a job, and miss large chunks of their children's lives, and that I don't is humbling.) 

Anyway. I had a day, a lull in sickness (for the next day the migraine hit and stayed for two days, an experience that culminated in a visit to my doc, who told me to take a shitload of Aleve every day and if that didn't help, it's CAT scan time, and that caused a small voice deep down inside to start screaming, because it's a CAT scan, and those reveal the secret depredations of the brain, monstrous cell formations that eat at your memory and steal your thoughts, your words, maybe your life) and so I threw the bonzer into the Xterra and up the coast I went. I knew where I was going, Undisclosed Location; there would be no crowds, and I could attempt to shake off the rust of shorebound weeks and hope that the muscle memory hadn't been afflicted with that particularly virulent form of Alzheimer's, the one you get when you don't surf in what might as well be an eon. 

I pulled up next to The Van. It was out of coastal legend, a faded brown Ford thing built in the 70's, plastered with stickers - No Bad Days, Bing Surfboards, Sex Wax - and stuffed to the roof with boxes of crackers, cans of soup, cartons of oil and cigarettes, laundry in cracked yellowing baskets. It was a home. The residents were wandering around the parking lot, looking for some friendly spare change, or maybe just acknowledgment that things are tough all over, and there but for the grace of God. 

He approached me while I was tugging on the wetsuit - which still fit, and I had my doubts after a few weeks of sloth. "Whadya get first? The board or the truck?" He smelled stale, wore a stained Point Loma Sportfishing t-shirt, and was missing a leg. The board or the truck...at first I didn't get the question, but realized: the colors, they match, smurf blue SUV, smurf blue surfboard. "Oh - the truck. Got a deal on it. Because of the color. No one wanted to buy it," I replied. He nodded. "Well, it's boss. And look at your board! FIVE skegs! That thing's gotta have some bite, I reckon. Bet it really holds a turn." There was excitement in his voice, and it made me both happy and sad. "Yeah, I hope so," I said. "It's only the second time I've taken it out." He grinned. "You picked a good day! Some small waves, but it sure is purty out." I finished getting suited up, scooped the board under my arm and turned toward the beach. "Take care, bro," I called back over my shoulder. 

The water was bracing. I paddled out, wheezing and coughing - that bronchitis wasn't dying easy. I didn't have long to wait - enough time to think about the van guy, and how funny it was that he used the word "skegs", and that leg, and how he lost it, and how much else he lost with it - and then there was a right, maybe waist high. I turned and stroked into it - not thinking, just doing - and the board was suddenly on rails, tracking a line down what little face there was. I was up and crouched and I had just a few brief seconds of ride before the wave deflated back into mere ocean. But there was enough time for a bottom turn, and sure enough, that board really held it.