A FEELING, FRI 30JAN2015

Loc: Manhattan Beach, Rosecrans
Time: 0700-0900        
Crew: Bri, Garr
Conditions: 2-3 FT, drizzling, high tide, swampy
Board: Motorboat Too

     Gary’s already parked when I pull into the Rosecrans lot. He has his hoodie on with his hands in his pockets. With a light drizzle, slightly overcast conditions, and a swampy high tide, the surf doesn’t look too appetizing. I know Garr good enough to know that if the surf was decent, he would’ve been suited up by now. Bri pulls up a minute later. There are scattered peaks. The right is breaking through the high tide in front of the sandwich shack. Further south, the left is breaking at 34^th. Decent but crowded at those peaks. Out in front, waves are breaking but they are mostly insiders. Garr has work. When I tell him I’m paddling out, he kind of hesitates a little and says, “Yeah, I think I’ll suit up, too.”

     Garr goes straight for the peak at the sandwich shack while Bri and I paddle out in the dead zone in front of Rosecrans. Surprisingly, it’s not as inconsistent as it had looked. The waves are breaking fat, but there are some shoulders at the end of them. I get both lefts and rights, snapping on my backhand and getting some wraps on my frontside. After about twenty minutes Gary paddles over to us and says that he had gotten snaked by a couple of guys.

     Bri catches a couple waves and leaves a little later than usual; she still has to make it to work. Despite the tide, I’m doing pretty well for myself.

     Garr catches one in and waves back at me before marching off to his car.

     Sitting out there by myself, I think about my mom. She had passed away in August. Bri had been having dreams about her, says she had a dream about my mom carrying her own ashes. That made me pretty sad. Last night, I had a dream that I saw my mom and she had faked her own death. I remember hugging her in my dream, but the conversation was hazy. Then SWV’s hit from the nineties “Right Here” just starts playing in my mind. I remember the duplex my family had lived in on Glasgow Place on the East Side of Westchester, the way the evening sunlight would pour in through our kitchen window and shine on our dining table. I could see my mom standing in the threshold that led to the living room, still in her office clothes, full length hair, and makeup looking beautiful. That’s back in the day when she was really strong, wouldn’t hesitate to scold me if I was acting up. She was so independent then.

     Then I think about myself back in those days. I was such a selfish teenager who was only concerned with hanging out with my friends.

     Now I feel like shit. Depressed. But that song keeps on playing in my head, and for some reason I just feel like my mom is with me at this very moment. Suddenly, I want to leave. It’s 0830. The surf has gone inconsistent and sectiony. Regardless, being the cheap ass that I am, I push the session to 0900 since I had fed the meter up to that time.

     Driving up the hill to exit the El Porto lot, I’m at the red light. Usually I just hit the accelerator when the light turns green to make the left, but for some reason I hesitate a little bit and ease into the pedal. Just before pulling out to make the left turn, a black SUV runs the red light and speeds through the intersection. If I had pulled out just a second earlier, that would have been my ass. I mean literally, that SUV would have careened straight into my driver’s side door and I would have been fucked.

     The whole drive home I think about what would’ve happened had I been hit, especially my girlfriend Briana. I shake the thoughts away. I’m here. I’m fine.

     I had a feeling though that my mom was trying to tell me to just get out of the water early. I’m not much of a spiritual or religious person, but I just can’t help but feel like she was there.