Crew: Solo
Conditions: High tide, 3-4 FT, inconsistent, stormy, raining.
Friday called for rain, but when I awoke it was still dry outside. In the Porto parking lot, the orange horizon prepared itself for the arrival of the sun. While stretching on the sand, I noticed that the clouds over the ocean were a darkening gray, giving a sheet of moisture and limiting visibility. I felt a few drops of rain as I walked in the shallows, finally lying on my board to paddle out. Once at the lineup, the rain started to come down. I expected a scenic morning: a gray ocean while the sun shines over the Manhattan homes behind me, but the clouds in front of us soon became the clouds behind. As the rain intensified, more people left the water.
Six of us remained, just a bunch of surf addicted, wave lovin’ heathens . . . good people. The waves weren’t clean, still that long peak with the taper at the end. I managed to get some trims on the face without turns, but the surfing itself took the backseat to the atmosphere. Thunder boomed up above. Nervous, I turned to the guy behind me. He never dropped his gaze in the distance. Fuck it, how often to surfers get zapped by lightning anyway? The rain turned into pelting. All around us was nothing but a blanket of gray in the dark blue sea, and drops of water popped up and shot down, so consistent that it made a static, white-noise sound. But on my wetsuit it was different. I felt the pelts through the neoprene, but as the rain hit it, it made a “tap, tap, tap” sound. I thought about that tapping.
Lately, I’ve been in the array of an abysmal funk, struggling to accept the changes in my life and struggling to let go of the past. I’ve lost my mental freedom, losing moments of the present, stuck in my head, but still there was that “tap, tap, tapping” on my wetsuit. There I was, listening to that noise, which should have been heard from indoors—a gentle tapping on the window as one sleeps, cozy and warm, like a microwaved burrito under the blankets. Nah, not me. It’s early Friday morning, and I’m in the ocean with a few dudes, wet from both above and under water. The tapping. . . . I felt like it was nature’s way of tapping me on the shoulder saying, “Hey, don’t forget, Matt. Don’t forget to live.” I paddled around, positioning myself for the wave, and the tapping continued. “Matt, this is you, you belong here.” I popped up right where the wave tapered off, pumping, drawing the highline, pressing my front foot to push myself back down the line with speed. I made a section where the lip was about to crumble. I pumped again, bottom turned, climbed the face, and turned off the lip with fluidity, never losing momentum. I felt the nose of my board swivel past six o’clock. Aggressive. Fast. By the time I redirected the wave was done. A couple guys paddled out in front of me after my ride. I smiled to them and myself.
The tapping continued from my paddle all the way until I sat again, motionless in the lineup. Just a continuous “tap, tap, tap.” It said, “Yeah, don’t you forget this.” I smiled again, this time at the tapping.
