localswell

“You used to surf?” I think to myself whenever I hear somebody say it. “You mean you stopped?”

See, I simply cannot fathom how anyone could start surfing, then stop. Short of being forced to move inland or becoming too old or injured, I could never understand someone just giving it up. It’s way too addicting, like heroin, only good for you. And I have always scratched my head at the idea of someone just stopping. For me, it always seemed simply impossible, beyond the realm of possiblity.

Until this summer, that is. I find myself, now, for the first time, wracked by a self surf doubt crisis of epic proportions. I am wondering if this life I have built, in a large part with surfing at its core, is sustainable.

It is brought on by a perfect storm of factors, from the economic, to the personal, to the meteorological. Among them:

1. The baby. I mentioned in my previous post, written a few days after my second daughter was born in May, how the second child was going to make it tougher to get in the water. Things haven’t changed. That wasn’t so bad during June’s weeks long flat spell, when I felt like I wasn’t missing much. But this week it got good for five straight days and I was still unable to get out. Painful. Brutally painful. In New Jersey, you simply cannot afford to miss swells. Especially in June. That kind of stuff will kill your soul.

2. The job: I have a new position at work and my boss wants me to start earlier. So far, I have resisted. It would mean the end of dawn patrol. And weekday dawn patrols are the bread and butter of my surf schedule.

3. The commute: I work in Newark. I live in Red Bank. It’s a fairly long commute. I have a tiny fuel sipping Hyundai, but gas prices of four bucks a gallon are starting to take a toll on the family budget, which has gone from two incomes/two people to one income/four people in just two years. Also, the 8-10 hours I spend driving to work each week is essentially another day at the office, another full day away from the family. The long hours behind the wheel are also causing lots of back pain. I live where I do largely so I can surf, although there are also a ton other reasons (including cheaper home prices and ties we’ve made to our community). But if I’m not surfing anyway, what the hell am I doing?

So the push to move North, to become a benny, is strong, and growing. It would mean, essentially the end of surfing for me. I would become one of those pale kooks you see blowing drops for rusty timing weekend mornings in the summer.

And that’s if I’m lucky.

I’m hoping all this is just a phase. That the family will settle into a routine, the baby will sleep, my new work schedule will allow me to hit it at dusk, if not dawn.

And I’m thinking that maybe, maybe all this doubt is fueled by the fact that I haven’t surfed in so long. (it’s my longest no surf stint for me since 1998, when I was landlocked in the Andes). I’m clinging to the faith that all this doubt will be cured by the next wave I ride, that when it comes and I catch it, it will wipe all this clean and restore my resolve to keep surfing, no matter what life, or work, or greedy oil speculators can throw at me. Because if I ever hear myself say those words, “I used to surf”, well, it must might be the saddest words to ever come out of my mouth.

ps

Has anyone else been through this kind of thing? I’d love to hear some comments. I could use em..

Peace, BD.