I was surfing at Ocean Beach a while ago, it was a foggy, glassy day, and there was a pod of dolphins swimming not too far away, maybe 100 feet out from the lineup. For some reason I just decided: I’m going to open my heart, send them love. I’m slightly embarrassed to even say that, it sounds so woo-woo, but it’s what I did. And right then, I’m not kidding, one of them swam directly toward me, right underneath my board. I could have touched it. I felt awe – a sense of being part of something way bigger than me, something beyond my understanding. 

I feel that a lot when I’m surfing. Being in the vast, deep, dark, ancient water. There’s something about mortality, too. Like the ocean really could swallow you up at any time – and on a big day there’s a little bit of terror. So death is always present, but at the same time with surfing you’re playing and kind of dancing in the face of fear or mortality. Surfers talk about “drawing a line” down the face of a wave. You’re leaving this temporary wake, disappearing white ink. 

Surfing helps me with being present, being in the moment. When you’re riding a wave it’s hard not to be totally present – your experience and your instincts take over and you’re not thinking about it – but even when you’re sitting and waiting, which is most of surfing, it’s such an intense sensory experience, the cold water and the ocean smells and the motion of the water and you’re reading the shadows in the swells on the horizon and constantly trying to stay in position. 

In my middle age I’m trying to do less ruminating or replaying my life choices – the things I should have done or could have tried or achieved – and there’s a corollary with surfing, replaying the the waves I should have gone for, or chickened out on, and instead can I be content with whatever has happened, with exactly the waves I rode or didn’t ride. I’m trying; I’m not always successful but I’m trying. 

It’s interesting how clearly I can remember some waves, even from years ago. I remember a beautiful spring day about four years ago: I caught this long left and this old surfer was paddling out and he looks over and I was right in the curl, not barreled but if you looked from the side it might have looked like it, but it was just a great ride. And he gave me this nod and this smile that said both, like, “nice wave, I see you,” but also, “Isn’t this whole thing – this day, this experience – spectacular? Aren’t we lucky?”

Just today as I was paddling over a wave and I saw this guy get fully tubed, like, Surfer magazine kind of barrel, and he made it out and I looked at him and gave him a nod and thumbs-up – this time I was the old guy!