Double overhead from the back
So I am curious if any of you ever guessed what I did when I was younger. Here's a hint.:
Yes that could have been me. I was a big wave surfer. Mostly tracked hurricanes and surfed them. A wave like this, you measure it from the back.(eh, brah da kine wahini h'ui o' he'e nalu bra) This wave is Triple Overhead from the Back. I've done a Double, about 2/3 the size of this one. When I paddled into the wave, it broke on a point and wrapped around the island. I remember the board. A red Barry Kan'a'pu'ani gun. Walked down onto the beach and the ground was shaking. Tornadoes had spun all the seaweed onshore into tight little balls. The ride down the face, felt like forever. It was probably only 45 seconds or so down the face, but lord it was a ride. I felt like I was falling and falling. I rode all the way around the point of island. It took me 15 minutes to walk back to the beach. Broken boards on the beaches.
Once Alex Haley (the author of Roots) told a story about a friend of his fathers, who had been a sponsor of the Haley family. When he died, he left Alex' father something he had kept all his life - It was a picture of a woman standing on the beach, the ocean was behind her. And on the back it read. The two things I love most in the world. My wife, and the pacific ocean.
For me, Language is like the ocean. Even if we cannot know, its wild and unknown central expanse - at the interfaces, where the ocean meets the shore or where language meets practice we can see order. For example, the seventh wave of a set is always the biggest one. The sets have order.
I have no animal mind. My pets are happy because they trust me to be a human being. Animal mind for humans, is the premature ejaculation of self. Dog psychology doesn't work out there. There is no predator and no prey. There are never any Nazis out there. Ever. No shore paddlers. No kite boarders. No colorful personalities, at least outwardly. Just cowboys and Triathletes. A tight band of friends. We still talk - I am hoping to track them again, my old friends. For this group, the saying only the good die young holds particularly true...
One other memory. While I am being wistful (hey, I am getting hit here. I feel like a surfer again) Every year after the season was over, divers went down and picked the bodies of the surfers that get stuck up under the reef or in the canyons. This is a well known story. Never dove that one. Don't like sharks. When , at FSU, got into caving and took my cavern diving certification - they told a story that day about how they pulled a diver out from the Suwanee River Valley System where we were diving . When they pulled him out. He was covered with red georgia clay. That means he went in somewhere in Georgia, and came out somewhere in Florida. Now there's a dive for you. Florida has the second largest underwater cave and cavern system in the world. The people I dove with had a gleam in their eye. If you knew them as I did you would know what it meant.. the cavern systems connect somewhere..
I miss her so much - The sea. I want her in extreme ways. But in the end she will take you .
Sometimes I used to paddle out even when it was flat, just go out there and sit and listen and watch the sunset. I need things like this in my life to be whole again. Like Kinky sex. >.) - thanks for the 100 point increase folks. I am happy that this blog continues to stay clean and tight and goes on its way where it needs to go. Let me know what you want - and then if you're lucky I will use it against you.
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