Editing

I am now in awe of professional editors.

I reflect on how I have written and re-written my pieces while looking for grammatical errors, errors in tense and punctuation and whatever other pitfalls await this amateur writer  and then, foolishly thinking that I am ready to publish, I do so!

The next day when I reread my latest and greatest I marvel at all the glaring mistakes in it!

Good thing my life and my writing are works in progress.... plenty of mistakes but all worth correcting.

I'm a gonna get right on it!

Tomorrow.

January 25, 2014

An epic day in the tropics….. this was a day to make me remember the joy and the magic of why we moved here.

It was just a normal Saturday. It’s just that normal hadn't been a big part of our lives for a while so this Saturday made normal feel extraordinary.

We all slept in a tiny bit(OK, a lot) longer than the Monday through Friday school routine of up before dawn and that put us all in good spirits.

I lounged a bit while Liam and Mairead played some Wii and Terraria and I walked with Seamus down to the hardware store to pick up the organic eggs I had paid for the previous day.

Yes, we buy our organic eggs at the ferreteria. It makes perfect sense to me and, at 3 pesos each; I’ll take ‘em.

So, being that no walk in our little town is just a walk, it was darn near an hour event to motate a total of about half a mile. 

I chatted with a man on the way there whose son had attended the Primaria for a year here when he was a boy and we swapped stories and philosophies about the importance of growing up bi-culturally.

Of course, then I ran into Robert and his girls at Entre Amigos, the community center and heart of this town, and he and I discussed surf. He told me Burros was perfect yesterday but now he feels like he is getting ill.

A few feet later Doug and Carol caught up to me and we walked the rest of the way to the ferretería while we talked about car importing and what an adventurous man, John, an 87 year old retired priest is.

While buying my eggs, of course, I spoke with Joél quite a bit. He had been employed by the polo club, Las Patronas, but they have not  opened for the season so he had decided to open a little place with a pool table and Foosball directly behind the ferretería.

Sheesh! 

And, of course, Seamus had to pee on everything that had a vertical surface, it seemed…. I, honestly, don’t know how he manages to do it so prolifically.

I swear to god, if Seamus was crawling through the desert near death from dehydration and on his belly with visions of water shimmering through his head and he came upon a bush he would somehow manage to pee on it.

Then I stopped and bought some fruit for the day at the stand somehow I managed to get out of there with only routine hellos.

Almost home I had to stop in at Super Mary’s to buy Seamus some dog food and I ended up having an extensive conversation with Maria…. Who I am convinced by her constant laughing loves talking to me in rapid-fire Spanish and watching the wheels turning in my head while I try to keep up with her. Man, she was telling me about San Miguel de Allende and how beautiful it is there and how much we will love it when we move there.

Lordy! 

After that I managed to make it home with the eggs, fruit and dog food with only a few brief “Adios’s” which is how you say hello when you don’t have time to chat.

We were heading to the beach so it was time to load the surfboards, boogie boards and all the other stuff we bring with us when we go.

Seamus was out of luck because the beach we go to is public but the access is private. It’s a weird deal that the owners of the Four Seasons Punta Mita had to be forced to submit to.
Something about having your cake and eating it, too……

There is a guard at the gate and you must have at least one wave riding vehicle per person or there is no admittance. 

No umbrellas, ice chests, tents…. Nada. But, the surf is usually good.

When we got to the beach we expected it to be packed since a large swell was running and it was a Saturday.

During the week this place is usually packed with surf school people…. Sometimes 40 people on the inside trying to figure it all out…. Today, virtually empty!

There were only 3 guys in the water….. And, as soon as we stepped onto the sand a horizon blocking set came through…… like 15 smokin' big waves!

As soon as everyone was sun screened and good to go I got waxed up and headed out. Katie was a bit nervous because a guy that had just come in told us the current was ripping to the south and the sets were really big.

Awesome!

I timed it my paddle out just right and I barely got my hair wet paddling out!

And, then, I sat….. Seemingly forever but it was probably only 20 minutes…. Where the heck were those set waves that were so huge when I was standing on the beach?!

Everything coming through was only just overhead. I wanted those big sets. I knew from personal wave-bait experience that as soon as I settled for one of the regular waves a giant set would come through and pin me on the inside….forever..... Happens every time…..

So, I waited awhile longer and the peak was shifting north with the dropping tide. 

Finally, on the horizon I see white water on the north side of the Marrieta’s.

At first I thought it was some giant boat's wake but then I could see that the whitewater was from giant waves on the northern most point of the islands!

To be able to see that from 12 miles…. I knew something big had to be coming!

So, I kept waiting..... and, finally, there it was. 

The first wave was building on the horizon and it was big. It was easily twice as big as any of the between set waves that had been consistently rolling through. The best part was that I could see many, many lines behind it, too.

I actually felt some nervousness in my gut! 

It had been quite some time since I had ridden big, heavy waves and I had this momentary vision of myself getting launched off the top of one of these big ol' things!

I was thinking to myself that I really had to judge these set waves right…… a bad take off means getting pinned inside for a pounding and with that sweeping current most likely with me ending up right over some exposed rocks. 

I just kind of let it go. I've been surfing a long time…. 35 years now….. I know how to surf.

Funny thing with these waves today, though, is that they were soft on top. Which means that you have to really paddle to get into them…. They didn't stay soft, just on the tops. Mid-way down they were sucking sand right of the bottom and steep.

They also looked a lot bigger sitting next to them than they did from the shore.

I needed the right position on these things. These were not waves for the inexperienced or pussies. The two other guys out had paddled much further north and were looking for deep entry waves. I knew that I was sitting right in the right spot for what I was looking for. I lined up on the point and knew I just needed to be patient.

The other two guys couldn't get lined up where there were at and I was just floating over the shoulders of the waves they were trying to scratch into while I waited patiently for my wave. 

Some of these waves looked to be a solid 4 meters on the faces…. I watched a few go by and they were, easily, a meter and a half to two meters and more on the back…..these were real waves!

About 3 waves into this set I saw some bumps way outside that are pointing straight at me.

I started paddling out further because I just did not want one of these monsters to land on my head……
I've been to that movie. 

In fact I've starred in it more than once and I didn't dig it any one of those times!

Finally, one of my waves was coming right at me….. I paddled and paddled and then it just rolled under me. I was thinking “damn" (or something to that effect but probably starting with an "F" and ending with an "uck")! 

I was really going to have to get into one of these when it was starting to pop”!

I scratched again and I was closer but this one rolled under me, too!

I saw another wall of water coming at me and, instead of paddling out to it, I just decided to sit and wait….. I started thinking that maybe I was waiting just a bit too long and this thing was going to ingloriously hand my rear end to me but I waited anyway.

It built just right and I turned and started paddling hard. I was just at perfect spot! I stood up and got ready to drop and it just started to soften on top and roll under me again! I was looking straight down the wave face and there was a lot of wave down there and I was going to miss it!

Not happening.

No way.

I stepped up to the nose of my board and shifted the weighting of my craft all they way to the front and I felt the wave catching me….. I also saw it getting incredibly steep and the sand that was sucking half way up the wave face as I was beginning my drop.

Completely committed. The point of no return was just behind where I had been a split second ago.

This is a feeling that is akin to that sensation where you are on a roller coaster on the first hill, the lift chain the car you are in lets go, you are in the front seat and gravity just starts to take over.

The big difference is that there are no rails to guide you. 

It was really steep…… The prominent thought in my mind was that there was a high probability I was going to eat shit and get hammered. 

I wasn't excited about that in any fashion but you don’t get the big drop without pushing your limits.

I figured worse case scenario and I'd just hold my breath and feel a little foolish..... nothing I'm not used to!

So, I just let ‘er rip and dropped hard and straight, knowing all the time that I could pull this off. 

As soon as I had any kind of edge I buried a rail and cranked a turn off the bottom….. I still wasn't sure I was going to make it but my rail held and I was on my way back up to the lip for a cutback and another hard drop! 

Woohoooooo!

I got to ride that wave top to bottom for another 200 meters…. So much crazy fun and I heard myself hooting more than once after making that drop!

I popped out into the channel and started paddling back out….. a long paddle and me just filled to spilling with stoke. 

The next set started building and I patiently waited for the wave with my name on it.

By now a couple of German guys had paddled out with GoPros mounted on their boards to capture all those perfect moments and they kept parking it right inside me…. I kept thinking, man, I hope they get the hell out of the way when I go!

With the tide still dropping the waves started shifting north a bit and I was ready. I knew I would have to take off late and I positioned myself for a big one I saw way outside.

It was popping up perfectly and I took off very late. I pulled it off and I got to carve a nice section from bottom to top and I cut back into the breaking part of the wave to keep in the fastest part of the wave.  As the wave developed and shifted in front of me I could see this giant section sucking up on the reef and looking like it just might tube!

This would have been an easy stand up tube on these set waves! 

I've  never really seen it tube here much but I am an optimist.
Cynical, yes, but always an optimist!

I was also thinking that if it didn't tube that lip was just going to pitch and smack me in the hard in the head and drill me straight to the bottom.

So I stalled this thing out and set myself up to drive this barrel section hard…. I was going pretty slow at this point and so I pumped it up the wave face to speed into this barrel…. It started to form and I dropped into it and my positioning was looking so good!

And then, of course, it pitched hard, didn't hold a barrel and this big, fat and powerful lip hit me in the head, which on normal waves is no big deal, and subsequently drilled me deep into the water….. I was happy I am not bouncing off of reef but, having had a respiratory infection for about 3 weeks, I was thinking to myself that my lung capacity was not what it normally is…. I didn't see any light so I knew I was deep. I just laid it all out and kept myself relaxed so the wave would let me go!

Man, it sure seemed like it was taking forever to do so! There was so much air mixed in the water my buoyancy wasn't so buoyant........and, yes, fat is, was, and always will be lighter than water.......

My lungs were not doing so well and, at that point, I started scratching for the surface! It felt to me like I had spent more than enough time down there and I was ready to be on the right side of the water surface. It sure seemed like a long way up but I saw light so I just kept powering up! I was REALLY happy for a lungful of air!

Woohoo!

I decided to catch one more of these beauties and head in to play with my family.

Another perfect wave filled with many turns and cutbacks with a nice kick off the end.

I was more than satisfied and filled with so much stoke that I decided to head in to get some beach time with my family.

Katie, Liam, Mairead and I all spent a few more hours just playing smash ball, boogie boarding, snacking and really enjoying our time together on this empty beach…… it was the first time in a long time since we have felt the magic of living here and we all relish it deeply.

The tropical warmth, the light breeze, the waves playing the backbeat….. a perfect day where the jungle meets the sand.

I have yet to allude to why we haven’t felt the magic lately but I will at some point…. Now is not the time, though.

Now is the time for me to ramble on abut how much I LOVE those late take offs….. there is no feeling comparable to dropping late on a large wave. 

It is as if  I am free falling and, then, when I land it and bury a turn the adrenaline pump is amazing. To say it is exhilarating, life affirming and what, to me, it is all about, pretty much sums it up.

Taking chances and pushing myself on real waves might just be a metaphor for life and being alive.

For me it is a fitting one.

If I don't make it, I pay. I pay with lung-testing hold downs and a significant test of my ability to just chill out and wait for the ocean to let me go...... she is a fickle one and she won't let go until she's ready to.

It's kind of like life when it decides pick me up and slam me around for a bit.......I just have to hang on and take the punishment, the lesson, and learn from it.

It is as elemental as it gets for me. It is, really,  not that much different from being in a gnarly fire(from my old life) and relying on my knowledge and skill-sets to do what I need to do to make it out alive and unscathed. 

Well, maybe a little scathed..... just not too much!

All the small days are practice. I get water time, push hard, do goofy things like headstands and switch foot both ways, talk with people I've never met before and just have plain ol' unadulterated fun.

It all comes together on the big days. Days like Saturday was.

Saturday had it all and on occasion I need a good reminder to myself that every day is a gift.

Family, nature, fun, amazing surf and a giant reminder to me of the power and the beauty in and of our lives and our paths really brought me back to my core philosophy of how I am living and want my life to be lived.

I Might Have a Touch of PTSD

I've walked through people’s piss and blood, their shit and brains violently slapped across asphalt like melting pieces of jello while sizing up a situation and determining what my part in it will be. 

I've ignored their cadenced, brain-stem driven breathing while what’s left of them waits to die to get to the ones I can actually help.

After scraping up messes and saving or extending the lives we could we'd go back to our stations to eat our meals or whatever, joking about shit nobody should see or experience, the horrified looks on normal peoples’ faces, maybe talking about the weather and what our plans are for the next day and that’s pretty much it.

The tables turn a bit when I see someone I love experience some sort of event that I know can truly cause them harm, real harm. 

My psyche quakes and I involuntarily feel ragged ice move through me.

Watching her smile at me while posing for a picture, slipping fast, wedging that upper leg between two tree trunks and me, waiting for the sound of a snapping femur that I know is just a second away.
And then the pain.......

In those split seconds my mind is a firefighter's. I am already thinking of keeping the wound clean and isolated from the jungle it if is open. Making a traction splint out of branches and discarded rope to lesson the pain of a mid-shaft femur break. The extrication to our car which is a mile away through cow pastures all with two sets of nine year old twins in tow.

She is shaken and sore, but fine.

The event continues to haunt me in the quiet of the night, keeping me awake and, because I know what can really happen, the fear of loss cuts me hard.

Love mixed with a bit of PTSD.

Echoes, man…….