We just got back from two weeks at Stinson Beach. I’d call it a vacation but Ben, per our
agreement, was commuting daily to work and I was, for the most part, on my own
with the kids so instead, perhaps, I should call it parenting on location.
I love Stinson.
I grew up on that beach.
Ben and I have corresponding pictures of our childhood selves on those
sands, him waving a seagull feather, me clinging to my brother’s back. When I think “beach”, the muted blues
and greys of Stinson are what come to mind.
Our first week at the beach this year was populated with
friends. By the second week, we
were ready for surf camp.
That Sunday I walked over to Live Water Surf Shop to sign
up. If you’ve ever seen a
bumper-sticker of a shark with a red line through it, that’s Live Water. It’s a Marin institution and is these
days owned by Brenna and Pete Gubbins.
And here’s where we enter the magical, mythical realm of
high school. Pete went to Tam High
in Mill Valley with Ben and me. I
spent my twenties in Los Angeles being fairly anonymous and disconnected from
my childhood. I was the present me
only. And though I’ve been
back in Marin for well over ten years, I still find the overlay of adolescence
and present life confusing and fascinating. Keep in mind I married someone from high school but Ben and
I met at our ten year reunion; we weren’t friends way back when. He was new to me and old. A lot like the rest of these people I
continue to bump into.
The surf camp, it turns out, is run by a guy named Glenn
Whitaker. A guy I also went to
high school with though, like most of these people, probably never talked
to. I was shy, shocking as that
may seem now. I was an excellent
student, I was afraid of my father, I was cautious. Which means that I remember these people way better than
they remember me. I sat back and
watched behind a curtain of dishwater blond hair while they led their raucous
high school careers.
Ben, Pete, Glenn, these were all the cool guys. I don’t think I’ve ever been cool. Oh, sure, I’ve come into my own, I’m
comfortable in my skin, I inhabit myself quite nicely now. But I don’t know that that’s cool. It’s just me. I’ve fully embraced my brainy, confessional, emotive
self. Which is good, but not
cool. “Cool” is just not where my
thermostat is set, as much as I would sometimes like it to be.
Surf camp started.
My kids popped up onto their feet by their second or third ride. I sat on the sand, swathed in sun hat
and sarong and watched. It was
hilarious and inspiring, watching these little people catch waves, wipe
out. By Thursday, I wanted to try.
Now here’s where the past bumps up
against the present. I wanted to
get in the water, try to stand up on a board, see what it felt like. I love that quote “Use your body any
way you can, don’t be afraid of it or what others may think of it”. I don’t have a whole lot of shame or
fear these days and I do have a whole lot of curiosity. So that’s the present.
And then there’s the past. There’s the getting in the water with
the cool guy from high school, undoubtedly failing, undoubtedly exposing my
tremendous uncoolness. If I could
ask my fifteen-year-old self if this was a good idea she would say no fucking
way. And then swing her hair back
in front of her face.
The present won. I got in a wet-suit, I hauled a board
out into the water. I spent two
days getting absolutely pummeled by waves, by humiliation, while my children
sailed by me hanging ten. My body
felt huge, impossible to coordinate.
I was trying to speak Japanese armed only with “Domo arigato, Mr.
Roboto”. But again and again, I
manhandled the board back through the white water and gave it another
shot. Eventually I managed to
stand up for a total of three seconds.
I’m not sure if I tamed the wave or if it tamed me but it was a sort of
victory.
I did all this in front of the
cool guy, with the help of the cool guy, who in the end turned out to be quite
a cool guy. And me? Decidedly not cool. But a little brave.
