All You Need

Town of 1770, Queensland

Australia

I am now a Californian that can surf. Kind of.

What it lacks in ease, it makes up for in fun. My first lesson was actually in Noosa, this was the lesson where I couldn't get up, but instead mastered the: sit on the board, spin around and wave to all the surfers while I drift onto the shore. My instructor was less than amused. Through gritted teeth, he’d be like, “I know your having fun now, but it’s much MORE fun if you stand up. And you’ll look cool.” I deduced that he was calling me uncool. But you know it was one of those things where we were this big group of goofy girls and were just having fun falling off our boards and getting pounded by the waves. Oh, and I think I wasn’t able to get up that day because I was attempting to surf “Regular,” which is when you surf with your left foot forward, like when snow boarding. However, I surf with my right foot forward, which is called “Goofy,” appropriately enough. So I fault that for the failure of my first lesson.

My second lesson was much more successful. We were practicing our stance on the board and our instructor was trying to get us to loosen up. Next think you know, he’s calling me out, “Shake your ass woman!” This coming from this 50-year-old surfer dude with a meticulously shaved head, and yet white ear hair that I kid you not wrapped around his ear lobes. A note for the men, if you ever reach the age in which white ear hair is enwreathing your head and threatening to siege the rest of the face, please trim it. Please. I don’t care how, just maintain; long white ear hair is offensive.

Anyways, I was shocked; you would never get away with that in the States, but that kind of set the tone for our lesson. The whole time we were making fun of how bad we ate it, but then cheering when we stood up. And I totally stood up. I don’t even remember if there was cheering because there was so much adrenaline running through my veins. It was like I blacked out; I was so shocked to be up that I kind of don’t remember it. But I was so happy. I am from California AND I’M TAN, AND I KNOW HOW TO SURF (kind of). Hooray for stereotypes. Now excuse me while I whiten my teeth.

On a confidence high, I decided to take a board out on my own. It was a few days later and my oh my was it a windy day. Even before I got in the water, I could tell the waves were different. But I had gotten the board and dragged it all the way out to the beach, so I couldn’t not go surfing.

By the way, I really must get better at surfing so that I can carry a smaller board. Beginner’s boards are huge and heavy. Plus my arms are too short to properly carry the board. And trust me when I say dragging your surfboard and parting the beach does not look cool. I’m essentially surfing on a door at this point.

So, big, multidirectional waves and the wind. This, as they say in the Wizard of Oz, “was a horse of a different color.” But I’m feeling good you know, I’m talking the surfer talk, with the “gnarly” and the “sweet” and throwing around “dude” like Grandma’s at the Thanksgiving table. So I drag my board out into the water and these waves are slamming me. The wave knocks you down, but you have to remember that I’ve got a board tethered to my ankle, dragging me back under and to the shore everytime I go down. This makes it that much more difficult to get out to where the waves are breaking. I’m out there for like an hour and even when I try to catch a wave, I’m losing it beneath me. The wave comes, I paddle paddle paddle and the wave keeps going under me. It was so frustrating, especially after my champion success the other day.

At one point I find myself getting too close to shore so I try to walk around the edge of the cove to get further out, and I get knocked down again. But this time I’m closer to the rocks that shape the cove and there are rocks beneath me only shallowly covered in sand. When I went down I went down on the rocks. Now really, this sounds worse than it was. I nicked my knee and got a tiny piece of rock stuck in my foot. And not due to it’s size, but probably just by virtue of being in my foot the rock was hurting me the whole time I was out there. So I dragged my door surfboard out of the water, which I might add is bright yellow so really it looks like a big banana, sit on it and picked the rock out of my foot.

Now this rock was so tiny, really it was like an overgrown piece of sand, but I had to peel back a flap of my foot skin and pull out the rock. And it felt so much better that I just sat there for a while.

Just me curled up sitting in the center of my huge yellow board, looking like a banana split.

Unfortunately, I totally lost my nerve and just sat there for a few hours waiting for the other dude

to finish surfing. With my foot mutilation there was no way I was carry that board up the hill by

myself.

I came home that day complaining about my cut. Little did I know that today I would slice my other foot open. These ones a beauty: roughly two inches in length and jagged like I did it with a can opener. And there’s sand in it. “Well of coarse,” was what my roommate said when I told her

that part. She had a point. There is sand everywhere here. We’re talking when you go for a hike the trails are often sand. I’ve never seen such a thing in my life. And it’s forever in your suitcase. Even if I bought a new one, it would probably already be sandy by virtue of being in Australia.

Not the point, so just when I was getting ready to throw my feet a “pity party” I saw a girl with her arm in a cast. Guess it’s not that bad.

XOXO