waves.

Winthrop is not known as a surfing community.  We have the ocean, beautiful and active, but it is cold, and the waves are not remarkably big, except during storms.  We're no California.

This morning I went for a chilly run along the beach.  It was a gray morning, and the low cloud cover swallowed up the tiny orange flash of sun at the edge of the horizon.  A thin stripe of pink stretched between the clouds and the ocean, and the water was calm.  Seagulls whined as they trolled the beach for food, and a black Labrador ran in and out of the surf.  I haven't seen my iPod since the first week after my move to the new apartment, so I've been running to the tune of the sea, the wind, the gulls, the "good morning"s of other runners, the cars, the stomp of my feet as they hit the sidewalk.  Strangely, opening my ears has allowed me to see better, my vision constantly directed to the subtle noises of life around me.

As I jogged south towards Point Shirley, I passed a small cove.  The pressure of the waves intensified between the rocks on either side of the cove, and at least ten surfers floated in the water.  Some were standing, holding their boards, some paddled, and others swam towards the shore as the waves crested, trying to catch them before they broke.  From afar the surfers had looked like birds, black specs on the water, and I certainly hadn't considered that people would be trying to surf.  I've lived on the coast my whole life and never successfully surfed, but I've seen enough to know that it requires, at the very least, good waves.

I tried not to stare, but with no real sunrise and very little happening on the beach, it was obvious why I ran with my head turned to the side.  I watched them go in and out of the waves, bobbing with the current, swimming in, turning, standing, falling.  Sometimes they got up for short rides - five seconds at the most - but many of them didn't.  I'm sure they knew what they were doing, given the wetsuits and the boards and the fact that they were in the freezing Atlantic at seven in the morning, but the waves were just too small for show-stopping surfing.  And yet, they kept at it.

They must have known that morning that the waves would be small at best, and that their rides would be short, and that most of their time would be spent bobbing up and down with the waves like ducks.  But they still surfed.  They rode the smallest waves, the small waves, and the ever-so-slightly-larger-than-small waves.  And the difficult nature of surfing meant that even the largest of the waves were not guaranteed rides - you can't control the wave, the current, the crest, the break, the wind, the physics of the push and pull of the ocean on your body and the board.  So the best you can do is try to ride every wave, and each successful ride - the wind on your face as you stand on the board, the press of the board against your feet, the salt in your eyes, nose, and mouth as the wave breaks around you - each successful ride makes you try for the next wave, no matter how small.  It doesn't matter that Pacific surfers are practically flying, the waves are so tall, or that Florida surfers don't need wetsuits because the water is warm.  None of this matters when you've caught a wave of your own.

I recently found out that one of my essays is going to be published online.  This is my second success, and both times the publication has been online, and both times, quite small.  It took me so many attempts, so many splashes back in the water, so much swallowed salt water, so many aching muscles of trying to stand on the board and falling.  And all this for the smallest of waves.  But no matter the size of the wave, the feeling is unchanged - the success of just doing it, getting up there in the first place, standing in the air for even a short ride - the feeling is nothing short of triumph.  The real triumph lasts only as long as the ride, until the cold water swirls around me again and my eyes are stinging with salt.  But the sting, the ache, the cold - these reminders only push me to find another wave, rediscover that triumph, paddle myself to an approaching wave, wash up on shore, catch my breath, and scan the tide for the next one.  I can see that the waves are small.  But it seems right now, small waves are the best I can hope for, and hope for them I will.