This never happened to Gidget, I think to myself as yet another wave picks me up and throws me, head over heels, into the sand. Gidget, I remember (with startling clarity, given that I am currently on the receiving end of a saltwater sinus enema), was almost always upright while surfing, and never, to my knowledge, wound up face-down on the beach with her hair matted over her face and her wetsuit filled with sand.
-When I signed up for Surf Diva’s weekend surfing clinic, held each week at San Diego’s famed La Jolla Shores,
I had the entire adventure playing on a continuous, glorious mental loop. In my imagination, I rode each swell along a spectacular stretch of Pacific coast, sun-bleached hair falling sexily across one eye, waving jauntily to bystanders as the surf gently carried me to the shore.
As I picked myself up from my 34th wipeout of the day, I came to an important realization: Imagination is a cruel, cruel thing.
I should have known my Gidget fantasies were doomed: Before I even set foot on a surfboard, I was off-balance. I arrived at the beach for my lesson panting from the two-mile hike from the hotel, sweating profusely despite the laughably lovely San Diego weather: zero humidity, 75 degrees, perfectly blue sky.
After enduring a quick appraisal by a Cameron Diaz clone, I was given a wetsuit. “We might need to go up a size or two,” the clone said. “Let me know how it fits.” This awkward moment aside, the staff at Surf Diva were unflaggingly friendly and encouraging. Needless to say, I was flummoxed by all of them.
After going through some safety tips and practicing our surfing moves on the beach, we struggled into our wetsuits (mine fit fine, thank you very much), and headed into the water, wading in until the waves were crashing right in front of us. Surfing, despite its cowboy image, actually requires a great deal of patience. You can sit for long minutes, even hours, waiting for that elusive “perfect wave.”
Mine, I decided, would be roughly 8 inches tall and would never actually break. Sadly, this wave was not forthcoming, no matter how long I waited, and I could tell my instructor was getting impatient with my attempts to distract him (“Hey, isn’t that a shark over there?”) from the task at hand.
So a wave appears, is deemed “sweet” by my instructor, and I clamber onto the board, assuming the position we practiced so many times on the beach: face down on the board, arms ready for swimming strokes.
“Paddle! Paddle! Paddle!” Yes, yes, I’m paddling, for heaven’s sake. Sure, I’m not going anywhere, but . . . “OK, pop up! Pop up!” This was my cue to put my hands flat in the middle of the board, slide one leg forward and “pop” into a standing position, knees bent, one leg behind the other. Yes, it’s nearly as impossible as it sounds.
I did pretty well during the on-shore practice sessions, presumably because the surfboard was stationary, but once I was in the water, any understanding I’d reached with my board became a moot point. In its natural habitat it was slippery, unstable and moving at an alarming clip through whitewater. I cautiously slid a foot forward and hurled myself into a standing position.
This moment marks my introduction to nasal flossing. To wit: Saltwater rushes up through your nose with such spectacular force that your brain actually gets wet. I rolled over and over in the crashing wave, letting go of my board (generally not a good idea) and holding my arms protectively over my head as I’d been instructed. When I resurfaced, gasping for air, I was amazed to discover that I was grinning like an idiot. “Woo-hoo!” I shouted to no one in particular.
“Sweet!” my instructor yelled back, flashing the thumbs-up sign. I suspected he did this no matter what disaster befell a surfer, as long as she was still alive, but I basked in the moment nonetheless. I paddled quickly back out to the break and turned myself around. Two hours later, I was exhausted, bruised and utterly exhilarated. I “popped” (read: struggled) into an upright position a total of five times.
Bafflingly, my euphoria stuck around for the rest of the day and well into the next. I was beginning to wonder if something was seriously wrong with me, but I needn’t have worried: After a week back in Chicago all was normal-I was tired, crotchety and nursing a serious vitamin D deficiency. Sweet.
