Throughout my life, and if you have read the very infrequent entries of this blog, you'd know that I rely a lot on my guide figures, and when I find myself having to jump to a decision, I may not tell every one of you, or I may tell the whole world, but it takes me a lot of soul searching, thinking for months of what my next step is going to be. I think that's wise, I think that careful planning, although sometimes is just indecision and fear of taking the wrong step.
One of the few things I say all the time is that I live my life like riding a wave. You'd be amazed to know that I don't know how to surf, and body boards certainly always felt uncomfortable, so using this metaphor to describe my lifetime is ironic.
It dawned on me today that its been close to 6 years since Laura, one of these "Mothers" I've ran into in my life, has been gone from this planet and I miss her terribly. In these odd 6 years my life has completely changed and evolved into a reality that is very different from what it was back in 2006, and tonite I contemplated what she would tell me after listing all the things I've done or not done with my life.
At this point, I'm sure I've accomplished things that my 24yr old self would have laughed at the incredibility of any of these things happening. I'm sure I wouldn't had even imagined the amount of lucky strikes and coincidences that brought me to this point in time. I list them myself and I can't explain most of them, there's no rationality to them and it brings me back to the same metaphor.
If I live my life riding a wave, right now, today, I feel as if I'm sitting on that surf board waiting for the next wave to push me and ride it to whatever means that ripple in the surface of this ocean wants to take me. Whether I decide to freestyle it, or just let it push me to some shore, or even to the scary patch of pointy rocks that I find myself often trying to avoid in paralyzing fear.
One of the things Laura gave me, as a moon herself, was the confidence to dig in me and look for what I didn't know I had, or had forgotten I owned. Many times she taught me to be brave and not fear the push, not fear the uncertainty and just let it flow... cause the wave itself would tell me how to ride it. Perhaps this is why I'm yet to actually learn how to surf... because is not me controlling the force that drives my life, and my control freak of a character is terrified at that. I could get into analyzing this so much that I ponder if I've chosen the right board, the right wetsuit, the right beach.
The sea still sits still, and that's in itself even more daunting; you don't know what's coming, its the calm before the storm. Perhaps, because now I'm older and not flying off the seat of my pants, I fear more what the next push its going to be, because now that I've been sitting on this board for so long, capsizing and getting rolled to the shore means a lot more struggle to get back on the board, because I know how hard it was to get on it to begin with.
I miss her. I miss her encouragement and her screams at me whenever she saw me faltering. I miss that she and I spoke the same language and even when I was getting my ass handed to me, I knew deep down that she herself had been riding waves and knew what my fears were. I miss her even when she picked to ride a wave that took her to never come back. Maybe that was the last lesson she could find for me, to show me which wave I should not hop on.
You may think that I would find in all of this motivation to keep rowing, and I do. God knows that when I paddle, I don't do it just for myself. I do it for all the forces that got me to this point in time, 'cause I feel that its not only me doing the paddling. I carry with me the transferred strength of all the people that at some point taught me how to swim. I just wished she were here for when I get out of this funk and finally find the wave and the courage to ride it, just for her to see me stand on the board. Maybe I should learn how to surf, maybe I should remember that I already have done so, even without noticing it.
And don't get me wrong. I don't think I'm the only one in this sea, I look around me and all I see are dozens of people also looking around at the horizon, waiting for their own wave; craving it, wishing for it, imagining it, planning all the tricks they would do on top of it. That realization makes me feel accompanied and comforted in my own wait. It makes me wonder what she thought while she was waiting for her own.
In this day and age of over achievers, when people spend so much time focusing on getting further and higher, on living life so different compared to what the previous generation did, it makes me wonder if the real reason why impotence feels so wrong is that we've been taught to create our own waves... and there's a lot to that. Mainly because living the life like I do makes you depend on forces of nature completely independent to the power you profess to own. While some people may see "surfing" as a cop out and not a daring way to move across, and that you should just paddle out and get it over with, for practicality's sake... what about the others, like me, that still trust the ocean to turn on the gear, leaving it up to yourself to tame that force into what you want to become? To take you where you want to go?
Where's the moon when you look for it? Do you wait and hope or do you paddle out and look for a different beach? Do you just decide that maybe surfing is not the best way to ride and settle to other ways that may not be what you set yourself for? Is this an immature way to go at life and does it mean that it comes a time where you have to stop listening to The Beach Boys and change the station to NPR?
Over the years I've seen how of what used to be hundreds of surfers around me just gave up on the idea and move on, their expressions staring at me in a mix of understanding, a sense of failure and a glimpse of hope that they leave behind for me. Just because they know I'm stubborn enough to still believe, to still wait, to still have faith that we're indeed on the right beach.
I just keep playing the balancing act of sitting on this board, even when the sea feels like some calm lake, like when you see the surface and its so still that it looks like a mirror and all I can see is myself reflected on it. Its so calm that I can see the moon shining on the silver silky water. Right now, I'm just praying for her to do its work and move this ocean to send me something to ride on. Is it just wishful thinking? That I look back at the horizon behind me hoping for a wave and fearing it at the same time? And when they finally come... how exactly do you know is time to ride one back to shore?
If you live your life surfing, and the tides never end... maybe the hardest part is coming to terms with the fact that waiting comes with the craft... maybe this is why the moon is holding that wave back.
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