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| Friday morning surf |
Finally! I surfed. It had been a couple of weeks since I had been out, and I was dying to get in the water. Waves, wind and the lack thereof has kept me from my usual twice a week, Friday/Sunday schedule. But, this past Friday, a scheduling change at work gave me the perfect opportunity to get in some pre-work surf on some decent north-wind waves. The SwellInfo report suggested that the best waves of the week would be Friday morning since a cold front was predicted to cross the coast late Thursday/early Friday. One of the guys I surf with had sent me and my surf pal Robin an email earlier in the week saying that he had re-arranged his work schedule so that he could surf early on Friday. Commencement weekend could have put the kibosh on my wave time, so I negotiated a scheduling shift with me working later in the day on Friday and all day Saturday and taking off Friday morning. I made it to G-town around 8 a.m. I had been reading all week that the water temp was in the 50s, but decided to brave it in my 3-2. Master surf dude Brian had on a 5-4 and my other friend had on his 4-3 with a head covering and booties. I hate wearing booties, so I left them at home. Needless to say, after about 45-minutes to an hour later, I was freezing. Dude Brian claimed that my lips were blue. I don't know about that, but I do know that while I had some great rides in that first 45 minutes, shortly after that I had a hard time standing on my board simply because I couldn't feel my feet. They were like blocks of ice. As I said, the first almost-hour was nice. The sets were decent and well-defined. I've certainly surfed better waves, but Friday morning was nicer than many of my summer surf days. After about an hour-and-a-half (probably 30 minutes longer than I should have stayed out), I limped in to shore -- definitely a limp since I couldn't even catch white water by that time without wiping out. (I feel certain it was the cold keeping me from doing ANYthing right by then.) Circumstances were dictating that I get out of the water and get warm. I shivered as I tried to remove my wetsuit and get into dry clothes quickly. Dude Brian was forced to pull the wetsuit off of me because I was shivering too much to do it myself. Peeling off a wetsuit is like peeling off a layer of skin, and, when it's cold, shivering fingers cannot peel anything. Getting in the car, cranking up the heater and driving to the closest Starbucks was the only way for me to survive the misery. It doesn't matter though. I would have done it all again today if there had been waves simply to experience that first hour again. Winter surfing can be fun!
In addition to surfing this weekend, I had the pleasure of working at the commencement ceremonies for UHCL. What a fun time! Everyone is happy at commencement: faculty, administration, staff and, especially, students. Speakers at both of the ceremonies offered their advice and provided reminders to people like me -- people who had graduated a long time ago -- that the future is bright and that we all have the ability to make a dream a reality. As one of the speakers put it, "Who do you want to be? Not what, but who? You get to decide that every day." What a great way to think about our lives. Yes, I get to decide who I am every day. And, I'm fortunate this weekend that I not only got to be a surfer, but also a spectator/worker at a fabulous event that marks a turning point in so many lives.
