Copyright 2006 Tobey Brown
I love the ocean.
I can't imagine living in a landlocked state like Ohio- where I grew up- after having been so close to the waves for so long. I will need to be near the ocean for the rest of my life. It has become a part of me. No, wait, the ocean is much too large and too ancient for me to assume it has become a part of me. I have become a part of it.
After 12 years of Catholic school and upbringing I found that following the herd was no longer a bearable enterprise. I rarely questioned material in grade school and high school. I did what I was told. I was a good little boy. It was in college where I found my inquisitive nature shore up with my stubborn pride. I began to wander off the path, exist outside of the crowd and keep my morality intact as best as I was able.
I don't think the way I view my life and my role in this world is better defined than when I pick up my 9'4" Harbour HP? my surfboard. That long, tapered slab of foam and fiberglass which has given and derived more meaning from my life than I could have possibly longed for. How strange that such answers, such peace, such amusement, pleasure and spiritualism can come from nothing but a board and a wave. How simple.
There is no better way to break from the masses than paddling out into the waves- leaving the beach, the crowds, the landlocked world of mortgages, employment and our warped view of what is necessary behind. BS, stress, worry and fatigue drip off me like the ocean spray. I float in another world. A world full of potent energy, lurking danger, soft caresses and angry white water. A world where you can pay dearly for your mistakes, which make the rewards earned that much more appreciated and fulfilling.
I tune into earth's largest force of energy and the source of all life on the planet. I exist in it. It runs through me. I become focused on nothing more than drifting, floating, swelling masses of energy and lose myself in the singular goal of riding them to their death. I drop in and drift along dying energy, before the wave can give the last of itself to the shoreline- only to be sucked away again and move back to where it came from.
I am caught in the cycle of nature. I am caught in the purity of the moments we share. I find out what is important. I eliminate what is not. I am cleansed. Renewed in the baptism of a sunbathed swell. I touch God.
Nowhere else on earth can I do that. How can surfing not become a way of life? It's simple, in that complicated sort of way.
Craig Hysell is a staff writer for http://www.surfkooks.com
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