FAMILY SURF LOG 05 - making do

Surfing is such a variety show, full of heroes, villains, rebels, and misfits. In its purest form, you have diehards who will throw caution to the wind and surf big waves without health insurance, then smoke cigarettes when they're done. You have people who choose semi-vagrant lifestyles, living out of cars on the fringes of high-end beach communities just to keep surfing a particular wave. You have working regulars who arrange their lives around the surf, and on the other end you have wealthy people, retirees, lifelong beach people, and everyone in between. Everyone has a story.

As for my story, I've surfed to some extent my whole life, and much of it has been hard. I've surfed twice a day, worked night shifts, and held down two jobs at a time just to be able to live in Hawaii or near coveted waves in California. Coming from the lower end of the economic spectrum, I've usually existed somewhere in the slim margins of whatever beach community I've lived in.

Still in the margins but becoming more stable these days, I'm a husband, a father, and a working stiff. I work a factory job and usually get to surf between 3:30 p.m. and dark. Not too bad, huh? But I have less flexibility than I once did, so I have to make do. My surfing isn't as good as it used to be, and sometimes that can be embarrassing. My boards are yellowed, my shorts and wetsuits are worn out and faded, and occasionally I show up looking like a guy who hasn't gotten the memo that surfing has moved on without him. I usually shrug it off. At least I'm still surfing.

The funny thing is that making do may have saved me from completely surfing my brains out as I've gotten older. I no longer have the luxury of surfing twice a day with little responsibility beyond figuring out where I'm going to sleep and when I have to clock in. I really cherish my after-work surfs and the occasional uncrowded moments on the weekends. When you only live to surf, it can become stale, and maybe having less time has saved me from a heart-wrenching breakup with surfing somewhere along the way.

I've had periods of my life when surfing consumed almost everything. At one point in Hawaii, I was sleeping on the beach during the day and working an overnight shift so I'd have spending money and somewhere safe to be when it was dark. Back then, I showered at the beach or with a hose behind work. It was a wild time when nothing but the romance of surfing consumed me.

When the semi-vagrant life became too much, I lived with other surfers and an expansive variety of characters, heck, even sometimes criminals, but I always ended up back on the beaches. Eventually, I found myself pretty far out on the fringes of life and getting close to a point of severe incompatibility with the world. The reckless pursuit of surfing was leaving me a sunburned husk with no future besides the next wave. Just crashing and renting little spaces where I could in order to ride that liquid dragon over and over. This part of my life was love.

Sometimes you can love something that may not love you back in the way you need. As charming as being some sort of counterculture wave cowboy sounds, I eventually realized that I couldn't live that way forever. Nobody wants to be 60 and still have cops telling them, "Move it along, you can't sleep here." I had to adapt to my age if I wanted to preserve my surfing way of life. To keep what you love, sometimes you have to loosen your grip lest you crush it.

That lesson still follows me around. I have to work, maintain my health, take care of my family, keep the vehicles running, and generally do all the boring things that make it possible to keep showing up at the beach. Every effort I've made to sustain this life has been worth it. Even the stuff that didn't make sense at the time somehow contributes to this delicious casserole of life. I use skills I learned during my time as a U.S. Marine to maintain steady employment, and my wife and I have our surf wax business on the side. That's how I've made it work.

Even with all the trimmings of a stable life, my surfing is sometimes literally less stable. In spite of the obvious reasons why my surfing isn't up to speed all the time, I still hold myself to ridiculous surfing standards. After all, I've lived on the edge of surfing and called some of its best waves home for much of my life. But I'm not as good as I once was. Sometimes my surfing sucks. Sometimes I'm hurt or lazy, and I fall short.

After I have a sucky surf, I often fail to remember that there will always be another opportunity. But my relationship with surfing has changed enough that I can usually remind myself of the bigger picture. Access to the waves is the currency I deal in. It's hard to afford a life by the beach and still have time to surf, so I've had to build a life that protects that access as much as I reasonably can. I do this with gut instinct, a little wisdom, and careful financial planning.

With limited time and resources, I choose my after-work surfs carefully. I try to surf the best days of a swell, and I surf the weekends regardless of the conditions. When it's not suitable to surf at all, I focus on work, family, or whatever needs to be done to keep the whole thing moving. If a surf is a bust, it's not the end of the world because I'm working every day to make sure there will be another opportunity.

I still have to remind myself of all the lessons. The waves still call, tempting me to call in sick and surf all day. I'm notorious for going surfing on Valentine's Day and forgetting the card and flowers, only to be sold out by my dripping nose.

Getting older, having less time, surfing older equipment, and knowing that my surfing isn't what it used to be has forced me to swallow a little humble pie. But there's something strangely satisfying about continuing to surf and occasionally rip anyway. I may not surf as much or as well as I once did, but I still know how to find a wave, and I still know what to do when the stars align, my back feels good, the waves are peaking, and I've had decent sleep.

For me, surfing is real. It's in my bones, and I'll do it without all the bells and whistles just for the love of it. There is a special kind of pride in continuing to surf when you don't have endless time, perfect equipment, or nothing else to worry about. Maybe that's what making do has given me: a different relationship with surfing, one where I appreciate the opportunity more because I know how easily it can disappear.

The biggest lesson I learned was that sometimes, to keep surfing, you have to give up the most extreme forms of it. The goal isn't to surf every time there's an opportunity. It's to build a life that keeps giving you opportunities to surf.

I'm still getting used to this life. But now I have a little family to share the wet and wild magic with, and that's pretty darn cool.

So maybe I've lost some of the freedom I had when surfing was the only thing that mattered. In exchange, I've gained a life that allows me to keep doing it.

I'll take that trade.