SurfPrayLove

This Blogger Has Moved

2012-01-11T18:59:00.001-08:00

I've moved my family to Washington.
I've moved my writing to treesandespresso.blogspot.com
See you there,
Jesica

Last Ride In...

2012-01-03T19:55:00.000-08:00

I took that last ride in a few days before getting in the car and heading north to Washington State. It was a beautiful SoCal afternoon, my family was in town for the holidays and I felt like I had all the time in the world. When I got out of the water, I didn't want to go home, so I sat on my board and looked at the water for one last time. And cried and cried.

I cried because I knew I'd miss the ocean. But I also cried because I realized why the ocean had meant so much to me during these last few years in LA. I hated my fucking life.

I loved my husband. I loved my kids. I loved my friends. I loved the weather, the mountains, the yoga, the produce, the open-minded people and the sky at sunset. And still, I hated the grind: the sense of barely keeping my head above water financially and the effort it took just to get by. I hated the speed, the constant busy-ness and, as another emigrating friend recently put it, "the constant reminders of the life I could have had if I hadn't made so many mistakes."

As I sat there on the beach, I felt like I'd been ground down and sanded like a block of wood. In my despair, I grew concerned I'd lost something along the way: the belief that life could be other than a constant struggle to heroically rise above my circumstances.

I write these words from University Place, Washington, a small town east of Tacoma. This will be the last entry of "Surf, Pray, Love" and we will end on a cliff hanger...

What will happen? Will I make the shift I hope to make - from my stressed out, urban lifestyle to one that is connected to the outdoors, spiritually nurturing and grounded in community? Will Brian get a more challenging, better-paying job and enjoy the crafts-centered life he seeks? Will Trinity's health improve and will she chill the fuck out? And will Ashton emerge unscathed - and even stronger and happier - from the transition?

Tune in to my upcoming, as of yet untitled blog, for these answers and more.

Love,
Jes

I Love Forests, I Love Espresso & I Love My Mom

2011-12-24T09:58:00.000-08:00

I began my surfing journey because I wanted to change my life. I wanted expansion and ecstasy, bliss and transformation, and I wanted it without having to leave my family or my life. I wanted to challenge the fantasy of narratives such as 'Eat,Pray,Love, ' in which a woman's nirvana is achieved through great distance, expense and solitude. I wanted happiness, not a divorce. And I wanted to surf.

Have I achieved what I set out for? I have.

I'm particularly aware of it right now because, in the topsy-turvy reality that's been my life lately, the tumbler has finally set. I'm not going to graduate school. I'm going to Tacoma, Washington. And I'm taking the family with me.

This is a wonderful outcome. I love journeys with undetermined outcomes. I love forests. I love espresso and I love my mom.This adventure will involve all of these. What it will not necessarily involve is surfing. Mountain biking? I hope so. But surfing? I've had to take many deep breaths to say to myself calmly, "Not likely." (Though "surf vacation" has become my new mantra).

When I began this blog, I had no idea it would come to such a natural conclusion. And yet here I am, in the final chapter (if not the final post) with the end in sight. I'm already planning my next blog "Bike, Love, Pray", "Hike, Love, Pray"? It's not quite clear.

I may just call it "Relocate, Love, Pray" and leave it at that.

Either way, the journey will continue even though the surf sessions may not. Stay tuned.

Surfing in the Rain

2011-12-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

Random Beach Photo. All my cameras are broken and I didn't want to bring my friend's loaner to the beach today.

It's been almost a month since I went surfing and even longer since I posted to this blog. Incredible though it seems, I'd even forgotten that I had a blog until I read this post by my friend Lindsay Gallagher, about why she had't posted to her blog for too long a time.

On the one hand, the days have been getting shorter and colder. Holiday festivities have been underway. Colds have been running rampant. And none of it has been making me want to get in the water. On the other hand, I've been feeling cranky, hopeless and despairing.

Any connection to not surfing? I had to find out.

When I checked this morning's Venice Beach Surf Report, it said conditions were poor. I could see the evidence (no waves) on the live camera feed. But, struggling against inertia and a natural desire to be warm, I put my board on the wagon and drove to the beach anyway.

It was raining when I arrived and it was only the presence of two ten year old boys suiting up in the parking lot that made me push on. I wasn't going to wuss out if they weren't.

It turned out that there were waves. They were small but perfect, and I caught more of them than I can remember in a long time. And I got to enjoy something available to relatively few people in the world.

I bobbed on a surfboard in the middle of the water and watched raindrops speckling the surface around me. Under silvery gray light, I saw the sky reflected in waves like abstract photograph negatives. And I felt the peacefulness of pelicans and gulls soaring above me.

Mood check? Much better.

I'm 42 and Full of Gratitude and Appreciation

2011-11-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

My wise friend Polly recently informed me that Abraham Hicks makes a distinction between being "grateful" and being "appreciative." "Gratitude" (she paraphrased) implies a comparison with something that is not, but that could be.

I've always had a difficult time with gratitude. That's probably because it's so often used in the context of "things could be worse" AND it usually has a "should" in front of it. The word "gratitude" makes me remember my Grandma Etta scolding me when I got a birthday gift I didn't like. "You should be grateful..." she would have said, shaking a sharp finger, "some little girls don't even get gifts on their birthday."

(And then they have to walk two miles barefoot in the snow just to go to school, etc. etc.)

As adult as I strive to be, I can still be caught rolling my eyes (inwardly) every time Oprah or some other well meaning person recommends a "Gratitude journal" or some such exercise in giving thanks. But I didn't even realize it until Polly said she'd been practicing appreciation instead. So I tried it too.

Ahh!!! Appreciation! What a way to honor the divine! What a way to get high! What a way to spend a birthday weekend!

Appreciation. It's like smoking the good kind of weed that makes you see the tiniest, most amazing detail in every single thing. Appreciation of the smell of ramen noodles coming from a blue plastic bowl. Appreciation of my daughter's soft voice talking to herself while she plays with clay. Appreciation of my husband for going out to buy bagels for me on my birthday.

Appreciation. It's endless. It's euphoric. And, in my book, it's got gratitude beat by a mile.

After surfing today, I placed my booties on the surf wagon to take a picture. It had been cold enough to wear them, which signaled a definite change of seasons here in "seasonless" LA. True to my blissed-out self, I left them on the roof when I drove away. Two blocks down the street, a car behind me honked frantically. Then the driver leaned out her window "I think a shoe fell off your roof," she said.

I turned the car around, and there was a man standing in the street, enthusiastically waving my bootie. I pulled up and he handed it to me. "You are all so BEAUTIFUL!" I beamed and smiled uncontrollably. "Thank you!"

I was so appreciative. Of everything.

Being Here Now

2011-11-06T23:13:00.000-08:00

I've made it a point not to criticize my surfing and I've grown a lot from giving up the habit of saying "I suck." However, the truth has been that I've watched many a beginner - man, woman and child - stand up on their board their first time out, when it took me more than a year to do the same. So, even though I gave up saying "I suck," I still couldn't help noticing and then scratching my head in puzzlement.

But, eventually, I was standing - not as much as I'd like, but standing nonetheless - and figuring out what I had been doing wrong that I now was doing right. From the beginning, it was clear that it had to do with my legs and how I placed my weight backwards, instead of forwards. Next it became clear that - due to many years of ballet plies - I wasn't squatting properly.

And then - with the help of a friend who is a seasoned yoga instructor - I got the guidance I'd been seeking. Sonya showed me how to properly distribute my weight and build up the leg muscles that had been long overlooked in my ballet and yoga training. After less than a week of practicing the exercises she gave me, I can already feel certain muscles strengthening and certain tendons lengthening.

Aside from its potential for altering my stance on a surfboard, this new posture is altering my stance in the world and the very way I relate to the ground beneath my feet. For as long as I can remember, I have rarely felt "connected" to the earth. Instead, I've felt spacey and as if I might float away. Since I've been focusing on strengthening my adductor muscles and turning my feet straight ahead of me - instead of balletically outwards - I feel more grounded and HERE.

Again and again, surfing teaches me not to underestimate the degree to which our bodily experiences impact our experience of life in general. Our body is not separate from our mind and not separate from our spirit, so how our bodies feel - limber, tight, stressed, relaxed, strong, weak, turned inward, turned outward - has a profound affect on how we feel psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Though the connection may not always be as apparent as it's been for me recently, it's always there.

If you pay attention.

True Love

2011-10-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

Photo by Meaghan Miller Lopez AMMA Photography

That's me, totally loving my surf board. I was walking past it and I couldn't resist giving it a big 'ole hug.
It's brought me so far in the last year or so. It's provided me with a dream come true - riding the waves - standing up (!) - and I'm sure inspired me in my latest adventure-to-be.

If all goes well, in January, 2012, I'll be going back to school. Grown-up school.

Ashton will be in pre-school, Trin will be...we don't know yet what Trin will be doing...and I will be studying for a Masters Degree in counselling psychology with a specialization in treating trauma.

I started surfing because after years of training in other people's versions of personal transformation, I wanted to pursue my own version. I wanted to become something - someone - I never thought I could be.

On the one hand, I had hoped surfing would turn me into someone completely different. Someone who never gets upset about the small stuff. Someone who never yells at the kids, or gets completely worked up when things don't go her way. I thought it would erase all the things I couldn't stand about myself and make me totally mellow and super "cool." It didn't do that.

But surfing has provided me with more joy than I've known in a long time. It has restored me to myself and made me more of myself than I can remember being. It's made me young again in some ways and also grown me up. And it's made me more capable of dealing with the things that really matter.

I'm so glad I'm doing it. It's one of the great love stories of my life.

First Times Cont'd...

2011-10-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

1) Friday afternoon I arrived in Santa Monica at around 3 o'clock. The sun was brilliant (a theme in this blog), the air was warm. And, I realized, the water probably was too, after this week's crazy mid-October heat wave. By that time, I was already on the beach but I stripped off my wet suit and - inspired by a cute bikini-clad mermaid in the waves - went into the water with only my bathing suit. No rash guard. No board shorts. A first.

2) The water was unusually flat, but the afternoon sun sparkled brilliantly on the surface. It was glittery and gorgeous. There were few waves but there sure was a lot of beauty. When I saw the water level drop and rise to announce an approaching wave, I paddled like hell. It was a miss but the water was warm and I didn't mind getting dunked. I climbed back on my board and blissfully stared out at the beautiful vista, considering myself very blessed. I smiled at the lone surfer on my right who was looking straight at me.

Then I saw it. After he did, apparently.

My right breast. Glistening in the sun. There's a reason why girls like me should wear rash guards.

3) I saw something else, too. A strange cloud in the distance. Like smoke from a fire rising up from the horizon. I watched as it approached and eventually enveloped and surpassed me. It was fog. What had been a sunny day turned gray and cool within minutes, all while I sat on my board. When I turned around, I couldn't even see the guard tower thirty yards away. I had never seen that before.

Another first.

Tired

2011-10-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

I didn't go surfing this morning. And I didn't go to yoga class before I didn't go surfing. I stayed in bed while Brian took Ashton to the park to practice Kung Fu. I slept in.

Because I was tired.

Every night I put my kids to bed. And every night, around four a.m., Ashton crawls into my bed and kicks me. It's not an aggressive kind of kicking, just a continual thrusting motion with his legs. He also grabs at my breasts and generally gets all over, under and to the side of me. Trinity sometimes gets in bed with us too. She doesn't kick. But she scratches and it makes a hollow fingernails-on-a-drum-head sound that is maddening.

One thing I've noticed about mothers is that we often feel tired but don't understand why. And then we feel guilty because we don't feel like doing the things we told people we would do. Or because we have a hard time getting going in the morning. Or because it took us two hours to get the kids out of the house and into the car, when it shouldn't have been such a big deal.

But those nearly invisible sources of exhaustion add up and whittle away at our energy levels and our executive functions.

So I slept in this morning and enjoyed the sensation of being touched by no one, kicked by no one, and interrupted by no one. Even with the giant pee stain Ashton left in my mattress after wetting the bed at 5 this morning.

Courage

2011-10-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of talk about courage in my family right now.

Yesterday, Brian and I went to see a movie called "Finding Joe" which explores the ideas contained within Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey." To be a hero, of course, one must have courage. But what is courage?

For Brian, it has required courage to be a father. Being a father was something he thought he could never, probably would never, do. Still he does it and the very attempt is making him a hero.

For Trinity, right now, it requires courage to take her daily dose of Chinese herbs - herbs which, we are told, have a very good chance of making her well. She told me today that it will also require courage for her to be well, because being "sick" (with severe chronic eczema and allergies) is all she has ever known. For her to be well will require her to be a hero.

For me, surfing has required courage, of course. There's the courage it takes to face a big wave (sometimes I wuss out) and the courage it takes to awkwardly wipe out in front of people who are better surfers than I am.

But what requires even more courage than surfing is being broke. My adult life has been a twenty-year roller coaster between heights of adequacy (sometimes abundance) and depths of scarcity. In the past, I would always take the lean times as a sign that I was on the wrong path. So, along with being strapped, during these periods I would also undertake a frantic search for something I should be doing differently.

For the first time in my life I am able to say, without doubt, that I am not on the wrong path. But I'm/we're broke again, anyway. So I'm standing in a new space, saying to myself that "just because the money isn't there, that doesn't mean I'm doing the wrong thing."

For me, THAT is courage. And I believe it will make me a hero. At least to myself.

I Dub Thee...

2011-09-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday it was sunny, the water was warm, the waves were perfect and all was right with the world (actually, all is always right with the world, it's just that we're often unable to see it that way).

Because I surf much better when I've done yoga earlier in the day, or have gone for a run before getting in the water, I brought my sneakers to the beach. I ran for about fifteen minutes and then grabbed my board. The 310 Surf Chics were there and though the water was crowded, the vibe was friendly.

The great thing about being a beginner surfer is the opportunity for so many "firsts" and "bests." Well, Sunday was the first time I caught a wave, dropped in, stood up and rode it all the way to shore. So it was also the best wave I ever caught. By far. It was a sweet little thing, but I was enjoying it so much that I was almost on the sand when I realized I was gonna have to jump off at some point.

So I fell forward. Or backward. I can't remember. Either way, I knew I was falling the way you're not supposed to fall when you jump off your board in shallow water. I knew, because I'd recently eavesdropped on a surf lesson for beginners (see above photo) and I heard the instructor say something about it.

When I fell, I ended up under less than a foot of water. But before I could get up, I felt a hard rap on the head. It was my board. It's foam, so it wasn't that bad, but still...it made an impact. The board rung me like a bell and to get those vibrations out of my body, I found myself "shaking it off." It was the only way to recover from being so "stunned" and I experienced first-hand that the body needs to discharge energy in order to recover from a trauma.

Afterwards, I considered why this had happened.

From a Mechanical point of view, I knew that, obviously, I had fallen in the wrong direction. But then I looked at it Mythologically. And laughed.

Neptune, King of the Ocean, had seen my victorious wave. And when it was done, he gently tapped me on the head with my board and dubbed me...a Surfer.

Surfing As Spiritual Practice

2011-09-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

Back in August, I met a blogger named Rachelle Mee Chapman at the infamous faith-bloggers workshop that gave me so much food for thought. She has a website called MagpieGirl.com and has been running a series about women and their "right" spiritual practice. I was honored when she asked me to participate and write a guest post for her site.

It posted today and here is the link: http://www.magpie-girl.com/

Enjoy MagpieGirl.

The Point. Everybody's Got One.

2011-09-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

It's not that I haven't tried to write this blog in the last ten days. I have. I've written drafts. And deleted them. And written more drafts.

It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about in the last ten days. On Sunday, I surfed. Standing up. The whole time. With a smiley face in the sky. Again. And last night I went to an event for surfers in Santa Monica at the O'Neill store and ate pizza and drank a beer. Then I stopped at a bookstore and found a book I'd been seeking - for five dollars.

Things have happened. I've had insights. For instance, according to this book, "The Life You Were Meant to Live," my life path numbers are 30/3. And last night someone suggested I create a Kickstart fund * so that I could travel into outer space and write about it.

And yet my whole life (including surfing, parenting, love, spirituality) has lately been suffused by a sensation of awkwardness that makes everything come out wrong. Or not wrong but.... as if I'm not getting to the point.

Despite the fact that there is one. Somewhere. Wanting to come out, but buried beneath layers upon layers of...other stuff.

Sometimes there's no wind and there are no waves. There may be brilliant sunshine, but the water is like glass. And all there is to do is be prepared, be patient and wait for your wave.

*I'd use Indiegogo.com instead (shameless plug for my friend Adam).

Just Do It

2011-09-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

I am reading a book I love and I'm not even done with it, but I have to recommend it. Right now. It's called "Just Do It" and it's by Doug Brown, a journalist for the Denver Post.

Basically, apropos of nothing, one day Doug and his wife Annie decide to have sex for 100 days and see what happens. Doug is such a sweet person, so in love with his wife, and so willing to give up his ratty old sweatpants in favor of cuter pajamas, that the book is absolutely irresistible. The fact that he's a very funny writer doesn't hurt at all, either. I keep laughing out loud and all day Ashton's been asking me "what's funny?" The whole thing is, really. And compelling, too.

It's reminding me that there's value in committing to anything - sex, surfing, meditation, love - regardless of whether you ""feel" like doing "it" or not. In fact, feelings are totally overrated. Though, as a poetic-artsy-mystic-shamanic type, I rely on feelings as the basis of my self-expression, they've also been the basis of my undoing more times than I like. Therein lies the rub of my life - and the topic of potentially countless other blog entries.

But all that aside, pick up this book. It's hilarious and sweet and I've never read anyone write about sex in quite this way. And I've read a lot about sex. Cause I'm a Scorpio. Meow!

Smack Down

2011-09-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot to write about lately: which, perversely, has made me hesitant to write at all. After all, how could I get it all down?

There was the day when it was sunny and hot in Culver City, but surprisingly cool and foggy at the beach.
There was the day when I figured out I needed to lean more weight on my front leg in order to balance better on my board.
And then the day when I remembered to stay in a squat in order to keep my center of gravity low.
After catching my best wave ever, I turned around and saw, in the distance, the smiley face on a bright yellow para-sail looking straight at me.
There have been countless skull-vibrating tantrums from my three year old.
And seemingly endless fits of bloody itching and scratching from my eight year old.
Two of my good friends are currently dismantling their marriage bonds.
And I keep noticing the five pounds I want to lose.
So I've been crying a lot.
Which has made me very grateful for love.
The kind of love that isn't based on how much I've accomplished, proven or impressed. That isn't based on how much I'm worth, how much I weigh or how well I'm doing. But the kind of love that decides, simply, to love. No matter what.
Even when I'm down.

Zeal, Compassion and Everything In Between

2011-08-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

It was more than two weeks ago when I sat in with a group of "Faith Bloggers" at the BlogHer Conference in San Diego. The conversation was a provocative one, hinging on whether and why the blog-reading public would be biased against a writer who declared herself a "faith blogger" - particularly if she were Christian.

Having only recently had my own encounter with some otherwise lovely-seeming Christian ladies - who politely inferred that I was going to hell unless I took Christ into my heart, etc. etc. - I felt equipped to say why some people may get the wrong idea about some Christians.

Then, on the ride home, I happened upon an interview with anthropologist Hank Wesselman. In "The Bowl of Light:" his new book about Hawaiian shamanism, he explores Polynesian beliefs about the positive and negative polarities of every life path. For the path of the Priest or Priestess, the Hawaiian Kahunas say, those polarities are "compassion" and "zeal".

I believe, when we find ourselves on the receiving end of someone else's religious/spiritual judgment, what we've just experienced is some good, old-fashioned ZEAL: the kind that fueled the inquisition, burned witches and currently inflames impressionable suicide bombers.

But what, exactly, is zeal?

It's the feeling we get when we're so certain we're right, when something feels so true for us, that we seek to prove others wrong or even destroy them because of it. It's a feeling we can get about a movie, a transformational technique, a diet or anything else that inspires us. And because of that, it is a dark side to which everyone is vulnerable -whatever the belief system or passion.

It is a dark side which has, unfortunately, sullied the reputation of religions around the world and turned many, otherwise compassionate people, against anything that rings of "faith" or "religion." It is a dark side that has been propagated not only by unscrupulous leaders but by ordinary people who have too fervently believed that theirs was the only right way.

But where zeal divides, compassion unifies. And as long as someone speaks and writes with compassion - whether they are a Christian faith blogger, a Jew, a Wiccan or a Muslim - I will listen, learn and, hopefully, grow.

Top Ten List About BlogHer 2011 (because people love lists and numbers)

2011-08-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

I was so overwhelmed and overstimulated by my experience at BlogHer 2011 (August 5-6) that I was nearly stricken by writer's block. On reflection, however, it wasn't writer's 'block' as much a desire to say so much that I couldn't even organize my thoughts. In the past, I've resisted straying from my holy trinity of surfing, prayer and love mostly because I enjoy holding forth on so many things, so much, that I thought it wiser to limit myself.

That said, it will only seem like I'm going off-topic for this top ten list. See if you can spot (or feel) all the surf, prayer and love in the following:

1) Most Infuriating 90 Minutes of the Weekend? A panel discussion called "Women: Redefining Success in the 21st Century" (or something like that) wo/manned exclusively by super-successful women (in the 20th Century way) who had nothing to say about "redefining success" (unless your definition of redefining success includes thinking of your husband as a "puppy"). OMG! I was supposed to LISTEN to this woman? I can't remember the last time so much steam came out of my ears. I'm still having a hard time writing about it.

2) BUT Lisa Belkin from the New York Times was sitting next to me and made a very intelligent comment to the vapid and superficial (but VERY SUCCESSFUL) women on the panel. Yay for Lisa Belkin, real journalism and backing your observations up with sources. You can read her at Motherlode.

3) THEN I met some other bloggers and am eager to read what they have to say, especially the ones who also had steam coming out of their ears at the "success" panel (Ashley Boyd and Katrina Alcorn).

4) Most Valuable Realization? I wasn't a corporate shill before I became a blogger, I'm not going to become one now. It's nice to get clear on that. Though there are many women who make a living having their blogs sponsored by corporations like WalMart, I don't think I'm the WalMart type...

5) I'm the spiritual type. Which I admitted when I introduced myself to a group of fellow "faith bloggers." Then I declared "faith blogging" a kind of calling and not one to be taken lightly. Since writing about politics or religion is not the kind of thing a woman does when she wants to be liked.

6) Jeez, there was chocolate everywhere. It's sweet (literally), and thoughtful, to provide so much chocolate when there are 3700 women milling about. But, ultimately, that much sugar and caffeine makes women cranky and then they say vapid and superficial things. I would have liked to see the chocolate countered by some kale smoothies or at least a room dedicated to round-the-clock yoga and meditation. Cause I'm spiritual.

7) Speaking of being "spiritual", many companies wanted me to tweet how great they were during the weekend. I was like "You want me to say wha?? You've got to be effin' kidding me. That's my voice we're talking about."

8) But then I told the rep from Boiron Homeopathics that I'd have no problem recommending their Arnica ointment - because I actually use it. And it works.

9) Biggest Mindblower? When she told me that Hyland's Homeopathics is manufactured by the Bornemann family! OMG -THAT'S MY FAMILY! I have to meet these people, especially since I love vibrational remedies - i.e., homeopathy, flower remedies and crystal elixirs. It must be my DNA.

10) Best decision of the weekend? Just one day of this conference was so intense, I couldn't bear the thought of going back. So, the next day, I drove to Encinitas where I meditated at the Self Realization Fellowship and watched the surfers from high up on a cliff above the world famous surf spot known as Swami's. Pure Bliss.

p.s. much love to Britt Bravo for inviting me in the first place, spending a hilarious night watching cable in her hotel room and teaching me that people love lists and numbers.

When Dreams Come True

2011-08-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

Several events inspired me to reach out to my spiritual mentor last week: the dream about the waves that I shared in my previous post, another dream in which I served pizza to "god" (who was a movie studio executive), and a retreat I recently attended. I arrived at the retreat with the intention of working on my book about mother/athletes. I left, considering that my best contributions may not come through worldly endeavors such as book publishing, etc., but through esoteric pursuits such as reading people's cards and being a channel for spirit.

Without giving any details, I dropped her a brief e-mail requesting a phone conversation. As divine grace would have it, she was flying into LA the very next day and I managed to meet with her, in the flesh, yesterday afternoon.

As usual, we talked,we laughed and we inquired into spirit. Less usually, we had pizza.

Even though, as a registered shaman herself, she may have a bias towards seeing me as a fellow person "of the cloth", I also trust her judgment and her discerning nature. She's never led me astray and she confirmed what I'd been sensing. Yes, even though it's scary, counter-intuitive, and financially terrifying, the spiritual path is mine to walk. As much as I've always longed to be an artist, an author, a person of influence in the culture at large, she is not the first person to observe that my path lies elsewhere. And yesterday was not the first time I've said in response "But where's the money in THAT?"

In response, her only instruction was that I make an offering.

Prepared with something I knew I wouldn't want to part with (a pint of raspberries) I arrived at the beach to make my offering. And there, in front of me, lay the waveless expanse of my dream. There was no wind and sunlight glittered gloriously on the water's still surface. I grabbed my camera and took the above photo. And then, as I continued to shoot some more pictures, the tide came in.

Within minutes, where there had been only the lapping of still water, there were now waves.

Doing, Being, Dreaming

2011-07-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a surfing dream. I haven't had one of those in a while and this one certainly gave me something to think about. To minimize the bore that it can be to read about other people's dreams, I will be as brief as possible:

1) I paddle out behind a huge pack of men. If we surf in this configuration, someone will certainly get hurt. I paddle around to the side, so that no one will crash into me.

2) I paddle out between two piers in a marina. Dolphins splash in the water in front of me. Then they start swimming towards shore. One of them almost crashes into me and gives me a very annoyed squeak.

3) My "surf instructor" tells me to surf into an empty house, through open windows and doors. "This is your wave," he says. "Take it." "Screw that", I say. "This is NOT my wave"

4) Later, my "surf instructor" tries to fit his surfboard through the open windows and doors. Of course they don't fit. But he can't figure out why. He was sure they would.

5) Lastly, I sit on my board in the open ocean looking towards the shore. The water is glassy, not a wave in sight. I bob on the current, going nowhere. It's beautiful.

Sections 1through 4 suggest that - between the danger of other surfers crashing into me, dolphins annoyed at me for being in their way and going against the current, and "surf instructors" ordering me to do the un-doable - there's somewhere in my life that I'm not going with the flow.

Section 5 suggests that, perhaps, sometimes the only thing to do is just sit.

I don't think there is a single spiritual teacher who would disagree with that message.

Expanding Beyond Balance

2011-07-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

A good friend sent me this link today from parenting coach Scott Noelle. To all you mommies and daddies - and all you children of mommies and daddies out there - I recommend you read it.

In it, Scott points out that, while the catchword for most parents is "balance" - i.e. how to balance work vs. home, them vs. me, permissiveness vs. boundaries - a more potent kind of power is available for parents who explore "expansion": of ideas, of lifestyle, of possibility.

Ever since that day on the beach when I realized that I am not "separate" from my children (or from anyone), I've been exploring the possibilities of expansion. Parenting is not what I thought it was. In fact, I can't even say that I'd really "thought" about what it was at all. Instead, I'd inherited a mass of assumptions - from my own family, from history, from culture - that had gone largely unquestioned until now.

Truthfully, I started surfing to get the hell away from my family. I needed something for "me". Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Everyone, parents and kids alike, needs some time to themselves. The irony, however, is that the joy I've found in the water is bringing me closer to my family and more willing to spend time with them. And more likely to enjoy it. Not because I've necessarily found "balance." After all, two hours of surfing a week does not equal the remaining 24/7.

Instead, I've been inspired to expand myself and my vision of what is possible for my family and for all families - including yours. Because family is the foundation of any society, where families are unhealthy, stressed, and basically dysfunctional, the society that is built on top of them will suffer the same. But where families are nurtured, functional and at ease - imagine what is possible.

More People From My Village

2011-07-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

One day I stood in the waves lamenting the fact that - because I'd sent out a group e-mail announcing my summer vacation field trip schedule - I now had to answer an almost equal number of questions. Questions such as: what time will you be going? do you think you'll go again in August? Can you get back to me closer to the date?

Sheesh, I thought, it'd be nice to have some company on our field trips, but it's really easier to just do it on my own. If I'd died last week, thought it would have been easier to do it on her own could have been my epitaph.

But standing there in the water, I started to giggle. I'd always thought my problem was that nobody wanted to help me but right at that moment I realized my real problem was that I didn't want to deal with all the baggage I associated with accepting help - the tit for tat, the expectations, the relationship-piness of it all.

I'd been blaming my loneliness on the world, when it was really me who was to blame. Really, I started giggling. To myself. In the water.

And then this guy looks at me with a serious expression on his face. He says something like "if you leave your hands on your board after you catch the wave, your balance will be better." And for the next hour or so, Ernie - 50ish father of four, plumber, former gymnastics coach at Venice High and lifelong surfer - coaches me through the best surf session ever. He gives me tips on my hands, my board, going under, turning, catching the wave - everything I could have wanted, really. And I receive it with gratitude.

Finally worn out by Ernie's strenuous training regimen ("paddle, paddle, paddle!" he yells constantly) I say thank you and head to the parking lot. There I meet Mark - another Venice old timer - who admires my beat-up 1980 Mercedes Surf Wagon because it looks like the one his dad had back in the day, when he was a kid and they used to go on surf trips. We talk cars and beaches and discover we're practically neighbors.

A few days later, when I wonder why all the surfers are gathered on the north side of the Venice Pier rather than the south, I'm schooled in swells and tides by John, the surfer foregrounded in the photo above.

What more can I say? Maybe it's not easier to just do it on my own.

In Case I'd Forgotten...It Takes a Village

2011-07-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

This week, my friend Grant's family was in town from Kansas City to celebrate his college graduation. On Monday, they invited us to spend the day on the beach. While other family members kept an eye on the older kids, Grant's Mom Connie volunteered to look after Ashton while I hit the waves.

It was a beautiful day - sunny and warm. The waves were not big, but they were big enough. There was a strong rip current, but otherwise conditions were perfect.

Even though I could see that Connie was a watchful grandma, I kept checking on her and Ashton from my location in the water. Due to Ashton's new red hat, they were easy to spot.

As I watched them, it occurred to me that it was due to Connie that I was surfing. And it occurred to me that, as a mother, it is only due to other people that I am able to do anything. And that is because, as a mother, I am not only responsible for myself but for other people as well.

And because I am responsible for those others, I am essentially, no longer an individual. I may inhabit one body, but I am no longer "one."

So much of my conflict as a parent has stemmed from my insistence that I am still an individual. So much of the conflict I think so many parents experience stems from the fact that our society, our culture, expects all people - each of whom inhabits only one body - to be an individual when, in fact, many of us are not. When in fact, none of us are, though for some of us - estranged from family, estranged from community, "single", childless - it may be easier to deny.

The realization that a statement like "we are all one" is neither metaphor, nor abstract ideal, has, frankly, blown my mind. Previously, I'd thought it was something a person "gets" when on acid, or ecstasy, or once they have achieved enlightenment. It was never something I thought I'd grasp from simply standing in chest high waves on Venice Beach.

God Bless Us, Everybody

2011-06-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

Strangely enough, when I got to the beach, I saw these two Buddhist monks.
I guess I'll have good company in hell.

On Wednesday, I was at Euphoria Loves Rawvolution, a raw/vegan cafe near the beach in Santa Monica. It was my first chance to go surfing since being back in LA, but I was so hungry that I had the shakes and knew I'd better eat first. It was the raw/vegan lunch rush and the only seats available were at a community table already occupied by two older ladies. I asked if I could join them. They said yes and we started to chat. They asked what I did and I told them that I'm a stay-at-home mom and that I write. Then they asked what I write about.

"Sports, family and spirituality," I said. When they asked what kind of spirituality I meant, I told them how much strength and wisdom I derive from the water and how I feel god is everywhere and in all people and that spirit is alive in everything.

Who would have thought that those two nice looking ladies at the raw/vegan cafe in Santa Monica would be Born Again Christians with zero tolerance for earth-based spirituality? And that, minutes later, they would tell me I was going to burn in hell forever? I mean, really. It's not what I expect when I'm in Santa Monica drinking a spirulina warrior shake and about to go surfing.

On the one hand, I'd never told a complete stranger that I write about sports, family and spirituality - and then gone so far as to describe what I mean by "spirituality." On the other, I'd never been told, to my face, that I was going to burn in hell for eternity due to said "spirituality". It was certainly a day of firsts: one which made me see, unequivocally, that when a person chooses, with all his or her heart, to walk (and talk) their path, not everyone is going to like it.

Save the world in 250 words or less...and win a surf vacation!

2011-06-18T11:38:00.000-07:00

Late Thursday night, I was browsing the internet and discovered that the fabulous Las Olas Surf Camp was having a scholarship contest. The prize was a one week surf vacation. Because one of my goals for this year is to take a fabulous surf vacation - and because I can't afford a fabulous surf vacation - I jumped at the opportunity and wrote the required 250 word essay. In response I got a lovely email from Jackie at Las Olas saying she'd enjoyed my essay (and my blog) but that, because I'd missed the deadline - I'd missed the deadline.

In the past, I wouldn't have even applied in the first place. I KNEW I'D MISSED THE DEADLINE. But I took a chance. You can't win if you don't play, right?

The assignment was to name a challenge facing the world right now and to come up with a practical solution. Coming up with challenges is, well, not a challenge for me. Coming up with solutions? I usually plead ignorance. So I made one up on the spot. A first.
Enjoy:

The challenge: America is prosperous and yet too many Americans feel they do not have enough. America is crowded and yet isolation and despair are epidemics. America has so much to offer and yet most American families struggle so hard to get by that they can't contribute to the world at large.

The fresh, concise, innovative and inspiring solution? Redesign education so that a peaceful future is possible. Redesign housing so that community is possible. Redesign technology so that health is possible. Redesign our society so that it flourishes. And do it in the name of the family.

For our solution to work, we need a team of interdisciplinary thinkers and doers who can put thoughts into action.

This solution demands synergy between visionaries, activists and entrepreneurs so that they all address the family as both the root of our present despair and the root of our future well-being. It demands that the people who create our culture not only dare to believe that sustainability, community and joy are possible, but excitedly work together to create those things and then inspire the American people to join them in the cause.

The solution demands we gather such people together on a retreat and maybe, just maybe, take them surfing. They’d catch waves, have beers and solve the world’s problems. It’d be like TED, with an agenda, on a beach. Who wouldn’t want to attend a summit like that?

Choosing Passion

2011-06-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

Recently I’ve been re-reading an old college favorite: Adrienne Rich's "Of Woman Born." In it, she writes how unreasonable it is for one person, or even two people, to be entirely responsible for the entire alpha-to-omega existence of a child, or children. What they need is so much more than any one or two people can give them. And then a mother is stressed, too much demand is put on her time and attention, and she turns on her own children and her partner. As Rich says, the mistake of the mother is in thinking that it is the children themselves, or as I like to add, the husband himself, who is to blame for her upset. When, in fact, the upset is a product of external circumstances which are so taken for granted as to be nearly invisible.

Contrary to what I've heard, rather than becoming more conservative in my old age, I am getting re-radicalized. And it makes me nervous. The deeper I get into my new commitments to surfing, reading, writing, thinking and feeling, the more vulnerable and out of my comfort zone I feel. I am always comfortable if I can be logical and “safe,” if I can repeat what someone else has said, regardless of how provocative - and if I can stay detached from what I am saying.

But when I begin to care, really care - as if what I think and say makes a difference - I feel like a target. I remember being in college, caring so much about my ideas, and getting into debates with boys that felt so mean-spirited. Boys I liked - not romantically, but whom I enjoyed – would, I felt, turn against me in debate when I was passionate. Because a passionate me is an easy target for teasing. For them, it would just be an exercise – in legalese or debate – and they would enjoy how worked up I would get and how seriously I would take the discussion and myself. And I would get increasingly frustrated.

Because, in the heat of the moment, I would feel as if I had lost my faculties, as if my gifts had dissipated under a tornado storm of passion. And it's true, passion can turn into righteousness and, often, intelligent, educated people can dismiss the passionate as zealots. So I fear this. That, because I am passionate, the people I most want to impact will not take me “seriously” and will be less likely to listen to me, not more.

And yet, passion is a necessity isn’t it? It is the life force flowing through one. So I will continue to choose it and all the risks that accompany it. When I started surfing, I wanted transformation. But I wanted it to be effortless and beautiful, I wanted it to make me look better not worse. But true transformation is bound to take us to unfamiliar ground that leaves us, at least for a while, confused and at sea. And I can accept that.

Because I do care. And I do want to make the world a better place for all living beings. And I believe it's possible.

So I'll take it - with all the insecurity and doubt that comes with it. Because it's better than the alternative.

What Surfing's Had Me Think About

2011-06-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

Writing this blog for over a year has inspired me to know other mothers who have committed themselves to pursuing their own athletic dreams – amateur or Olympian. Over the past few months, I’ve interviewed several such moms and started work on a book exploring the ways which such women have found to simultaneously pursue their passions and serve their families. But the more I've explored these women's experiences, the more convinced I’ve become that the very structure in which families exist is unstable, unsustainable and just plain unfair.

That structure, of course, being the nuclear family.

In my interviews, again and again, I’m reminded that family life, as it is lived by the vast majority of people in our country, seems to be a zero sum game - when one parent gains, another loses. If Dad plays golf, mom stays with the kids. If Mom surfs, Dad’s on house arrest. If a kid has an activity, one parent has to drive and then spend an hour or so sitting in a studio or on the bleachers.

The nuclear family – it’s clearly a game of winners and losers.

For women, the majority of whom are either inherently or culturally inclined to care for others, the thought that our pleasures come at the expense of the people we love can seem unbearable. In my case, it causes me to cut short my runs and my surf sessions. In other cases, a woman may not do anything she loves to begin with. Or when she does, she may do so overcome with a sense of doubt and guilt that diminishes what would otherwise be a purely joyful experience.

On the one hand, at times I imagine this is a small problem to have. So what if the average mainstream American middle class mom has no time to have fun?

On the other hand, I believe that the more time a person spends in flow, experiencing authentic joy, the more he or she can give to the world at large. Conversely, the diminishment of joy leads to a diminishment of inner resources and to an experience of scarcity that is at the root of so much addiction, despair and general dysfunction. And let me just say it - so much divorce.

Over the years, we've heard much about the collapse of the nuclear family - as if that's a bad thing - as if the shattered nuclear family is responsible for so much that is wrong with our otherwise healthy and wholesome country. But what if this model was not effective to begin with?

If the nuclear family was a product created by a manufacturer, it would have been discontinued a long time ago, recalled due to the many hazards it presents the consumer – among them isolation, stress, divorce, infidelity, child abuse and depression.

This week I’m reading an incredible book: "Half the Sky", by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It is reminding me that there is so much work to be done all over the world and that it is a crime that so many American families should be so drained by just getting by that they, that we, are too overwhelmed and stressed to effectively help those who are so less fortunate than we are.

But if the nuclear family is not the way for us to live, then what is?

More Thoughts on Feeling Un/Comfortable

2011-05-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

I got a lot of feedback from my last post about not feeling comfortable being approached by men I don't know. The issue of public safety - for both women and men - coupled with the challenges of male/female relationships certainly struck a nerve. I received several anecdotes about being harassed on the street, on the subway or in movie theaters, and agreement about how difficult it can be to let go of those experiences.

On the one hand, they can leave a person feeling hardened or scarred. On the other hand, they can leave a person feeling tough and triumphant for having survived them. Either way, they inevitably help form our attitudes towards ourselves and the world around us. And how we let them impact us in the long run is certainly a part of every life's journey.

Curiously, however, the real point of my post seemed to have gotten missed...

I've spent enough years hardened and scarred. I've spent enough years tough and triumphant. I'm tired of having the same old reactions in new places and tired of telling the same old stories to myself and others. As scared as I was growing up, to a certain extent I always knew I could defend myself and fight for my life. What I didn't know was how much it cost me to always be on the defensive. Not that self-preservation doesn't have a place. It certainly does.

But surfing has presented the opportunity to consider that there may be different ways to relate to the world - to dangers, real or imagined, and to men - that I haven't considered before.While I don't know what those new ways are, I certainly know they exist.

In the last year, I've identified the true passion of my life as transformation in all its forms, and I've identified transformation - whether overt or subtle - as the common thread running through all the pursuits and passions of my life. Surfing is just the latest embodiment of my life's quest for liberation, oneness and wisdom.

My relationship to "strange" men is just the latest area to which I can apply that quest. And it never would have occurred to me if I hadn't been approached in the water. Not by a shark, but by some pretty average guys.

Doesn't Feel Comfortable Around Strange Men

2011-05-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Almost a whole month has gone by without a post to this blog. On the one hand, life can get rather busy and distracting sometimes. On the other, I haven't made an effort to write.

The last time I went surfing, this guy, a pretty nice, harmless seeming guy named Mir kept trying to talk to me in the water. I was having none of it. As Brian says of me when I get this way, I was "on the subway." As in, "get away from me you creep or I'll stomp on your head." When I get that way, Brian usually adds "but you're not on the subway anymore."

No, I'm not. But while you can take the girl out of the subway, can you ever take the subway out of the girl?

I started taking the subway at very impressionable age. I was twelve and had been admitted into a prestigious public school in downtown Manhattan. I could have gone to another, also prestigious, school walking distance from my home in The Bronx, but I wanted to go downtown more than anything. Despite the one hour I'd spend travelling each way to and from school I would not be deterred.

From almost day one I was harassed, felt up, leered at and generally accosted by men of all ages. Freshman year, on especially crowded afternoons, there was a man who would stand behind me and stick his hand between my legs. I could never see him but I knew he was there. One day, I lifted up a boot-clad foot and stomped as hard as I could on the foot behind me. That was the last time that particular perp ever touched me - and I never even knew who he was.

Add to that the men I did see - the ones who mugged me, jumped me late at night, or generally made life uneasy for me as a young attractive woman - and it's clear why the attitude I developed towards men was not warm, fuzzy or welcoming. To say the least. By the way, this is directly related to my previously mentioned reluctance to bare cleavage or wear anything that might seem otherwise revealing, seductive or, in my eyes, dangerous.

But that was a long time ago, right?

Since then, I've prayed for surf buddies who have not materialized. I've prayed for a surfing mentor who'd go out with me and help me improve my technique. But when Mir offered himself (as buddy) and his friend Grant (as mentor), I was like "no fucking way, dude."

Until then, I hadn't realized how much I'd hoped surfing would turn me into someone else. That it would wash away the old traumas and hurts, that it would turn me into someone who welcomes the world with open arms and is able to relax, have fun and go with the flow.

When I got home from the beach and realized I was still the same old me, I was troubled and discouraged. And that was the last time I went surfing.

Still, I'll be back.

Run, Pray, Love

2011-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

My Dad ran marathon after marathon when I was a kid and had me and my brother running two mile loops around our local reservoir from a very young age. I was never very fast and never very enthusiastic about it.

Nevertheless, in college I did run the beautiful trail around campus for fun and as part of rugby practice. Living upstate in the early nineties, I ran the beautiful country roads of Rhinebeck, NY, and in grad school, I ran along Lake Michigan. I even did a 10K one Sunday morning. But running was never something I actually looked forward to. It was a maintenance thing -when I had nothing else going on - to get my heart rate up and earn some cookies.

When I started, I thought surfing would be a short cut to perpetual mellowness. Little did I know how a newfound dependence on tides, wind and weather could make me as cranky as I'd ever been. So I started thinking about what I could do when I wasn't surfing, that could make me a better surfer.

First I joined the Y.

Then I bought the shoes.

Yes, earlier this week I bought running shoes. And yesterday I used them. The conditions were blown out and I'd brought them with me just in case. I ran about two miles and it wasn't bad at all. I liked the rhythmic sound of my breath in time with my feet hitting the ground. And I liked getting hot and sweaty.

So hot and sweaty that, even though there weren't any waves, I went back to my car and grabbed my board anyway. And went surfing. And it was so awesome, I can't wait to do it again. Maybe I don't hate running. Maybe I just hate running when I don't get to go surfing afterwards.

Happy Easter, People

2011-04-24T19:25:00.000-07:00

There were lots of happy easter people down at the pier this evening just as I arrived for my twilight surf session. So many happy easter people, in fact, that I couldn't find a parking spot anywhere. Except in the parking lot of Islands, my favorite beer and burger joint. So I pulled in, thinking I'd have a beer and write. But when I checked my wallet, I discovered I'd left my money at home.

Which certainly gave me time to reflect.

So I pulled out my marble composition notebook and jotted down a few plans and goals, some reflections on my gifts, and a few words about play and fitness.

Here are a few highlights from the parking lot of Islands:

A plan: a website to celebrate, connect and inform mothers who are athletes.
A goal: an electric Honda Element. I don't think it exists yet, but I'd sure like one. Or something like it.
A gift: extrapolating the universal from the specific and the mundance.
A reflection on play and fitness: even if I can't make it out to surf, increasingly, I'm able to do things that support my habit. There's yoga, pilates and swimming at the Y. There's a bike I love that just needs a tune-up and some TLC. And there's the possibility of a new pair of running shoes. In the past, I've hated running, but I've read a couple of books about it lately, and it's sounding really good to me.

Taking up surfing continues to give far more to me than I'd imagined when I began. In fact, it was almost exactly a year ago that I took a walk on the Venice Pier with my friend Josh and told him my idea. My life, my marriage, my everything, felt as if it had run out of juice. But I'd realized that if I wanted the juice, I'd have to give it to myself.

Yeah, he said, and maybe you can get a surf company to thow in some money and sunglasses.

Further Reflections on the Bikini Top

2011-04-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

My current research into the state of women's athletics - as well as plain common sense - led me to suspect that posting a photo of myself in a bikini would generate more comments than usual.

What I didn't suspect was that posting a photo of myself in a bikini would generate a conversation about youth, maturity, fantasy, ideals and dreams.

What I also hadn't realized was that posing for said photo was the outcome of giving up youthful fantasies of omnipotence and universal acclaim in favor of a more authentic life - that a genuine grasp of my own gifts and limitations had lead to a greater acceptance of myself in a bikini.

On the one hand, life has certainly humbled me - kicked me down more than a few notches. On the other, it's given me a greater capacity to be real, to love, to express my flaws, to give what I can rather than waste precious energy trying to make myself into someone I was never meant to be.

Buckminster Fuller was a man who, in his own words, had failed at everything until he decided to put his energies towards serving the universal good. It was only the death of his own youthful fantasies and ego drives that permitted him to become the widely admired and influential man he became - a man committed to engineering solutions for the world's greatest problems.

If giving up my own youthful fantasies and ego drives has permitted me to pose in a bikini for the world to see and subsequently inspire conversation about what really matters in this confusing world of ours- then I say to everyone - Ego Death! Bring it on!

Bikini Tops

2011-04-10T18:25:00.000-07:00

Until recently, I never wore them. Almost never - though you might be able to dig up a photo of me from 1973 wearing a pink one with white polka dots. Or a1950's style one I got in 1998 to wear at the Jersey Shore and in Puerto Rico.

And then there was the one I bought in 2003 so I could breastfeed Trinity at a friend's pool.

But otherwise, as much as I've always mostly approved of my body, I always secretly prided myself on never being "stupid" enough to think I could get away with flaunting the gut which I'd mostly accepted. Or exposing my D cups to that much scrutiny

A couple of months ago, my friend Clare gave me this brown and pink hand-me-down string bikini that, she said, needed to go to someone with big boobs. I put it on. "It's really revealing, don't you think?" I asked her. "Um, yeah. It's a bikini."

Just yesterday I was saying how tired I've gotten of being cold. This was the first winter (and early spring) that had really gotten to me since moving to California fourteen years ago.

But it was surprisingly warm when I stepped outside today.

I was gonna drive to the beach wearing my rash guard and fleece yoga pants. But after I stepped outside and felt the life giving rays of the sun, I walked back inside and put on a bikini top.

Very surfer girl of me, I thought. Even with the gut.

I want to surf. I need to have some fun. Where's my board?

2011-04-02T03:09:00.000-07:00

Ashton naturally knows how to have fun. With me it takes more practice.

I didn't go surfing last weekend - photo shoot, drinks and fight with husband one day, baby shower the next.
I didn't go surfing during the week either - the kids got sick and I got sick.
At the same time, I've fallen off the wagon of a regular almost-daily yoga practice that had been going strong for three years.

The combination of a lack of fun times in the water and a lack of peaceful times in my head has left me angry, sad, judgmental - and without a proper sense of perspective. Everything seems like a dire emergency.
I started surfing partially because I wanted to create a new circuit in my brain that says: "I need to have some fun. I want to surf. Where's my board?"

This would replace that old worn-out circuit in my brain that says "I'm a worthless piece of crap.I don't want to do anything. What's the point?"

~~"I'm a worthless piece of crap.I don't want to do anything. What's the point?"~~

I want to surf. I need to have some fun. Where's my board?

Behind Every Great Woman...

2011-03-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

I love this picture of wetsuited siblings at the edge of the surf with their boogie boards.

Speaking of pictures...

Instead of surfing this weekend, I took a trip to Encinitas with my friend and photographer Jessica, to shoot some photos of fellow mom-surfer Jamie G. and her family -- at home and on the beach.

Not too long ago, I interviewed Jamie about her life as a surfer and how she manages to pursue something she loves while also handling the responsibilities and stresses of having a family.

What we witnessed during our shoot was something that keeps coming up, again and again, in the lives of mother/athletes --- significant support on the homefront.

Not that a woman can't pursue the life she loves without support at home. She certainly can. But when she does, pursuing her passion can become an additional source of stress rather than a source of pure joy.

Every step of my surfing and writing adventure has benefitted from the support I've gotten from my husband and friends. Two weeks ago, when I was able to get the support of a women's surfing community, my joy increased tenfold.

The more deeply I delve into the lives of women performing remarkable feats of athleticism, elite and amateur, the more conscious I am of this: no one does it on their own.

Behind every great woman, therefore, is not simply another woman, or a man, but a village.
It's a cliche for a reason. It's true.

Do Unto Others

2011-03-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to learn that big wave surfer Sion Milosky had drowned up north at Mavericks.

A couple of weeks ago I had an idea at the water's edge. Was the ocean like me? I thought. A mother who loves all her children, but nonetheless has her good days and her bad? Who has days when she feels generous and others when she doesn't want to be asked for one more thing?

That day I thought I'd start treating the ocean the way I'd like to be treated. Maybe a strange idea. Maybe not. But there it was - my own version of neoprene clad goddess worship. And since then I've been talking to the water the way I wish my family talked to me; what do you have to tell me today? what can I do to please you? how can I thank you?

Today I arrived at the water's edge and found it colder than usual, rougher and deeper too. The white water kept coming, and getting past the impact zone was a struggle. I tried to catch a wave and, for the first time, experienced being held down by successive waves. After getting knocked down a second time, I stepped back and started talking: do you not want me here today? should I get out? are you not in the mood?

She just boiled and boiled and I related it to my son wanting to nurse, or my husband wanting to have sex, when I've got other things on my mind, other things to do, and a whole world inside me they can't imagine. So I stepped back farther - like I wish they would on those kind of days. Because I know how I can snap when I don't want to be bothered.

I watched other surfers struggle where I had struggled. Get knocked down where I'd been knocked down. Finally I watched a lifeguard help drag lifeguard station 20 a couple of yards away from the water. With this storm coming and the current budget crisis, he told me, they can't afford to lose the station to a surge.

Today was definitely a day to respect your mother.

Sunday with the Surf Chicks

2011-03-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Brian took Trinity camping in Joshua Tree for the weekend, leaving me and Ashton to our own devices. Yesterday was a slow bore that ended with ice cream for dinner. Consequently, the little man was bouncing off the walls at what should have been his bed time. Determined that it would NOT be the case again, I promised I'd wear him out today. So I took him to the beach to hang with some surfer chics.

I'd run into Amanda Schmitz, the organizer of the 310 Surf Chics, a couple of weeks ago and it had been so nice to see her I thought that, even if I didn't get to surf, it would be cool to hang out on a Sunday morning with some other surf ladies while babysitting my boy. And for the most part, that's what I did. Ashton's current obsession is ping-pong, so I brought some paddles and an orange ball and we hit it back and forth for more than an hour.

But then, the miraculous, the long-hoped for, the wonderful, happened. One surfer, a mom in her forties, volunteered to look after Ashton and another surfer volunteered a board. I spent a few minutes on the fence - due to what I think is a pinched nerve in my shoulder - but then realized a little pain was not going to stop me from the surf session I've been dreaming of for almost a year.

You know, the one in which the surfing village gets together to support this mom to get in the water - even when she has her kids with her. Yeah, that dream.

It came true today.

Be a Surfer

2011-03-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

Today was a glittering gorgeous day. One of those days that makes me extra-aware of the fact that I live in Southern California and not The Bronx, London or Chicago.

Still, I was on the fence about going out. There were so many ways I could have used those precious two hours during which a friend promised to watch the kids: a last-minute private school tour, a coffee shop wi-fi session with my book proposal, a yoga class, a veg-out with Netflix or Hulu.

But surfing is fun, serves my life's purpose, stirs my creativity and keeps me fit. I mean, really. There was no contest.

The waves were flat at first. There was a lot of paddling. I got lazy. And I got pounded. By some really small waves. Why? I wasn't paying attention. I was lollygagging, hanging out, non-committally going for waves, but not really meaning it. I was a "kook", as surfers would say with derision: in surfspeak, a loser.

But then I remembered something, Many years ago, I had a boyfriend named Tim. When I'd told him that I wanted to be a filmmaker, he pulled an old business card out of his rolodex. It said "Spike Lee. Filmmaker." This guy that no one had ever heard of had given it to him years ago at a party. If you want to be a filmmaker, he was telling me, BE a filmmaker.

And then I got it - be a surfer. Even if I have to pretend. Even if I have to put it on. Don't ask what Jesus would do. Ask "what would a surfer do?"

I haven't yelled a single time this week...

2011-03-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

This morning I found out my mother-in-law was giving a talk at her church before she kicks off her walk-for-peace across the country on Tuesday. I found out as I was about to walk out the door to go surfing. My board was already on the wagon.

I gave my sister-in-law a ride to the church and as she got out, she said something to the effect of 'If you change your mind, you should come to the talk. It'd make her real happy."

"It'd make her real happy."

Ouch. Potential Kryptonite to me, who has spent years prioritizing everyone else's "real happy" at the cost of my own.

It wasn't an easy call. Doris is going to be walking for seven months. I won't have many chances to see her between now and September. I hadn't gone surfing in two weeks and was thrilled I'd finally made the opportunity to go this morning. Doris would have been "real happy" and maybe people would have said nice things about me for having made the sacrifice.

I had been tired and cranky at breakfast. The day was cold. It had taken a seemingly colossal amount of energy to get me almost out the door when I got the call. It would have been an easy out.

But I couldn't.

Even though the water was stormy and the waves crappy, the ocean was calling me and I heeded the call. Even though I didn't catch a thing, I played and played and played. And I'm really glad I did.

The Stranglehold, Part 2

2011-03-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

While my dilemma is not an uncommon one for mothers, the only people who offered advice were men, single women, or grandmas whose kids are long out of the house: suggesting to me that while solutions were right under my nose, something about being a mother was preventing me (and other women) from being able to see them, act on them, or accept what they are.

What is this something that prevents me and so many mothers from believing that they can pursue joy free from the strangleholds of domestic life?

I believe it is an impossible, internally imposed, standard of motherly conduct that precludes the common sense actions we need to take care of our own well-being. (A standard which men don’t share, and of which single women may not yet be aware.) To make an analogy, we impose on ourselves the maternal equivalent of a 38D bust, a 24 inch waist and the body mass index of a supermodel. In other words, we've got the maternal equivalent of eating disorder.

Having sat with this for a few days, on Sunday afternoon I grabbed a page from the green kitchen pad and wrote was for me a new manifesto of healthy mothering:

I will never yell again.
Nothing is "that" important.
I am no longer responsible for everyone’s feelings - or their futures.
I will only say things once.
The children clean up with their parents.
Hungry children must ask nicely for food or go to their rooms until they can.

While I didn’t follow the advice of my readers to the letter, what I got in spirit was the belief that something new was possible. And what I got in reality was something yet to be tried and a whole new frontier for this mother/athlete/surfer.

The Stranglehold, Part 1

2011-03-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

Last week my post garnered more than a few comments from readers – the majority offering support and some kind of advice on how to escape the stranglehold of house and mommy work so that I can surf and write more.

While my initial reaction was to be touched by the recommendations, my next was to dismiss them. As I wrote on a Facebook status update: what has seemed to help me most in the past is being listened to and supported – not advice.

But after that knee-jerk…jerkiness...I recalled those many times I could have avoided a world of pain if only I’d listened to the people around me. Something which my stubborn reluctance to accept advice, of course, had prevented.

So this was actually the opportunity to do something different.

And then I saw something else; even if I didn’t take my readers advice literally, its existence signified that I was, in fact, being listened to and supported and that I had what I needed to solve what seemed to be an intractable problem.

So thank you readers, for all your helpful words and suggestions. Thanks to you, I believe I am seeing a light at the end of a tunnel.

Hitting the Wall

2011-02-25T19:18:00.000-08:00

It was a rainy day and Trinity and I watched 180 Degrees South. A really good documentary that just brought home how stuck I've been feeling the last week.

Here's how it goes - Life is going along and I get an idea. It's a good idea and it excites me.

Life gets really good.

Having such a good life gives me more ideas, excites and inspires me, and I start doing more stuff.

But maybe I don't have enough room in my life for more good stuff, just enough room for a little good stuff and the rest of the room is for the kind of draggy everyday stuff I was trying to escape in the first place.

But I'm really inspired now and I just want to do this great stuff I've started - in this case, the surfing and the book featuring other moms doing sports. But there's still all the old stuff to do: breakfast, lunch, dinner, dishes, laundry, potty training, homeschooling, trips to the park, and the stuff I really hate - trying to get my kids to do things they don't want to do.

So here's the $64,000 question: how to do the stuff that excites and energizes me while still having all that stuff taken care of, but not having to do it myself?

THIS IS THE QUESTION! Isn't it?

Fit to Surf

2011-02-19T09:04:00.000-08:00

I've been on a crazy Amazon book ordering binge and this one came this week. I LOVE it.

In addition to surfing, my usual workout is an almost daily 20 minute yoga session from yogadownload.com, but I've been feeling like there've been gaps in my fitness and conditioning.
I just started doing this book's flexibility and strength training program this week, but I already feel some new muscles a-hurting: particularly the glutes and hamstrings, which I've known were weak.

To fully get the benefits of Rocky's program, I'll either need to join a gym or buy some equipment so I think I've got at least a pull-up bar and some free weights in my near future.

Also, my dream for this year is to get back on my bike so that I don't have to get all blue when it's been raining and I have to avoid the water. There's a women's bike club/team in Culver City that just started and I think it's calling my name.

Today's recipe for a perfect life: someone else looks after kids 30% of the time, cycling, surfing and having fun working on my book: interviewing mom-athletes all over the country.

And lots of good sex with my hubby.

Another Mom on Board

2011-02-13T18:55:00.000-08:00

Here's to all the moms who make it out of the house to do the things they love - at least once in a while.

This is my friend Madhavi waxing up a friend's board this morning before we went out for our first ever surf session together. Sad to say, the conditions were, well, sad - windy, blown out and shallow due to a particularly low tide.

While the waves didn't offer much in terms of actual surfing, we were able to catch up and chat. And it didn't hurt to have someone watch my technique and remind me, yet again, to get those knees up. Just when I'd thought the problem was weak hamstrings, now I'm thinking weak upper body. Either way, practice, practice, practice...

Coffee. Croissants. Waves.

2011-02-06T14:30:00.000-08:00

Lately I'd been having the problem of being too "in my head" while surfing. For surfing, as for any sport, this is a kiss of death. I had no such problem today. The weather was sunny and warm, I was caffeinated, well-fed and happy. People were swimming without wetsuits and I was reminded that, Toto, we're NOT in Chicago anymore. Or New York. Or Utah. I was reminded how much I love Southern California.

As for the waves. There were some of the fastest, strongest, waves I've ever felt. One knocked me so hard off my board I fell headfirst into an underwater somersault. When I emerged into the air I shouted exuberantly: "THAT WAS AWESOME!"

Today's lesson: even though I was having the "greatest time ever" I kept wanting to check my watch.

Today's theory: when I'm about to have a breakthrough in something and my identity is threatened - the identity that likes to prove how lame I am, how I can't do anything right, and that nothing I do ever pays off - I get obsessed with time. It's the perfect way to get out of the transcendent moment and into my head.

Today's breakthrough: I resisted checking my watch and kept re-committing to having fun, being with the waves and letting the ocean be my teacher.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning.

Just. Be quiet. And I'll stay in bed.

2011-01-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

So far, I've discerned that mastering my surfing is largely a matter of mastering my parenting: which is to say, my life in general. Surfing well and often, in this case, demands I overcome a combination of weak boundaries with the kids and a degree of tending to my own well-being that is not as strong as it could be.

For instance...

Like many human beings, I like to stay in bed until the last possible moment. Given the right motivation, however, I am capable of early-rising. I’ve worked on enough film shoots to know that, after maybe thirty minutes, getting up at four or five can seem enough like having gotten up at eight or nine - especially after some breakfast and a nice espresso. So one of my goals as a newbie surfer has been to get up for that early morning “dawn patrol” surf session before the kids get up and Brian goes to work.

There’s only one problem...

While I spent the summer attempting to wean Ashton and train him to sleep in his own bed, I stopped at the insistence of my frustrated and sleep-deprived husband. Consequently, Ashton still sleeps with me and, as soon as I get out of bed, follows me wherever I go - shrieking and demanding milk and more cuddles. Demanding ME.

He’s the opposite of an alarm clock. He’s like a siren demanding I stay in bed - a siren I am rarely able to resist. Sometimes I do get up to do early morning yoga but, nine times out of ten, he comes into the living room and climbs on my down-dogging legs.

This is a challenge I believe few non-mom yogis, and few non-mom surfers, share. Challenges like these are the secret tests of motherhood that most women probably don't expect before they go ahead and have kids. I surely didn't.

It. Working.

2011-01-25T18:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it all comes together. The childcare. The weather. The tide. The gear. Today was one of those days.

Some new homeschool friends invited us for a play date at Santa Monica's Muscle Beach and I brought my board - just in case there'd be enough moms to look after the rascally Davis children while I caught some waves. There were only our two families, but the mom (named Haven, just like Brian's grandfather) generously offered to look after them while I went out.

The sun was blinding, the water relatively warm. The waves, small and strong at first, got bigger and more predictable while I was there. And there was only one other surfer. I basically got hammered, but I had fun. And after I remembered some of what I've learned in the last few months, I got hammered less badly.

So much went through my mind while I was out in the water. How I've learned from surfing to look straight ahead of me instead of down all the time. How many people have guiltily shared their fears of waves and water since I started telling people I surf. How pulling my wetsuit down over my booties is preferable to pulling the tops of my booties up over my wetsuit.

And how maybe things aren't as bad, hard, tough, and painful as I've always thought they had to be. Especially now with my new super-duper short haircut that I absolutely love.

Beached

2011-01-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

Today I considered, for the first time, that perhaps this recurrent cycle of colds and minor winter illnesses is to be embraced rather than fought. Perhaps the universe is telling me to slow down, take it easy, chill out a bit. Maybe it's telling me to consider how far I've come, rather than dwell on how much further I want to go.

And the universe may have something there...

It's been more than six months since I got this idea to start surfing, longer still since I started dreaming of it at night. In addition to the time I've spent in the water, since then I've read numerous surfing books, watched countless videos and browsed a seemingly endless number of surf-related websites. I've bought gear. I've taped postcards of surfers to the wall above my desk and daydreamed about surfing breaks all over the world map hanging on the same wall.

But aside from the busy work, actually surfing has led me to discover that while I've spent my life drawn to hard work, concentration and struggle - my pursuit of waves represents the first time I've been drawn to something simply for the joy of it. And I shed some bitter tears recognizing how much it's cost me to pursue suffering over happiness.

But there's always another day - to make new choices, to choose life-giving vitality over doom and gloom.

What I've learned so far is that learning to surf hasn't been about the surfing at all. It's been about my life and the difference it can make to commit to something - not as compensation for a deprived childhood, not to prove anything to anyone else, not to win status or success, not to become a "better" person - but just because I want to and it brings me joy.

Mom on Board

2011-01-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

I didn't expect it, but I made it to the beach this afternoon, just in time to be blinded by the setting sun as I paddled out into the waves. I couldn't see a thing, the light was so bright and no amount of squinting made it better.

It was the first time I really didn't enjoy myself. The water seemed colder than ever before - even with my booties - even though it had been in the seventies and eighties all weekend. And I felt so out of shape, I could barely paddle through the sets rolling in at 4:30 p.m.

Enthusiasm was barely present. Ashton had thrown a fit on my way out the door and insisted on coming with me. Trinity, who'd just started squeezing the lemons she'd picked from our tree, had a fit because that meant she had to come too. She bitched. He whined.

I scowled.

"Not a very zen return to the ocean," I thought as the whole family drove to the beach.

But the absence of enthusiasm was an interesting thing. In a way I'd never experienced before, I was just there. Just in the ocean. Just being blinded by the sun. Just being annoyed. Just getting hammered by the waves. Just surfing.

And that was just it. Even though there was no epiphany, no revelation, no release from all suffering, I can honestly say - even with the cold, the glare, the bad waves and the bad kids - surfing is better than not surfing. And that's all there is to it.

Me. Not Surfing.

2011-01-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

A combination of rainy weather and illness has reminded me why I started surfing in the first place. Dreading the daily monotony of meals, dressing and undressing kids, baths and more meals, I'm feeling cranky, cantankerous and resentful - like a house slave, basically

Almost all the mothers I know rely heavily on either alcohol, marijuana or separation/divorce to get some space and sanity for themselves away from their maternal responsibilities. Alcohol and marijuana are not good friends of mine and though I was tempted to blame my marriage last year when I realized my life wasn't giving me the juice, I like my husband. It's not his fault.

I got along in life semi-okay before I ever started surfing. But I didn't have two kids back then. With two kids it's both a necessity and sometimes seemingly an impossibility. Still, it's the kind of impossibility I relish: more than, say, I'd relish the impossibility of three kids.

What stumps me is that some women enjoy having lots of kids, noise and chaos around them. But I am not like this.

It may be another week or so before I get back in the water, weather permitting. In the meantime, last night I ordered a bunch of stuff on Amazon to get me excited: a "Yoga for Surfers" DVD, Gerry Lopez's book "Surf is Where You Find It" and Jamal Yogis's "Saltwater Buddha."

Me. Not Surfing. Just a case of temporary insanity.

Gone, Baby Gone

2010-12-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

No, we did not find my flying board.
Someone else got to Big Mama Wave first.
So now I'm in the market for something new.
Either an exact (or semi-exact) replacement or an upgrade.
It doesn't look like Costco is currently manufacturing this beauty - a 6'9" foam board called a Wavestorm - so I can buy one used on Craigs List or inherit/buy one from a friend or acquaintance.

I also just got a posting from the 310 Surf Chicks about getting this cute girly board used for $200. It's called a Surf Betty. Isn't she...feminine? I'm just not sure I want to graduate from foam to fiberglass yet. The difference? Balance, weight and the pain/injury factor if I hit myself in the head with it.

Lost My Board?

2010-12-12T20:25:00.000-08:00

There's really more to say today than can be crammed into one measly blog, so I'll give you some bullet points. But first... Look at that rad picture a nice lady named Nisa took of me on the beach last night. Sweet.

Now for the bullet points:

1) Was gonna buy myself a waterproof watch for Christmas. Then discovered that my favorite watch ever - a red-faced Swiss Army Victorinox from the Sundance Catalog - is waterproof. Presto! Surfing Watch achieved!

2) Got booties: My BFF M.M. bought these superb round toe Infiniti bamboo fiber booties for me as a birthday gift. It took many trips to get them, but get them I finally did.

3) Took the booties for a spin at sunset last night. Made me realize how much I tolerate being uncomfortable and then wondered where else in my life am I doing the equivalent of surfing in bitterly cold water without my booties?

4) Went out again just before sunset tonight and it was ecstasy, booties and all. Caught the best ride of my surfing life so far. Not feeling cold may make a huge difference.

5) The water was silver blue glass under the setting sun and the waves were 0-1 feet. That means small - really small. But perfect for me.

6) In my post-surfing ecstatic bliss, I watched the final light of dusk before driving home.

7) Without strapping my board to my car.

8) And heard it fly off the roof as I rode home on the 10 Freeway.

9) Yep. Lost my board.

10) Um huh. Brian's on his way right now to check if it's still there. Stay tuned...

White Out

2010-12-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

Driving to the beach this morning, I didn't think too much of the fog that was rolling in. There's often more fog as you go west from Culver City. Arriving at the beach, I still wasn't concerned.

Walking down the hill from my car, I felt the familiar strengthening feeling I get when my legs are doing what I'm telling them to do - not what they want to do, not what they're used to doing. Going surfing is still not routine. Especially lately, with the colds, and the cold, I'm making myself go when it would be a lot cozier to stay under the blankets. And the results have been so mixed, I don't exactly jump out of bed to hit the 55 degree water.

So I walked - only to find myself enveloped in the thickest fog I've ever experienced in my life. Since I haven't yet worked up a system whereby I bring a camera to the beach while I hit the waves, you'll have to take my word for it. This was a white out. I could see the water rolling up onto the sand, a few yards beyond that and then...nothing. Or nearly nothing.

After watching a fellow surfer run straight in, I saw three other guys out there. Through the haze, I could even see them go for some waves. But I could hardly see the waves. I hesitated. I hate backing off from things because I'm scared, but honestly, the lack of visibility scared me. What if something happened? I could quietly sink into oblivion when help might have been feet away. Never mind the pummeling I would undoubtedly take by waves I never saw coming.

It took me a while to distinguish between prudence and terror. Sure, Eddie would have gone - those four guys went. But then I realized that in addition to my fears, real and imagined, was actual inexperience. Without anyone to egg me on, without anyone to coach me, or even without anyone to brave the unknown alongside me - I turned around.

It put me in one hell of a bad mood to have walked away from what otherwise might have been perfectly good waves, but I have PMS and had just gotten a parking ticket, so I might have been in a bad mood anyway. And there's always another wave. Or so they say.

Surfing the Chakras

2010-12-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

Today was one of those days when everything seemed to be going not-my-way: when it looked like I was trapped by circumstances. Today was one of those days when all I could see was that I'm
home-schooling a seven year old, day-caring a two year old, not making enough money and feeling the creativity and life drained out of me minute-by-minute while A.X. refused to nap. Today was one of those days when I really needed to do some yoga.

Fortunately, nap was achieved and I got on the mat. What I did was a twenty-minute Chakra Balancing Yoga class I downloaded from YogaDownload.com . (YogaDownload.com, by the way, has changed my yoga practice and, I do not lie, my life. I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who can't get out of the house to do yoga.)

What did I get from today's practice?

Firstly, Chakra Balancing is a great thing to do when you're stressed. Secondly, my Red, Yellow, Purple and White Chakras seem to be going strong, but my Orange, Green and Blue Chakras? Not so much. In short, while I'm expressing a strong will and being intuitively plugged in, I'm feeling sensually/creatively deprived and my heart's not very open. A pretty accurate diagnosis.

Time to start remembering I am more than my circumstances. And opening my heart.

Lots of pictures and more about chakras here.

Back in the water?

2010-12-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

Not quite yet, but I should be getting there as soon as this afternoon or tomorrow morning. After I drop by Rider Shack to get those booties. But even before booties - an update on how the past month has slipped away with no surfing, lots and lots of prayer, and even more love.

On November 12, while enduring my semi-regular bout of early winter-ish bronchitis, I turned 41.

For Thanksgiving week, we traveled to Seattle to visit my Mom and briefly considered buying the foreclosure next door. The pluses - low cost of living, lots of green, lots of espresso and lots of museums where Brian could work. The minuses - no surfing (at least nearby), very little sunshine and no community.

Also, my Mom's in the midst of applying for a job that would relocate her to San Diego. So pray she gets it - not only would we be somewhat reunited, but there would be lots of opportunities to surf San Diego County.

Now we're back, my health is better and the water temperature is almost ten degrees lower than it was in October. Which leads me back to those booties...

And one more thing. I've missed the water.

In the past, I would have called it quits after failing to fulfill my dream of regularly surfing for this long. But I'm not giving up. It's that simple.

The "Pray" is Back...

2010-11-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

There hasn't been much surf in the last two weeks, just a whole lot of respiratory crap and what have you. But there has been some yoga, and today...the pray.

A teacher I know has said, "the mind is a dangerous place, you don't want to go in there alone." And then there are the Buddhists who call it a great cart, but a terrible horse.

Prayer (and meditation) is a way to retrain the tracks on which a mind runs. For all my years, those tracks, when otherwise unoccupied with work, achievement, entertainment, etc., exclusively ran along lines something like this:

One day my life will look like X.
And I will be happy because X.
But right now, I'm a failure because X.
And on and on.

We all get the picture. To call it monkey mind is probably a discredit to monkeys.

But after prayer, after continually practicing prayer, meditation, various methods of personal transformation and now, yes, surfing, the broken record sometimes sounds like this...

X is a blessing.
X is a challenge.
I love my mother.
I give my life for the greater good.
I promise to get out of my own way, so that spirit can act through me.
All is well.

Sometimes it sounds like this. Not all the time. Sometimes.
But sometimes is good.

Surfing with Family is a Mixed Bag

2010-11-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

My seven year old daughter has a skin condition. It makes things painful for her that are not painful for other people. It makes things frightening for her that are not frightening for other people. Like sand. Like sun. Like the beach.

As excited as I was to finally have a dual family surf session, during which I would watch the kids while my friend G surfed, and he would watch them while I surfed - Trinity was...unexcited. Full of dread. Overcome with anxiety. Miserable.

I soldiered forward. On my back, a bulging pack full of diapers, wipes and assorted child needs. Over my shoulder, a pouch full of snacks. From one arm hung an unwieldy beach bag holding water bottles, towels and a wetsuit. Under the other, a large blue surfboard. Big Mama Wave. The triumph was carrying all this baggage while safely directing the children across the road, across the bike path and towards the water.

The defeat? Trinity wouldn't step off the boardwalk onto the sand.

The triumph? I set us up on the beach without losing it.

The defeat? Trinity still wouldn't step off the boardwalk onto the sand.

The triumph? Ultimately, I carried her, legs wrapped tightly around my waist, to a cool spot beneath a lifeguard station.

The defeat? No sitting beneath lifeguard stations.

And on and on and on.

The ultimate triumph? Family surfing day happened. I paddled out, enjoyed the gentle rise and fall of the waves, caught a few, wiped out a few. Got wet, got cool, got healed.

I've been trying hard lately: to breathe deep, to stay calm, to not lose it. After surfing, I don't even have to try.

It was low tide by the time I made it to the water. G said it was hardly worth going out. I disagree.

Rained Out on a Beautiful Day

2010-10-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

I was awakened in the middle of the night, which was really early morning, by an unrecognizable sound. It was so battering, clattering and loud, I thought someone, or something, was beating rhythmically on tin drums. And it made me mad.

Because I'm a mother who's a surfer, I've made the promise that I will never knowingly endanger myself to surf. Which means being strict about not surfing after any goddamned rainstorms because of the sickly toxic urban runoff on my local beach.

So I took it personally, okay?

How could it not have rained for so damned long and now that I care, now that I've actually started to dread rain - which I used to love so much - can a rainstorm come - in the middle of the night, between two perfectly sunny days - and rain out my surf plans?

For crying out loud. Or, as my friend Tom in Chicago used to say, "Krikey!"

What with the husband needing space and lots of time to work things out, the two year old needing to nurse all the freakin' time and sleeping in the holy marital bed, and the older one not wanting to do math and maybe having Celiac disease and itching and sneezing and being sickly with diarrhea almost every single day, surfing is really, really good for my state of mind. When I do it.

In fact, the real wonder is how I went so long not surfing. I must have been crazy.

Heh, heh. Maybe I was.

My husband would not disagree.

She Surfs, She Sits, She Doesn't Go

2010-10-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

The buddies and I went out Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m.: all of us, I think, leaving our families blissfully asleep while we went out to catch some Santa Monica waves.

The air was super cold but the water - super warm. That was a very pleasant surprise, especially compared to life at home: which this week had been filled with many unpleasant surprises. Husband was having an existential/marital crisis of unprecedented darkness and I had been spending much of my energy and attention holding things together and not making them worse by having fits or screaming my head off in fear and exasperation.

I was tired and a little disoriented on the way to the beach; there was some very ordinary confusion about parking lots, dollar bills versus quarters and whether I should get my caffeine infusion before or after our session (I was also on the first day of my period: a detail from which I shielded the guys). But I was nearly ecstatic to walk into the ocean with my board and all that was quickly forgotten.

Kind of. I caught some good waves on my knees, which is how I'm taking them these days. Rather than focusing on the full standing balance, I'm focusing on the novel act of...focusing. Turns out I've spent my life focused on the tip of my nose rather than what's in front of me, and there is an entire chapter of an entire book to be devoted to that metaphor.

Nevertheless, after only about twenty minutes I felt fatigued and not interested in surfing. Instead, I was interested in sitting on my board and looking at the ocean. My identity, the new "surfer mama" identity I've created, was like "NO! You must surf! You must show the buddies that you can do it! You must go!" As they say: "Eddie would go!"

But I didn't go. My identity wanted to show off. But transformation, which is what this is really about, is not about identity. It's about transcending identity to come from something deeper. Call it "capital 'S' Self," call if "soul," call it what you like. But what it said to me on Sunday was this: "You've been working really hard all week to keep it together. You've been doing a lot. Take some time to yourself. Sit a while. Look at the waves. Rest. You are going to need it."

So I did. And it was good.

Caught Inside

2010-10-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me well may know that, under pressure, I can become extremely high-strung. Historically, my way of dealing with stress has not been to withdraw or take a soothing bath, but to lash out at those nearest and dearest to me. It was at a most chronically stressed and destructively high-strung part of my life that someone first suggested to me the wisdom of spending more time at the beach and in the water.

When I began my surfing odyssey roughly five months ago, it never occurred to me that this too could become one of the most stressful periods of my adult life.

The waves of my personal life keep crashing on me. The term “caught inside” refers to those times when a surfer can’t get past the white water to smoother water in order to catch a wave.

Caught inside, you’re unable to ride anything, and most able to get your ass kicked. In the best circumstances, you can get back to shore and wait for a lull before paddling out. But sometimes you’re caught in such a way that you are not only wiped out by one strong wave, but unable to catch your breath before another one rides in and slams you back down. Even if you’re not a surfer, this may have happened to you on a day of particularly strong waves at the beach. Without expecting it, a set rolled in, with too little time between waves for you to escape.

So what do you do? Hold your breath and dive under when you can. Relax. Surrender. Whatever you do – you don’t fight. Fighting only exhausts you, depleting you of the energy necessary to possibly save your own life.

I don’t blame the ocean when she rises up against my expectations and slaps me around a bit. It’s her nature. Right now, on dry land, I’m working on bringing that equanimity to the waves that surround me – waves of another person’s secret anger, resentment, bitterness and long-held grudges.

I don't want to over-stretch the metaphor. Or over-simplify the complicated. I'll just say that it's gotten very sharky out here. So please, pray for us.

Surfing is a Lot Like Knitting

2010-10-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

I'd been feeling a little blue and discouraged from not having been in the water for almost three weeks. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get back in again. My goal in becoming a surfer is to create a habit that I can't break. But this far in, it still takes considerable effort to load up the car early in the morning and head down to the beach by myself. And between last month's heat wave, rain storms and sick family, it was a habit easily broken.

But thanks to the generosity of my good friend A, on Wednesday I ended up taking my second surf lesson in a month. In fact, knowing that two of my good friends were going to be surfing with me, I was able to arrange childcare wonders that I barely knew were possible.

My instructor was Das Jesson from Islands Surf Camp, a very cool guy - sweet, patient, enthusiastic and with a contagious love for surfing. And Das turned me on to something about surfing that had eluded me until know.

Surfing is a lot like knitting.

When I've taught knitting, one thing I've always told my pupils - echoed eloquently by the great knitting authority Elizabeth Zimmerman - is that there is no right way to knit. Provided you start with needles and yarn and end with...something else...you're knitting. How you get from point A to point B is your own business.

I'd been trying to surf the right way. And failing again and again. In fact, so far, my surf odyssey has been a great education in patience and being bad at something. But Das took a look at what I could do and helped me find my own, distinctly personal, way of getting from point A - lying prone - to point B - standing on my board.

Of course, everything I'd learned so far also came into play: knowing the waves, looking ahead, letting go. I justt took Das to provide the missing ingredient: "Let's face it" he said "you're not getting on the Pro Tour anytime soon. It doesn't matter how you get up there. Just have fun. That's what you're here for."

I'm not gonna be on the Pro Tour! I don't have to do it right! I just have to have fun! I've got needles! I've got yarn! I've got a surf board!

I'm CEO - Bitch!

Bootie Call

2010-10-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

My most awesome friend, MM, read my post about going into that super cold water earlier in September and immediately offered to buy me a pair of surf booties as an early birthday present (November 12! Mark your calendars!). So today we met up at the very groovy Rider Shack in Mar Vista to get them. When they were all out of my size (out of all warm booties period) I was ready to go get an espresso at a nearby cafe. But, being an unstoppable woman, MM was not deterred and we headed next to The Sport Chalet in Marina del Rey.

As a budget-conscious, stay-at-home Mom, I don't go out bootie shopping very much - or clothes shopping, or shopping for anything other than groceries, in fact. But I LOVE shopping, and I LOVE clothes. So The Sport Chalet was awesome, if only to see all the prettily colored fleece hoodies and surfer girl gear. And yet, what did they not have? Booties in my size.

What they did have was a sales-guy named Dylan who was available to answer this pressing question:
"Am I lame for waiting the recommended three days to get back in the ocean after a rainstorm?"
"Three days?" answers Dylan. He won't go in less than seven days after a storm like we had last week.
Seven days.

And then he tells us a couple of gruesome anecdotes about impatient Angelenos who did not wait long enough: anecdotes involving things like, oh, typhoid (!) and necrotizing fasciitis. Is there an extreme enough exclamation when faced with something like necrotizing fasciitis? Ouch? Gross? Disgusting? Oh no? None of these capture the horror and revulsion that flesh-eating bacteria truly inspires.

So I didn't get my booties. But I got some words of wisdom. Was this of the "Surfing sucks, don't try it" school of advice? I don't think so. Because he did tell me that if I HAD to go, I should at least go north to Malibu. That way I would escape the Los Angeles sewer system swill that would eat my flesh, or at least put me at risk of a sinus infection, if I did choose to surf my usual beach tomorrow morning as planned.

But I think I will go swimming. In a pool. Instead.

This Week's Challenge...

2010-10-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

...The Common Cold.

I went out last weekend, excited to practice what I'd learned during my lesson. But I had a cold and, by Sunday, could barely bring myself to enter the water. Which I did anyway. Immediately, I got slammed down hard and had to admit that surfing is neither for the faint of heart nor the low of energy.

As much of a physical challenge as it is to be sick, the bigger challenge is always mental. Am I lazy? A quitter? Not committed? These questions always threaten to add insult to injury. With no coach to tell me if I'm well enough/not well enough, it's entirely up to me to determine how much or how little to exert. And it's a tempting and well-worn habit to question my own judgment.

Today I still have a cold. Instead of pushing/punishing myself further, I went swimming. It's been so hot that I've been swimming all week with the kids, but today was the first time I went alone. As much as I love water, I've never thought much of swimming. I've found it boring and monotonous, useful but thoroughly unexciting. I like it better now. Especially with my eyes closed. In the early morning. With almost no one around. And gorgeous cotton puffy clouds up above.

Plus I met another surfer in the pool: a Japanese American guy named Nori (like the seaweed). We talked surf spots. Every surfer I meet makes disparaging comments about my usual spot - the Venice Pier. It's a "short ride." It "closes down fast." And it's not the easiest spot to learn, because you either catch a wave or you miss it - with not a lot of time in between. Yadda yadda. Over time, I don't doubt, I will be changing regular surf spots. It's only a matter of time.

Nori got out of the pool before I did. My immediate reaction was to use it as proof that I'm tougher than he is. But then it occurred to me that if he'd stayed in longer than I had, I would have put myself down over it. And I would have been the same person, the same swimmer, the same surfer, either way. So I gave it up. It was nice to swim and it didn't mean a damn thing about me. Tough? Lazy? Quitter? Not committed?

That shit is starting to matter less and less to me. Thank God.

And Thank Gaius Maecenas. He invented the heated pool.

A Home in the World

2010-09-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, Brian and I were planning a move. We'd been in the same one-bedroom apartment for seven years. Where we'd once been two, we now were four. It was more than a bit of a squeeze. With the freedom to move wherever we wanted, I daydreamed about moving to the beach. But Brian, who hates unnecessary driving, vetoed moving anywhere that would make his daily commute too inconvenient. Marina del Rey was out of the question. So, rather than moving to the beach, we moved around the corner from where we'd been living all along - not a bad commute at all. For him.

Not long after the move, I was walking along the sand and it occurred to me. Whether or not we actually live here as a family, I thought, this can still be my home. And so I declared silently to myself - with no one to hear but invisible ears - I'm home.

I never felt at home in the world. I never felt at home with either of my extended families. Too Jewish. Too suburban. Too Puerto Rican. Too ghetto. Not at home with my peers, my school, my work.

But I was always at home by the water, in the water. I just didn't know it. Like Dorothy after a whirlwind and a concussion - there's no place like home. Knowing where home is makes it much easier to be everywhere else.

Letting Go

2010-09-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

I don't think of myself as a fearful person. I've done many things I consider courageous. If I can dare myself to so something, even if it takes a while, eventually I'll do it. But then there are those things I'm afraid of, that I'm SO afraid of, I don't even let myself know I'm afraid.

I had a really illuminating lesson on Sunday morning with Amanda from the 310 Surf Chics of L.A. At 8 a.m., the beach was completely socked in by fog. Yards away from the Santa Monica Pier, I could see only a faintly colored blur where the Ferris Wheel would normally be. But while the amusement park rides were barely visible, I was there because I wanted to be seen. I hadn't been improving on my own in the water and I needed a skilled observer to show me what I couldn't see.

So what did she see?

Comfortable in the water. Check. Comfortable on my board. Check. Able to follow directions? Catch a wave? Pop up on land to a squat from a prone position? Check. Able to let go of the board in the water? Unfortunately not.

Visualize a surfer. Grace and speed combine in one smooth movement from prone to standing as a wave gains power beneath her. Arms outstretched, she's balanced and powerful. Unless she's still holding on to her board for dear life.

I knew there was something "wrong" with my arms. I'd just thought maybe they were too short. Why else couldn't I get my legs through them when I tried to stand up? They're not too short. They were just rigidly gripping the sides of Big Mama Wave.

As Trinity said, "If a surfer doesn't let go of her board, she's gonna fall over." Actually, what she said was a lot more complicated than that, but that was the main idea. Trinity's watched "Barbie and a Mermaid's Tale" a lot lately - featuring Barbie as a surfer who also happens to be a Mermaid - and she's considering herself something of an expert on girl-surfing these days.

But I digress.

Amanda could tell me again and again to let go. And I could tell myself. I'm falling into the water every time I take off anyway, so what am I afraid of? It doesn't really make sense. But there it is.

The biggest flaw in my technique? Sub-conscious. Pre-verbal. Lizard-brained. Paralyzing. Terror.

I know I'll get over it. What I can't get over is how oblivious I've been to my own arms.

And so I conclude, it really pays to ask someone trustworthy, now and then, to point out that thing everyone else can see but is totally invisible to you. Especially if it's something that's really important to you.

Like surfing is to me :)

Looking for a Reason

2010-09-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

It was wintry cold when I got to the beach yesterday morning. So cold, my feet cramped up when I stepped into the water. Colder than usual for September - generally one of the hotter months of the year. But hot never came to Southern California this year...so I got cold instead. It was enough to make me reconsider - more deeply than ever before - that I may not have what it takes for this surfing thing.

Surfing in the summer, no problem. Even in the fog, it's still pretty warm. But surfing in the winter - I've heard the waves are better, but the weather? Not so much.

I have no need, like I once did, to prove myself macho and capable of "taking it like a man". Though I'm not always completely sure what it "means" to be a woman, it definitely doesn't mean I have to prove to all the men that I'm as "tough" as they are. I kept standing there. Looking for a reason. To go in. Or to stay out.

I stood on the brink for a long time. If I can stay in for thirty minutes, I told myself, that'll be enough. I went in. Not to impress anyone. It just would have felt wrong to turn around and go home.

In the water, I remembered a dream I'd had the night before. I stood in front of a mirror in a dance studio, practicing in pointe shoes. A master dancer stood outside the studio door. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't control a wobble in my ankle. I didn't want her to see my imperfect technique. I wanted to figure it out on my own.

I've figured out quite a bit during the last few weeks and months of surfing alone. I'm much more comfortable in the water. I understand waves and currents and tides with a new acuity. But there are vast imperfections I still can't figure out. The master stands outside the door. Let her in. Using the seventy-five dollars I'd squirreled away for "something special," I've scheduled a lesson for tomorrow morning.

Mother/Surfer/Laundress

2010-09-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon, I left a party mid-swing, picked up my surf gear at home and went to the beach. The conditions were terrible. I arrived at the lowest point of low tide. The water was barely a foot deep for yards, and the waves were but tiny little rippling mounds on the surface.

Feeling philosophical, I channeled my disappointment into a blog entry - which disappeared into the virtual ethers when seemingly both Blogger and my computer crashed. Then I was a little less philosophical. I got less philosophical when I didn't make it to the beach at all on Sunday.

I am becoming a "surfer." When I'm not in the waves, I'm either imagining that I am or planning when I next will be. This is not bad. Happiness is only four miles away on any given morning. That, in itself, is cause for happiness. Because I have so much more genuine happiness occurring, as well as more happiness to look forward to, I am, in general, happier.

And I know for a fact, I would not be homeschooling if I didn't have "Big Mama Wave" in my garage. Life would be too much "them" and not enough "me."

Which brings me to some more observations and questions about balance and other things. In the Surf movie "Sprout," the filmmakers visit board maker Tom Wegener and his family in Australia. Master craftsman Tom met his wife Margie when she was a morning radio DJ. She interviewed him for her station. It was love at first sight. Ten years and two kids later, they're still in love; we see a sweet and affectionate kiss. And then we see Margie - hanging up the laundry. Yes, we do.

Here's the observation: someone has to do the laundry, right?

Here's the question: what if a woman's life is shaped not only by her individual drive to be self-expressed, but by an inevitable, inescapable duty and responsibility towards the continuation of human life on planet earth and this includes - maybe - sometimes - in some situations - a lot of cooking, cleaning and doing laundry?

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Might be self-evident to some people. To me, this comes as a shocking possibility.

Balancing Acts

2010-09-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

As of last week, I am officially a home-schooler. Or, as of the moment I returned the call from La Ballona Elementary School and told the secretary that my daughter wouldn't be attending second grade. "Good luck" she said, when I shared my plan. Then I was officially a home-schooler.

Two weeks into being entirely responsible for the education for another human being, I am conscious that the discussion around education in contemporary society is based in anxiety. Anxiety about the future. Anxiety about the fact that the United States/the American Dream is not what it once was. Anxiety about how to survive. About how to live. About what a person needs to thrive. Anxiety about the absences or flaws in one's own life that one doesn't want to pass on to the next generation.

I am guilty of all of this.

I surf many mind-waves in the course of the average day. I take a deep breath and visualize a wave rolling up beneath my board, catching that wave and speeding towards shore with the force of the tide beneath me. During the good moments of teaching, my children are the wave and I can catch their force and ride it, too, in the right direction. Being with children, like being with water, is about being present.

But as a surfing instructor laid it out for me one day; surfing is a balance between surrender and the aggressive attack of something larger and more powerful than one's self. And such it is with children as well.

The unending question then, for both water and little humans, is when to be present and go with the flow and when to bring certainty, force and intention? When do I discipline my daughter to sit up straight, brush her teeth and do the things she doesn't want to do but are important, i.e. math? When do I nurture her inclination to dawdle around tree roots and speak in a quiet voice to insects and fish?

Which will help her more to thrive in an increasingly uncertain world? How do I get this thing to balance?

I Take Requests

2010-09-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

A friend recently asked me to recommend some books that had an influence on my spiritual development over the years.

Nothing immediately came to mind, other than the book that is most blowing my mind right now: "Raising your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. If you've got a child, or know a child, who seems unusually difficult but is really just extra sensitive, persistent, intense and slow to adapt, this book is for you. It may very well set your spirit at ease, as it has mine, and so, though it is technically a parenting book, it is also certainly a spiritual text.

Otherwise, these items came to mind as having had an early and profound influence on my journey:

"The Seven Story Mountain" by Thomas Merton
A Columbia University student, and carousing literary star in the making, finds the Catholic church and becomes a monk. He even gets a girl pregnant, though he leaves that part out. A compelling story of redemption, I first read this when I a senior in college, kept breaking up with my boyfriend and was longing for a more spiritually authentic life.

"Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook" by Ram Dass
There was a time when I didn't know how to meditate, when I didn't even know what meditation was. Amazing! This book was my introduction and a very useful one at that. I gave away my original copy to a friend, but I still remember it fondly. Anything by Ram Dass is entertaining, instructive and profound, whether you're reading his books or listening to him on audiotape. As he would say, he's not a guru, just a very human teacher.

“New Seeds of Contemplation” by Thomas Merton
My copy of this book lacks a front and a back cover. It is underlined and notated like crazy. Each chapter is around ten pages long and gives the reader something to think, pray and wonder about. Chapter headings include "What is contemplation?", "What contemplation is not", "Integrity" and "Faith." This stuff never gets old.

"The Perennial Philosophy" by Aldous Huxley
Huxley compares the words of mystics from the world over, finding commonalities in faith and insight. I read and reread it through college and graduate school and its pages, too, are covered with notations. It’s not an easy read and it surprises me today that I got so much out of it when I was so young. I may have been smarter then than I am now.

"Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" by Philip K. Dick
For those not familiar with Philip K. Dick's novels, but familiar with the movies inspired by them, these are not action stories. (This is a major pet peeve of mine about which I will say no more right now.) That said, this is a novel about lost identities, lost love, and the mysteries of our shared and un/shared realities.

These five books laid a foundation for the spiritual development of my early-adult years, and I will share many more in the future. What books/works of art have inspired you over the years, and how did they relate to your circumstances at at the time?

Life in the slow lane

2010-08-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

I went out twice this weekend and I can feel the progress being made. On Saturday I was having trouble popping up. Every time I caught a wave, I only made it to my knees. One of my mom/surf companions told me she'd practiced in slow motion til she got it right. On Sunday that's what I did. Took it really slow. Not only did I improve my technique but I realized how habitual it is for me to move quickly and how unnecessary that is. Slowing down caused me to have fun, to laugh more in the water and to have a better time in general.

On the waves isn't the only place I've been slowing down. Since starting to surf, I've also started taking some time during the afternoon to lay on my bed while the kids do something else. I don't read, I don't nap, I just lay there laying there. And then I make it through the day. I haven't had my own personal meltdown in months. I've come close, but there's been no blowing of mom's stack in recent memory. This is particularly impressive considering that, almost exactly a year ago, my temper had gotten so bad I feared I was a danger to my family.

We consulted a family therapist. Before dealing with any family, he said, he had to deal with the mom. After a few weeks, this is basically what he told me:

"You're a mom and nothing you've told me is out of the ordinary for a mom. You're a talented woman, a smart woman, but all you do all day is take care of your family. You need to do more."

And then he asked "If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be?"

And I said "Writing a book."

And he said "Don't come back until you've started writing."

And that was it. I'd been hoping for a more exotic diagnosis than "stay-at-home mom" but there it was. So I started writing.

And surfing.

And sleep training one of my kids for the first time since becoming a parent. Because I can't get up and surf dawn patrol if I have a toddler sleeping next to me, attached at the nipple and hysterically crying the moment I step out of bed, now can I? That would wake everyone up.

Sharing

2010-08-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

I received some beautiful feedback from my last post. I only wish I/people could figure out a simple/foolproof way to use the Blogger comments feature, so that I wasn't the only one in on the conversation.

To summarize briefly: my movie-going companion was inspired to go wind-surfing for the first time in, I think, a long time. She is also starting a blog. Another friend wrote that drumming is his way of connecting to something bigger. And Brian, my surfing instructor/husband clarified this weekend that he too is simultaneously seeking to "find himself" and claim a distinct spiritual path.

This made me wonder:

Is there a difference between cultivating joy and pursuing a spiritual path? Between "finding oneself" and finding the divine?

What is a spiritual journey in the first place? And what are the spiritual traveler's equivalents to a ticket, a backpack, a map and a good pair of walking shoes?

Does the spiritual "journey" ever end? What is gained at the conclusion of a spiritual "quest"? And isn't every "path," ultimately a spiritual one?

I am, of course, not the inventor of these questions. If I were, well, at the very least there would be no such thing as The University of Chicago Divinity School - of which I am a graduate. And about which I will be very tactful and say very little.

I will say this...the spiritual endeavor ("endeavor" being one of my favorite words and "endeavors" being some of my favorite things) is all about the discovery of these questions and not necessarily the finding of definitive answers. Or rather, while we may find answers that suit us for a while, if we are alive, we may find, equally, that the answers change with time and mileage.

I am not a newbie to the spiritual questing thing. It may have taken decades for me to give a name to the way in which I live my life - my "lifestyle" - but it has always been characterized by an overwhelming drive for wisdom of a deep, enduring and useful kind.

In its current manifestation, my spiritual quest is not only about surfing and water spirits, and it is not about writing for my own amusement. It is also about sharing my experiences with the intention that each failure, success and musing may touch someone and inspire him or her to ask and seek answers to their own authentic questions.

Surf, Eat, Pray, Love, Whatever...

2010-08-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting much lately. What I have been doing is nitpicking myself like crazy over tone and content and, in the process, forgetting why I started this project in the first place. Today I went to see Eat, Love, Pray and, thankfully, was reminded.

Modern life (at least here in L.A.) is a post-apocalyptic, globally warmed, technological ordeal - definitely not nurturing to spiritual equanimity, restful contemplation or, dare I say it, bliss. Add parenting to the mix, and it presents a recipe for rampant mental dis-ease, and a deep, deep cultural appetite for anti-depressants and other mood stabilizers/enhancers.

Admittedly, there are those of us who are blessed enough, through our own determination, inheritances, or luck, to be daily "living the dream." But for those of us stuck managing the crap that passes for daily life in a constant struggle to just get by...the desire for escape can be a pretty constant thing.

In fact, after watching Eat, Pray, Love, my viewing companion, an astute, married, mother of two, asked: "Doesn't everyone want to run away? Like all the time?” Then added indignantly “But you can't just do that! Not with kids."

Which is why I started this particular project. Julie Powell hated her government job and needed some meaning in her life - so she found Julia Child. Divorced and at loose ends, Elizabeth Gilbert found meditation and Bali. But neither of them had to do their thing while simultaneously nursing, changing diapers, scheduling playdates, home schooling and generally caring for a family. By omitting just those particular tasks from their daily to-do lists, in fact, they gave themselves quite a transformational leg up on us equally desperate and spiritually thirsty breeders.

That said…

I started surfing as a personal quest. I started surfing because I was going to go even more crazy than I already was if I didn't do...something. I started surfing because I looked at Elizabeth Gilbert with envy but didn’t feel desperate enough to abandon my family. I started surfing because it seemed, and still seems, kind of impossible - just the kind of thing that could prompt a profound spiritual transformation.

I started surfing because I wanted other people to know that just because you’re married and have children, or are imprisoned, or disabled, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have your own spiritual quest right in your own backyard. Elizabeth traveled because she was already a world traveler. Julie - already a cook. Surfing is not a possibility for everyone, but for me…the Pacific Ocean is four miles from my driveway.

Everyone has something.

Life is full of easy excuses for not finding oneself, for not finding bliss. And instead of looking within themselves, a lot of people are conveniently pointing fingers at Elizabeth Gilbert and the impossibility of her journey for the average person. But as Andrew O’Hehir said in his review of the movie for salon.com:

"Eat, Pray, Love" is a minor and superficial summer diversion that offers female viewers not much more than a two-hour escape fantasy, but that's not a crime. The fact that we find it almost impossible to talk seriously about the pervasive emotional or spiritual or psychological yearning that a story like this represents -- that's a bigger problem.”

So I’m here to talk about the yearning - and about the journey: its despair, its highs, its lows. I've been wondering which areas of my life are off limits to this adventure, but I see now that it’s all of the piece. I started surfing because I sensed that there was no area of my life that it wouldn't impact and I think I was right about that.

I started surfing because I thought it would make me instantly mellower and more happy. In that I was wrong. Since surfing, I'm perhaps even more disgruntled than I was before.

But therein lies the tale.

I am surfing...

2010-08-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

I am praying. I am loving.
I am writing. I am reading. A lot.

I just finished Shaun Tomson's book "Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life."

As a human being, Shaun Tomson doesn't floor me the way Gerry Lopez does, but humility isn't really his thing the way it is for Gerry. When Gerry Lopez tells a story, he's so authentically present to every detail, every person, every other point of view, everything, period - that he disappears and what's left is a simple truth. Shaun's book feels more about Shaun. But that's okay. He was world champion many times - and he has valuable lessons to impart.

At the beach yesterday, I focused on Lesson 8" "I will always ride into shore." It was tempting for me to ignore this lesson because I don't do much "riding" still. But the deeper meaning Shaun gives to this lesson is the importance of doing complete work. If you go surfing, finish strong, surf out. Don't let your session fade away and just decide you're gonna paddle in for whatever reason. Wait for that last wave and give it your all, even though you're leaving for home.

So I did it. I waited for that last wave. It was a tiny little thing. Just right for me. And it delivered me right to the shore, like a cute little wet-suited package.

The Mamas Surf and The Mamas Sit

2010-08-06T22:20:00.000-07:00

In the past year or so, I've noticed something.

If I've committed to something and am in the car, on my way to doing it, and I start thinking that I want to turn back and go home - I'm doing the right thing.

If I start thinking there's nothing in it for me, the reverse will be true.

And if I suspect an upcoming experience will be boring and pointless, most likely it will be very important and fulfilling.

The reverse of that quiet inner voice of intuition - it's the booming and convincing voice of self-sabotage. Why that is I can't say.

I can only say that I dragged my feet to the beach on Friday for the kick-off meeting of surf mamas at Venice Beach and considered blowing it off continually - until I got there. And then I was very happy I went.

Four moms showed up, and one dad. Plus three little girls and Ashton. Two moms brought their boards and it was clear - this thing is gonna work.

There's even a picture.

Enjoy.

STANDING UP

2010-08-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been watching surf videos but not enjoying them as much as I’d expected. While they're certainly easy on the eyes, there isn’t much connection between the pro surfing onscreen and surfing as I've experienced it so far. Because most shots depict surfers already upright on their boards, there are few visual cues as to how they got up there in the first place.

And, right now, getting up there in the first place is what I'm all about.

Fortunately, this weekend, our good friends were staying over and agreed to watch the kids while Brian took me to the beach for an actual, bona fide, one-on-one, 8:30-in-the-morning-before-the- wind-blows-out-the-waves, lesson.

With a divine and glassy surf before us, Brian worked with me for about forty minutes on the proper way to go from lying on my stomach to standing on my board.

If there's anything I can't stand, it's doing something wrong and not knowing exactly how I'm doing it wrong. From dancing, I know that, without feedback from someone more experienced, a beginner at anything can get stuck developing bad habits. And given the clumsiness of my previous attempts at standing on my board, I've known I was doing something very, very wrong.

It turns out I was habitually shifting my weight to the rear. Popping up this way on a board that’s about to barrel down the face of a cresting wave automatically throws a person off-balance and “over the falls.” It took a lot of tries but, ultimately, I got the correct position with my weight on the front foot. As soon as I did, my body felt much more “surfer-like” – as if there was an invisible template carved by millions of surfers over time and I’d finally made the fit.

Surfboards are a lot more wobbly than they look, so popping up in the water is obviously a greater challenge than on dry sand.

There is, however, a sensation of solidity that occurs when you’re in the right position to catch a wave that makes it easier to pop up at that moment than at any other time. The mush of the water’s surface disappears and it feels almost as if you’re on solid ground – but better. The force of the wave pushes you upwards, encouraging you to stand and practically doing half the work for you. The wobbliness disappears and the potential materializes, even for me, even if only for a moment, for oneness between rider and board.

That said, I still haven’t made it all the way up - but I did make it to my knees, which is more upright than I’d gotten before.

Pray

2010-07-26T00:12:00.000-07:00

It's been exactly a month since Trinity lost her footing and almost drowned in the pool. Later that day, my mother-in-law gave me a reading with Doreen Virtue's Ascended Master cards.

From the readings, I remember two things; the final card indicated the importance of Crystals in my life and, above all else, I am being guided by Mother Mary.

Since then, the lovely Mama who has taken over leadership of my Surfing Meetup is named Crystal AND I have developed a practice of praying to Mother Mary. I've also been wearing the Mary and Jesus medal my mother gave me a while ago. Mary faces outward, so when I kiss my medal (which I do surprisingly often), I am kissing her sweet face.

Though I have an affinity for a few things Catholic (i.e. Thomas Merton, Teresa of Avila and, now, Mother Mary), I am, in no way, a Catholic. It is, therefore, an utterly unprecedented result of surfing that I am now wearing a Catholic Mary and Jesus medal and praying to Mother Mary every night as I put Ashton to sleep in his own little bed.

According to the Catholics, there are five main kinds of prayer - Adoration, Expiation, Love, Petition and Thanksgiving - and all five have been passing my lips in the last month. Without my telling you, you can probably guess which prayer the serious mystics and theologians have least regard for:

Adoration (with a little petition thrown in ) - Mother Mary, Mother Mary, Mother Mary, your compassion is so great, your grace so beautiful, your love so unending. Let your heart shine in mine, let your spirit illuminate my spirit.

Expiation (also with a little petition thrown in) - Mother Mary, Mother Mary, Mother Mary, I am so sorry that I am impatient, quick to anger, and so resistant to seeing the blessings in my life. Please forgive me and make me feel whole, so that love guides my every thought, word and action.

Love - an act of charity is a prayer of love. This week I gave five dollars to a guy who said he'd run out of gas. Did he really? That's not my business, Mother Mary would say. So would Caroline Myss, by the way. Check out Invisible Acts of Power, if you're curious about the prayer that is generosity.

Petition - Mother Mary, Mother Mary, Mother Mary. I want to surf. I want to write my book. I want to be happy. I want red curtains and a coordinated bedroom set. Please, Mother Mary, please light the way so I can experience those things in life I want. Please Mother Mary, give me an understanding of desire, give me the experience of wanting without guilt or shame. Please give me the experience of achieving what I desire. Please Mother Mary. Please. Please. Please.

Thanksgiving - Mother Mary, I have so much gratitude for your blessings and your grace. Thank you so much for listening to my prayers. Thank you for my beautiful life, for my beautiful children and my beautiful husband. For all that we have and strive to share. Thank you Mother Mary for all the blessings and graces to which I am blind, but which you know so well. Thank you, Mother Mary. Thank you for everything.

And thank you, dear readers, and to all a good night.

Repeat: Community organizing is not surfing...

2010-07-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

Starting a business about surfing is not surfing. Spending hours writing and responding to emails about surfing is not surfing. Organizing a Meetup group about surfing is not surfing...

My pride is a little wounded. I had what I thought was a great idea. Get moms together. Swap hours babysitting. Be a leader. Maybe even make some money doing it. Hey, it would be like being a professional surfer. I'd go to the beach and come back not only with sand in my pockets, but money too. What could be wrong with that?

My spirit guides did not like the idea.

For some reason, I thought that maybe if I committed more...got myself in a little deeper, they'd see the wisdom in it. They'd change their tune and start cheering from the celestial bleachers. But no... Their displeasure only got louder. Then, when I told my husband and friends, they said things like "I'm with the spirit guides. They have a point."

These people who love me know this: it's far easier for me to over-commit and use it as an excuse for not doing well, than to stay the course and do the one thing I originally intended to do.

So while it felt brilliant and new and maybe like "the great idea that will make me a million" - organizing moms to surf and babysit on the beach was more like everything else I've ever stretched myself too thin to do. A good idea, maybe, but not for me.

So, simplicity wins the day.

As does the realization that, until now, I'd never learned the important skill of gracefully withdrawing when I was in over my head. Last night, after making this momentous decision, I dreamed I was crying with joy. I stood on the beach at the Jersey Shore saying "I just love it here so much."

Some time recently I said "all I want is to surf, write my book and educate my children." And, I confess, I haven't been in the water for two weeks.

So Much to Say

2010-07-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

My experiences with water and surfing have been so varied and intense lately, I’ve found it unusually hard to express myself in writing. My book about surfing hums along, but encapsulating it in concise blog posts has gotten increasingly difficult.

Do I write about what I've been learning about water? Do I write about how I’ve become enthralled with Gerry Lopez’s book “Surf Is Where You Find It”? Discuss the relative merits of the seemingly countless surf videos I’ve been watching? As an avid movie fan, I can say, nothing beats Jack Johnson’s “Thicker Than Water”.

Then there are my solitary adventures late at night in front of the computer, exploring the world of surfing and mommy blogs. Except for here, by the way, those twain never do meet. The blogosphere is a big place and while I'm learning about channels and tides, I'm also learning about monetization and RSS feeds.

Going into this endeavor, my intentions were many, not the least of which was to transform my life – and yes, my life already feels transformed.

This morning, I met with a seasoned surf instructor to work out the details for a proposed childcare/mama’s surf lesson swap I’m designing. Some moms surf, some watch the kids. Other moms surf, other moms watch. Period. Very simple. We’ll see who shows up. A friend turned me on to a networking site designed around this very concept but, unlike my idea, that one doesn't come with lessons (surfmamas.com).

I’ve become a go-to source for absolute beginners. People refer their surfer-wannabe friends and family members to me. Which is ironic. I do not know how to surf. But one friend said to me “If you can do it, then so can I.” It was meant well, though, she remarked, it could have been taken otherwise.

Other moms want to surf – if not for those darn kids! And yet, I wouldn’t be here if not for them. I would be somewhere. But not here. Happy Birthday Ashton. You’re two today.

My favorite instructor

2010-07-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

Went out a few times last week. Did a lot of falling on my butt. But realized something really great. I love my instructor. I really do. He's patient and has a lot of wisdom about the whole surfing experience. He grew up on the beach and, in fact, is teaching me to surf the way he learned, way back when he was nine.

The other day, he showed me how to shove my board across the water, run to catch up with it and jump on it while it's still moving. This is how he learned to balance on a board. And so did I, that day.

He's also had a typically zen approach to what I've thought was my slow progress. In his eyes, there's no way I won't become the surfer I want to be. It might take months. It might take years. But since all I need is time, and all I have is time, there's no doubt it'll eventually happen. You can't rush these things and as long as I keep getting to the beach, strapping the board atop my wagon, I will improve, little by little. And, in fact, sometimes I may even make great leaps. As long as I don't quit. And he told me, point blank, he won't let me do that.

So, here's to my surfing instructor. Isn't he handsome? He even stayed home with the kids this weekend while I went to Santa Barbara and partied. I love you, honey.

Mom surfs! At Mother’s Beach!

2010-07-02T18:09:00.001-07:00

Originally the plan was for three families to get together at the beach in Marina del Rey. At the last minute, one family canceled, leaving me with one other mom and four kids. It wasn't looking good for me to get any time in the waves.

Brian, life-long Westsider, suggested Mother's Beach. I could take the board out in the shallow water, practice standing up, and watch the kids at the same time. Sort of.

I was dubious. But I knew enough to agree that, these days, just putting my board on the rack is a victory for my surfing commitment. So my friend Alicia and me packed the cars with kids and equipment and headed to LA's calmest and little-kid-friendliest beach.

After snacking, lunching, baby minding and some iced mocha drinking, I made it to the water. Initially, practice did not make perfect. Popping up from a paddling position still threw me off balance and onto my ass. Standing up directly onto the board? That worked better. And I figured out a few things - bend the knees and look straight ahead, not down.

After a few rounds of that, I WAS able to pop up from the paddling position. A triumph. I cheered. The kids cheered. Ashton cheered. "Mama surfs!" In fact, mama did surf. It was the world's tiniest wave, but I surfed it to shore. Standing up.

I spent the rest of the time taking the kids out on my board. I dragged them around by the leash. Trinity paddled. Wyett and Ashton posed like little Big-Wave men. It felt like the most natural thing in the world and took me completely by surprise. Me, mom, Jes, channeling surf-camp-counselor-for-kids and loving it. It was great.

After shocks...

2010-06-29T17:12:00.001-07:00

I was just sitting there. Then I dove into a pool in the blink of an eye and hauled her out, like it was the most normal thing in the world to do. She's fine. I'm still a little dazed.

On a daily basis, I am hard on myself. Even in the most invisible ways. I "strive" not to be. I know the value of being self-accepting and self-loving. But I forget all the time. And yet, there's no way I could criticize my behavior on Saturday. In fact, I've had to acknowledge myself for having done the right thing - which feels strange and unfamiliar. Parenting is usually so filled with doubt.

The only lingering question I've had is "was she really drowning?"

Then I read this. Please read it too. It's an article about what drowning looks like. It doesn't look like it does in the movies - there is no shouting, no flailing arms. It's more surreal, quiet and simple than that. There is no talking. There is no splashing. Just a little bobbing. And some strange seeming head movements. It can happen while you're watching, because it may look like nothing is happening at all.

Yes, she really was drowning. And I saved her. Thank me. And thank Mother Mary, to whom I've lately been offering many thanks and just as many requests.

2010-06-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

I have ads on my blog now. It's called "monetization." If this annoys you, I apologize. I'm experimenting with the cost/benefit analysis. We shall see.

The Mystery of Water

2010-06-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Brian, his sister Lila and his Mom were hanging in the house while Trinity and I played in the pool. We were spending the day at the home of Lila's friend in Escondido.

Five years ago, Trinity was learning to swim at our local Culver City pool. Midway through the summer, she developed chronic rashes for the first time and swimming in chlorinated pools became a no-no. Any contact between her skin and water was painful for months, and it took years for her to become enthusiastic again about baths, pools or the ocean.

Last summer, she was learning to swim again after all those years. And yesterday was the first time she'd gotten in the water in months. And she almost drowned.

I was sitting on a pool chair, wrapped in a towel. She was hopping around in the shallow end, testing herself to see how far she could go. And she went too far.

I've wondered, in the past, how quickly I would act if one of my children was in danger. Yesterday, I got an answer. I dove in, still wrapped in a towel, and hauled her out. The part that surprised me the most was how completely my body remembered the life-saving training I'd had to take when I was at camp almost thirty years ago - and how completely I remembered that the most important thing is to avoid being dragged down by the person you're saving.

The mystery of water? Thirty seconds after it happened, we were safe.

Something similar happened last summer. The day we returned from vacation, Ashton fell in a bathtub full of water. Both times I was left appreciating the fragility and beauty of my children's lives, and grateful I was there for them.

But otherwise, I have no profound words of wisdom from the experience. Perhaps just that life goes on - crisis averted. Thank God.

Open letter to Disney...

2010-06-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

Dear folks at Disney,

You rule. I was just at your place today - at one of those anonymous looking buildings in Glendale where the Imagineers toil, creating incredible inventions to inspire fun and good times. This is where the happiness is created: the happiness that happens at The Happiest Place(s) on earth.

Trinity and a bunch of kids were busy testing a new invention for you while I took a look around. Every single person who walked through those doors was simultaneously brilliant looking, absolutely creative AND probably drives a Prius. And something occurred to me.

If anyone can fix that hole in the Gulf, YOU GUYS CAN DO IT!

So come on, Disney people. I know you're just like me. You went to good schools, you're artsy, you have kids (or are planning on having them) and you've been trained by the Disney machine to be outrageously inventive. I know, because I once worked for an Imagineer and he blew my mind every single day.

Those government people are blowing it. Never mind the ones over at BP. Too much bureaucracy. Too much to lose. But you - video game designers, computer generated animators, amusement park ride engineers, editors, designers, illustrators, professional inventors and software peeps - YOU CAN DO IT!

I know you can be heroes. So take me up on my challenge. Get playing! That's how the genius happens.

Love
jes

Saltwater on the Brain

2010-06-21T19:17:00.001-07:00

Saturday morning I was dying to get out, but I didn't make it to the beach until late afternoon. The sun was starting to go down and I was having some doubts. Even after Brian and I packed the kids into the surf wagon and drove west, it felt like it wasn't going to happen.

Arriving at the beach, I was not encouraged. Wind was whipping every which way and the beach was one set of crumbly whitecaps after another. The surf did not look kind, or blissful or welcoming. There was no one else in, and I felt like a fool, both stupid and courageous, as I pulled on my wet suit while every one else walked past me: leaving the beach.

I stood at the edge of the water, board under one arm. I stared out at the horizon. I imagined I looked as if I was constructing a strategy for riding in the stormy peaks, but really I was thinking "Oh shit." I walked in.

As soon as I did, it felt good to be enveloped by the swooshing tide. I wondered where this wet suit had been all my life and how I could have gone this long without it.

I also thought that waves without a board are like peanut butter without jelly, shoes without laces, me without you. Sex without the lube. I've been body surfing my whole life, from New Jersey to Puerto Rico to Florida to L.A., and I've just been wasting my time. Waves without a board! There's no way to engage, no way to use one's feel for the timing, the size or the rhythm of the swells. I may have been wasting my time - but no longer!

I paddled in - a salmon upstream. Ridiculous. Waves pummeled my face, some I swam over, some I dove under. Wave after wave after wave after wave, few really deserving of the name "wave" since they were really just the water's natural reaction to all that wind.

Fortunately, there was one other surfer south of me. He wasn't paddling. Instead he stood chest high in his short sleeved spring suit watching the water. Whenever he saw a wave he liked coming his way, he would turn around and catch it . Thanks to that guy's example, I saved myself a lot of breath and effort and stopped trying to swim against the tide. And I caught two waves.

The first one left me with a runaway smile so wide across my face, I couldn't stop it even when I tried. The second one... Well, without even time to consider popping up, the force of the water shot me forward across the top of my board like a freakin' torpedo and, whoosh, I was under.

It was dark and still and perfectly calm. I was under so long, I had time to be surprised at how blissful I felt. Everything was perfectly slow and I hadn't a fear in the world. Every wipe-out should be like this, I thought, and decided to come up for air.

Not long after that, I came ashore. I hadn't been in long. But I got extra points for having gone in at all. When I got out, my head was full of saltwater. But the runaway smile was still there.

Afterwards, one of the best parts was peeling off my suit and putting my board back on the rack. I felt like a surfer and as if no one who walked by could know that I hadn't known what the hell I was doing and that this was only my fourth "first time ever."

It was great. And I've still got the saltwater in my head as a congested souvenir.

p.s. as soon as I get my camera back up and running, I promise, KT, there WILL be pictures.

Beginners Mind

2010-06-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

Just did my daily yoga session which now concludes with some practice pop-ups as recommended by my buddy Rich. I'm still in that stuck place not getting out as much as I'd like, but there's light at the end of this short tunnel.

I've been reading a book called Surf Divas, written by two sisters who run Surf Diva Surf School in San Diego. It's cute and sweet and encouraging of all sisters to get down and learn to surf. Of course, it's also geared towards sisters who want to pick up cute guys and go shopping. I don't really relate to that these days but hey...to each surfer chick her own, right?

The more I tell people about my fledgling attempts to ride the waves, the more I hear from other people, women especially, how they are dying to learn to surf and want to come out with me. From what I am learning, it's the eternal irony. On the one hand, it's great to turn people on to surfing. On the other hand, there are only so many waves and breaks, and the more people out there, the fewer waves there are for each person (or so it seems?). Hence those bumper stickers you may have seen that say "Surfing Sucks, Don't Try It."

As soon as I moved to LA in 1997, I expressed the desire to surf to some locals. One, a female friend who grew up near a heavy local scene in the South Bay, warned me that I'd get my ass kicked if I even tried surfing locally. Another, a smoking hot writer/surfer dude friend of mine, warned me that surfing was definitely not for girls and that I'd never be strong enough to do it. ("Surfing Sucks, Don't Try It.")

As luck had it, though, an old friend from the east coast had moved to the Bay Area and become a NorCal surfer (where the water is COLD). Crazy! He's a Jew from the Upper West Side. If he could surf, damn it, then so could I. My first year in LA, he came for a visit with two surfing friends and they took me out in Malibu.

Three things stand out from the experience.
1) I wasn't wearing waterproof sunscreen. It got in my eyes and I was blinded by stinging pain. 2) I peed in his friend's wetsuit and worried about it all afternoon.
3) I caught a wave.

Oh, and one more thing...one of his friends was a girl. Take that, LA surfer dude!

Then during Labor Day Weekend of 2007, I got to go out again at a friend's beach house in Carpinteria. I spent so much time paddling, though, that when it came time to pop up, my arms were limp from exhaustion. Ah, well. I was excited enough to promise myself I'd spend the summer of 2008 learning to surf.

BUT I HAD A BABY INSTEAD! Go figure.

So here I am, making up for lost time. But just today, when I was practicing my amateur pop-ups, I had this thought - I've been doing yoga for 21 years.

I'm not a yoga instructor and I'm not a yoga champion. But I've got a pretty good Warrior 2, and my Lotus pose is sweet. I can lay down my mat pretty much anywhere and anytime and do some sun salutations. Yoga is as much a part of me as cooking and working and writing and everything else I've been doing since I was 19 and becoming an adult.

And yet, I still remember one of my first yoga classes. It was not pretty (like the eggplant parmigiana I baked for my boyfriend in 1990). But I didn't focus on how good or bad I (or it) was. I just liked it. I liked how it made me feel during my practice and especially afterwards. I liked going to yoga class with friends and having a good meal afterwards. And, back when I was a regular at Bryan Kest's Power Yoga Studio in Santa Moncia, I liked standing in line on Santa Monica Boulevard, waiting for the previous class to get out.

So, yeah, I'm a beginner and remembering why, so often, I avoid doing anything I'm not already good at. But I'm also experiencing the wonder of doing something new that I'm not already good that. As the famous Zen Monk Shunryo Suzuki-Roshi wrote: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few".

So here's to possibilities.

The Heroine's Journey

2010-06-12T23:13:00.000-07:00

It’s just occurring to me what I’m really up to.

I declared it at the beginning of this adventure, but the challenge is just hitting me now. I’m married. I’m the mother of two young children. I don’t have “help.” And I’m claiming some time for myself. I’m claiming a portion of life that’s not about being a wife or a mom, but about being human.

I’ve been struggling the last few days - berating myself for how “slowly” my progress as a newbie-surfer seems to be going. Planning my daughter’s seventh birthday festivities and dealing with a teething toddler who gnaws on me all night can make surfing seem irrelevant and the ocean seem very far away.

Which reminds me that Elizabeth Gilbert’s adventures in “Eat, Pray, Love” touched the nerve they did because they fulfilled such a common fantasy. Cut loose by divorce and heartbreak, untethered by responsibility and commitment, the author was free to seek herself and her spirit.

But I am tethered.

Before the delusion of surfing entered my life, I was writing a different book all together. Inspired not by a woman who got an advance to eat gelato and fall in love, but by men like Nelson Mandela and Gandhi - I was writing a prison memoir. Stuck in a cell, they managed to cultivate love, passion and spirit not despite their circumstances but because of them. Stuck in my metaphorical cell, perhaps I could do the same.

(Note: Before I go any further, let me say that I may be a drama queen for complaining about being a mother. And if so, so be it - you can stop reading here.)

As a writer and a thinker (and a spiritual person having a human experience) I have struggled to recognize myself in the vast majority of what I read about motherhood. I appreciate the humor and camaraderie of some mommy-blogs (ie. FreeRangeKids and Laundry For Six ), occasionally enjoy the spirituality of those wacky Christian-home-schoolers and respect that Ayelet Waldman named her parenting memoir “Bad Mother.” But nothing I’ve read has captured my existential agony while simultaneously celebrating the possibility of spiritual liberation inherent in it.

And yet…a couple of weeks ago, Brian showed me a document compiled by some women at the Mount Saint Mary’s College English Department. It’s a chart comparing the hero’s journey as lived by a man and as lived by a woman. And what do you know? They entitled Part 1 “Imprisonment in a domestic environment.”

Which made me think, drama queen or not, I may be on to something. After all, if a woman must be imprisoned in order to become a heroine, then she can't even start on her journey until she names her cage. So whether I'm hammering my way out using my surfboard as a pick axe, or simply meditating on the oneness while confined to close quarters, this must be the journey, and I must be a heroine in the making.

Glutton for Punishment?

2010-06-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I realized I was tired. I thought something was wrong. I felt depressed and void of energy. It took some explaining to my mother-in-law Doris to realize that I’m just a wee bit exhausted.

Simultaneous to my declaration of a year of surf and ocean worship has come the choice to home school Trinity for second grade. This has brought an entirely new learning curve into my life at the moment I thought I could exhale and do some learning just for me. I’ve tried to avoid changing Trinity’s school for two years. Her school has offered a lot, and she hasn’t totally hated it. But there have been some problems that have not been going away: that her teacher informed me were getting worse. A couple of weeks ago, we finally had to admit the shit had hit the fan.

This is not a small decision, but it’s been supported by a child psychologist we really like. We went to her, somewhat desperate, but finally feeling smart about asking a professional to help us determine whether our daughter is troubled or just trying to tell us something. Before the first meeting was over, I’d made peace with the fact that Trinity is gifted and needs an enriched environment. I immediately started looking into schools with gifted programs only to discover that it was too late in the year to register her anywhere for September: hence the plan to home school for one year in preparation for third grade in a new school.

It’s been scary, exciting, daunting. It’s felt courageous and possibly foolish. And yet, I have to say, when I look over my entire life, “courageous and possibly foolish” has characterized a lot of what I’ve done over the years. Taking the subway an hour each way to go to high school downtown when I could have gone to an excellent school in my own neighborhood. Being raised in the Bronx and going to a swanky college. Moving from Chicago to LA with nothing but a Visa card and a Toyota Corolla.

Maybe “foolish” isn’t even the right word. Maybe what has characterized some of my most exciting adventures has been a great expenditure of energy. I have not taken the path of least resistance but rather the path that has required the most of me. Time and again, I have made the uneasy choice that has caused me to curse and shout and want to quit. I've made the choice that has stretched me to my limits, broken me down and put me back together in a new and (I hope) improved way.

Independent filmmaker - check. Marriage to spiritual artist guy – check. Home birth - check. Stay-at-home-parent - check. Put child on gluten-free, dairy-free diet. Raise family on one modest income. Drive thirty year old car. Learn to surf at forty. Home school second grader with toddler underfoot.

All while being an extremely serious person who often thinks that something has gone very, very wrong and who can have a very hard time laughing at the absurdity of it all. You could say I’m a glutton for punishment. Or that my life has never been boring.

But here's something I haven't mentioned before - I've been closely reading my cards this whole time. And they, the cards and hence the spirits, say go, go, go!

The Learning Curve

2010-06-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

I didn’t blog last week. I got self-conscious because I’ve only gone surfing once so far, and didn’t even catch a wave. All I did was paddle out to the line-up and pray nobody was mean to me. Still, it felt like a big accomplishment.

I got my period the next day, for the first time in two and a half years. I got self-conscious writing about that too. Truthfully, I did write about it. I just didn’t post it. I was afraid it would make me seem too feminist-goddessy. In fact, after it happened, I had to admit that I am feminist-goddessy – as are all women – and that was so potentially life-altering, I’m still in denial about it.

All in all, in not posting to this blog last week, I realized how many layers there are to this project/ blog/ baby-book I’m gestating. Yes, it’s about surfing. So there’s that to write about: the culture and sport, the people, the history, the art. And it’s about Prayer. And it’s about Love. But it’s also about the process of learning something new, and overcoming all those awkward self-conscious moments of being completely inexperienced and clumsy and having no idea what I’m doing.

Like a child, I had the idea that I could say I was going to start surfing and presto, I’d be a surfer. And then, there I was, with a board and a suit, realizing that a. I didn’t know how to load my surfboard “Big Mama Wave” onto the rack that Brian installed for me and b. I was afraid to drive the 1980 Mercedes diesel surf wagon.

So, Saturday, feeling overwhelmed, rushed and unlikely to get to the beach, Brian gave me a lesson in putting the board on the rack. It wasn’t hard at all. There was just the matter of first tossing bungee-cord #1 over the roof and pulling it over to the other side, and then doing the same with bungee-cord #2.

Kind of.

Bungee-cord #1 is not as wide as the roof, so I had to stretch really hard to reach it until Brian invented my bungee-cord-reacher: a piece of orange ribbon, attached to bungee-cord #1, that reaches across the whole length of the roof and is easy to grab. Bungee-cord #2, on the other hand, was much wider than the roof. After experimenting with wrapping the excess around the board, and then wrapping it around the rack, Brian cut it so it matched #1. And that was Saturday’s surf lesson.

That and driving the surf wagon around the corner to The Metro Diner where I ordered a double espresso.

The surf wagon, aka “Smoky” is old and beat up and lacks an accelerator pedal. To gas it up, you have to press your foot on a metal rod sticking up from the floor. I used to drive this car every day. It was our bio-diesel machine, back when bio-diesel looked like a plausible option. It’s smelly and kind of gross, but that’s good because I’m not too worried about getting it filled with sand and beach water. Unfortunately, however, unless we convert it to vegetable oil (for about six hundred dollars) it’s not environmentally friendly. Vegetable oil conversion is on the wish list. As are automatic windows that work and a new toddler seat, so I don’t have to switch Ashton’s big-ass seat from the Honda to the wagon every time I want to go surfing. And then switch it back.

In my fantasies, I live in an apartment or a house right on the sand. I look out my window and see the waves coming in. I grab my board while the kids are still asleep and run across the beach into the water as the sun rises. For now, the reality is far different.

My first Surf movie...

2010-05-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

It's a rainy day, so Ashton and I canceled our trip to the park to meet some local Moms I connected with on Meetup.org. Meetup.org, by the way,is awesome. One of the best uses of the internet.

Last week, I'd gotten "Heart," my first Surf DVD, from Netflix. I'd put it on twice before today, but kept getting interrupted by children. Big surprise. Before sending it back, mostly unwatched, I thought I'd try again. I spread toys all over the living room floor for Ashton, and started to watch. Toys didn't interest him for long, but waves did, so he snuggled on my lap, and we watched it together. Nice. Much nicer than yesterday. Especially since he eventually started nursing and fell asleep. Yay, nap time!

This wasn't really my first surf DVD, entirely. About ten years ago, I used to edit extreme sports DVDs, and cut a lot of surf footage. Editing extreme sports videos was my favorite job ever, besides waitressing, and it turned me on to mountain biking. Which turned me on to my husband and...here we are, ten years later. I haven't mountain biked in almost seven years, I have two kids, and I'm watching a surf DVD.

So here's the scoop on "Heart." A bunch of women take a surfing trip around Australia. Some ride long boards. Some ride short boards. Some ride both. Most are blonde. Except Prue Jeffries, who is the most excellent rider of them all. Yay, brunettes. I thought I might be biased due to her dark hair, but when I looked her up on the web, I discovered that, alas, Prue is normally blonde too. And she's still my new favorite surfer. My favorite surfer used to be Laird Hamilton, but that's like saying your favorite cyclist is Lance Armstrong.

A little more about Laird, though. He cried in the footage I edited. Yes, a giant, thick necked, big wave surfer, was crying on-camera in footage I cut. BECAUSE HE LOVED HIS WIFE AND BABY SO MUCH! Okay, so he's not just a great surfer. He seems like a great guy.

But about Prue...When she surfs, she uses her whole body magnificently, winding up her back arm to give her momentum every time she carves a wave. Awesome core strength, something to shoot for - a beautiful image to keep in my head. The other women were all good, though I wasn't into the nose riding, which is when the surfer balances on the tip of a long board. Maybe over time, I'll come round, but I prefer watching short boarding. It's fast, curvy and exciting. Like a sports car.

The women in "Heart" drive around in an RV, do laundry, drink coffee, and surf. At the end, one of them says she loved the trip because she spends most of her time around guys. Strangely enough, one of the women at my surf-yoga class two weeks ago said the exact same thing about being with the 310 Surf Chics.

And stranger still perhaps - SEVENTY women have RSVPd for the 310 Surf Chics Beginner Surf on Sunday. A LOT of women want to go surfing with other women. It's not just me.

The Conditions

2010-05-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

Conditions have been windy on the beach lately.

My fantasy (which is so convincing I keep thinking it’s a plan) is that I’ll find something to do that’s so perfect, i.e. surfing, it will completely eliminate having to be with children who are having temper tantrums, meltdowns, or who are just plain crying. Seven years into it, I keep thinking there’s a way to avoid the hard parts of being a parent. But no. Which is why, today, I was reminded why this blog is called “Surf, Pray, Love.” When I’m not surfing - which right now is all the time - I’m doing a lot of praying.

“Praying”, in this case, means that I’m getting connected to something far larger than myself. I’m calling on that larger thing to envelope and contain me, so that my actions are driven not by the petty concerns of “me” - wanting control, quiet, whatever - but by that far larger, far more compassionate and loving something.

This morning, I thought I was taking Ashton to the beach. But we weren’t getting much farther than our parking spot near the shore of Venice’s Grand Canal. I could surrender to that. “It’s good enough,” I thought, “to be by this algae-filled water. I don’t have to control everything. I can let go”. There were pigeons - then a duck - then two beautiful snowy white egrets (or herons, I can’t always tell which is which). But Ashton kept getting too close to the water and almost falling in. Which wasn’t a good time for me. So I put him in the stroller and walked to the boardwalk. And he screamed…and screamed …and screamed.

My first reaction when confronted by a screaming almost-two-year-old, is to scream right back: either at the toddler or at no one in particular. I did that a lot the first time around. It felt like a natural protective mechanism: not a parenting mechanism, but an urge towards self-defense. A tantrum can be a violent thing, and, coming of age in The Bronx, I learned to protect myself early in life.

But I didn’t scream. I walked back to the car not screaming. When I put Ashton in his seat, he said “It’s naptime.”

I surfed the waves of his intense emotions. With the help of prayer, I’d surfed mine. I’d prayed. I’d found Love.

Thanks to my anonymous benefactor for the Body Glove wetsuit.

2010-05-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

At the beach this morning, I watched a surfer wipe out painfully. Standing on his board, he tumbled headfirst in an awkward somersault over the front of his board. From my spot on the sand, I thought it was really ugly, exactly something I wouldn’t enjoy. Like flipping over the handlebars on a mountain bike.

When I got home, I did yoga and then my spirit traveled to the River Niger, where it often goes for relief and sustenance.

The river spirits are different from the ocean spirits, calming and purifying rather than exhilarating and enlivening. Near the shore, a man sits on the ground under a saggy canvas lean-to. He is a skinny black man with very dark skin. He looks like an ebony statue coated with dust. His tent is cool and I am always damp from swimming when I visit him. He shows me a fish flailing out of water. It suffocates in the air, out of its comfort zone and desperate to return to the familiar.

This morning, the cell phone got shut off. Other expenses press down as well. There are choices to be made: between kids’ shoes and auto repairs, and honesty and pretending that, financially, everything is a-ok. I have been here, in a multitude of ways, many times before. Cliche alert: Financial desperation fits me like an old shoe.

On the road to her dreams, every heroine encounters a sign that announces in large letters: “Make U-Turn Here.”

Below those words, in lines of smaller print, it continues: “You are not one of the people who is allowed to be happy. You are one of the people who must scrape and suffer and watch others have fun.” As if it were an eye chart, the words diminish in size: “You are in danger. If you continue on this path, you will lose everything you cherish: security, stability, your home, your family. You will lose the love of everyone you care about. Do not continue. If you are wise, you will make this U-Turn and let everything return to the way it was.” Today that sign would emphasize: “Get an office job. Cell phone bills are very important.”

In the past I have stopped to read this sign, and I have heeded its warnings. I have been courageous, but only up to a point. Honestly, who wants to lose everything she cherishes? Cell phone bills are important. Today, however, there is more than a sign on a desolate road. There is a man, and a fish, and the river and the beach.

When we promise to do something for others, when we promise to do something for the sake of something greater then ourselves (like humanity, like the ocean, like the planet), the hardest part is making the promise in the first place – and then keeping it. The hardest part is not coming up with the money to make ends meet, the hardest part is having faith.

I am the fish out of water. But it's not really me. It's the me I was before today. I am not alone and I can ask for help every step of the way. I don’t have to figure this out all on my own.

What is Surf, Pray, Love?

2010-05-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

In 2005, I was suffering from the lingering effects of post-partum-depression and post-traumatic-stress-disorder brought on by a really long and trying labor and childbirth two years earlier. Despite continual personal and cultural assurances that I should have been happy with my beautiful and healthy baby girl, I was not - happy. Profoundly not happy. Eyeing-the-bottle-of-Vicodin-in-the-bathroom not happy. There was so little of me left, I could hardly believe I was walking around.

I was stressed. I was depressed. And I was having strange experiences - as if invisible people were throwing things at me: like puffs of cotton, or dandelion fluff. I heard the voice of a man who had recently died talking to me in my head. And I inadvertently exorcised a ghost from my office at work.

I met some shamans and they performed what is called a “soul retrieval.” It was intended to be very helpful and it was. Its effects went beyond what therapy ever could have provided though, afterwards, I did begin seeing a therapist and that too was very helpful. In fact, I began seeing a therapist and I began seeing a shaman. And then I went to the shaman’s shaman. And this is what he said:

“I can’t do anything for you. Only the ocean can help you. You must go to the beach – as often as you can.” The water spirits, he said, they would help me.

Did the water spirits help? Of course they did.

They’d been helping me my whole life, only I’d never thought to call them that. I’d always loved the beach. My first screenplay was about the beach. I’d made a beautiful short film about my childhood summers on the Jersey Shore. I’d always dreamed of living by the ocean, and had moved to Santa Monica three years after arriving in Los Angeles. Going to the ocean, as often as I could, was not a hardship.

And life went on. I recovered, entirely, from the PPD and the PTSD and I joyfully gave birth to my second child. And I never forgot that, for me, when all else fails, the water spirits have the answer - or the healing, or the peace, or maybe just the love, that I need.

Like millions of people around the world, I loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Eat, Pray, Love.” It spoke to me: as a woman, as a seeker and as a human being. But, you know, it kind of fell short in speaking to me as a wife and a mother who works hard at my marriage, raising two kids and making ends meet. “Eat, Pray, Love” was the tale of a spiritual journey dependent on a kind freedom and financial independence that is, frankly, entirely foreign to my post-childbirth life. And yet, spiritual journey is available to all human beings, all the time, if they have the courage and faith to look for it.

“Surf, Pray, Love” is my spiritual journey. A year’s journey among the water spirits: exploring the beach, the ocean and the people I meet along the way. It’s a journey that began as a child, that began again when I met a shaman from Africa, and begins again now, as I learn to surf and re-align my life along the tide schedules and those ever changing rhythms called “today’s conditions.”

I've been dreaming of surfing for months. The water spirits have been calling me. I started out thinking I was doing this for me. But given what's happened to the ocean in the last month, I now choose to believe that I am also doing this for her.

Will the money really follow?

2010-05-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

May 13, 2010

I may have found the wetsuit I’ve been looking for on Craig’s List for sixty dollars. It’s a Body Glove 3/4 size 11. Of course, I don’t seem to have sixty dollars to pay for a wetsuit right now. I have sixty dollars for groceries. For phone bills. For auto insurance. But for a wetsuit?

Finances are very tight in this family and an enormous component of this project is to demonstrate my commitment to creating a rewarding life for my family by pursuing a dream. I’ve always heard that if I do what I love, the money will follow. I’ve even said it to other people. But I’ve never believed it. Not really. Not in a “pay for the wetsuit instead of the phone bills” kind of way.

Last night I had a dream I was doing some kind of water training. I was practicing diving under waves that would otherwise knock me down. I wasn’t on a board. I was in the water. Treading or standing, I’m not sure. Over and over, I would watch a wave approach and then dive under to avoid getting tumbled. My coach was an older, almost portly, football-coach type guy: a balding white man. All business. Shirtless.

After a few rounds of this drill, the next practice was to keep my head down, facing away from the waves, and dive under without seeing the wave first. The purpose was to be prepared before the wave hit. It made sense in the dream, now not so much. Facing away from the crests of giant waves, they would wash over me without my knowing when they would hit. It was suspenseful, scary and I was so apprehensive it was hard not to sneak a peak at what was heading my way. I think the exercise was about mastering surprise and always being ready/prepared.

In another part of the dream, I was pregnant and already showing. It was too late for an abortion. How hadn’t I noticed? I remembered having unprotected sex with Brian, but it had only been a few nights earlier and I was already so pregnant. I wasn’t exactly happy but I was resigned: gearing up to take a deep breath (!) and do it - have another child.

Maybe it's this project. It's too late to turn back. Because I want it to be too late. I'm tired of quitting things that go to slow, that get too hard, that don't look like they're paying off. I'm tired of being that person who has a believable excuse for every unfulfilled dream.