A few years ago on the day we buried my Grandmother; I had an experience that at the time seemed mystical. Losing her was difficult for me. I adored her. She was wonderfully stereotypical. She had been raised on a farm in rural Oklahoma and tempered by the depression. She was strong, capable and full of love. I remember her in faded cotton dresses – always clean and well pressed. And her aprons. She had one long one for around the house and a couple of “nice” ones to wear in town when she went shopping or ran errands. About the only time she didn’t wear an apron was went she went to church. If you have ever seen the movie, “Grapes of Wrath” and you remember the grandmother then you have an idea of what my Grandmother was like.
On summer afternoons she used to set a long table outside under the trees. It would be piled high with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and homemade apple pie sitting on a red and...
white checked tablecloth, and flanked by big pitchers of ice cold Lipton tea. She could sew anything, she could grow anything and she could heal any wound. She was perfect and we all loved her.
After the funeral I headed to the beach. It had been a rough day. All I wanted to do was paddle out and forget for awhile. Surfing helps me do that sometimes. That day the surf was big – well overhead all up and down the coast. When it’s big you have to focus on what you are doing. Because it demands total concentration to avoid wiping out at any moment, other less immediate problems tend to fade away temporarily. It is sort of like leaving your troubles on the sand for a little while. They don’t go away. They are still there when you paddle in, but for a short time a brief respite can be found out in the water.
On this particular day the conditions were more than a little unusual. Visibility was poor. It was late afternoon and the light was otherworldly. The sun was low in a very overcast sky blanketing everything in a dense, warm fog. There was no wind. It was hot and the water was like glass. The moisture in the atmosphere cast everything in a hazy yellow light. I couldn’t even see the waves from the shore, but I could hear them crashing and I knew it was big.
When I paddled out into the lineup I found myself in a strange ethereal world. I couldn’t see the shore through the fog nor could I see very far out to sea. The waves would emerge suddenly out of the mist - huge, silent, amber walls rushing towards the shore and crashing out of sight.
There were only a handful of surfers out and we all clustered together straining to peer out to sea to catch the first glimpse of the next set. Because you couldn’t see them until they were already upon you - you had to be ready to instantly spin your board around, paddle hard and take a late drop into the wave. And the waves were awesome – set after set of perfect tubes. They were hard to see coming and hard to catch, but a last second takeoff, a very scary drop and a bottom turn would project you right up into a glassy cylinder big enough to stand up in. There was no almost - you either made the drop and the first turn - or you didn’t. If you made it and were a little lucky you could speed down the tunnel created by the collapsing wave and get spit out and over at the other end. If you didn’t make it you would get a good pounding followed by a long swim, but making it was well worth the risk. Getting tubed is the ultimate rush for surfers and these tubes were unreal.
There wasn’t much talk in the water. Maybe it was the strange conditions, but conversation was limited and conducted in hushed, almost reverent tones. We were paddling around on a sheet of warm glass, enveloped in a hazy yellow fog that damped down sound and limited visibility to thirty or forty feet in either direction. We couldn’t see the shore and we couldn’t see waves coming in. Even after pulling out of a wave we couldn’t see the beach through the fog. For a couple of hours our world consisted exclusively in the wave riding zone and everything else ceased to exist. There was no shore and no far horizon - only the corridor of perfect waves.
While in this weird world between worlds, I dropped in on one, hit the bottom hard and pulled up under the lip. As it threw out over me and came crashing down something strange happened. I was in the tube, hurtling across the wave just trying to stay on and come out and suddenly everything slowed down until it was if I were in a slow motion film. The wave overhead, the spray, me – everything slowed - I could actually see the spray separating into droplets. Weirder still, it was quiet. Almost totally silent. The only sound I was aware of was the sound of my board slicing the face of the wave. Even though I was deep inside the barrel I could not hear the sound of the wave breaking all around me. I felt calm and serene, or even a little detached for however many moments or fractions of a second it lasted, then suddenly I was blasted back into realtime as I came careening out of the tube.
It didn’t really hit me until I had paddled back out past the impact zone. Oddly, I wasn’t surprised; I was still in kind of a tranquil state. I am normally pretty loud and enthusiastic when surfing, but not this day. I was uncharacteristically subdued. I rode with a peaceful intensity. I surfed better than I know how. I caught wave after wave - including a second silent-slow-motion tube ride. It was almost as if I were in tune with the Ocean. At least on that day, in that misty space between fog banks, I experienced some kind of altered consciousness that put me in sync with those waves. After nearly four decades of surfing, I have never had a stranger, or a more rewarding session.
When I finally paddled in my day was where I had left it a few hours earlier, but I was different. Maybe the break had just charged my emotional batteries, or the physical exertion displaced stress. Perhaps the thrill of riding great waves simply lifted my spirits.
All I know is, I came out of the water stronger than when I went in. I felt better and I felt grateful – to God or Mother Ocean, or whatever it was that touched me that day. I would have to call it an almost spiritual experience. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t come out of the water quoting scripture or pledging my life to Mother Theresa, but for a little while, the ocean took me to a place where the was no death, no war, no famine, no anger – no anything - just surf - and it let me stay until I felt better.
I have heard of other people experiencing the silent-slow-motion phenomenon. Professional football players, race car drivers and even a jazz pianist. So, I don't think that was what was responsible for the sense of well-being I felt walking up the beach.
You want to know what I really think? There is magic in the water!
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