Every year I flock to the cliff face looking over it to watch local chargers tame the beast. I think to myself maybe one day I will paddle out. Surfers have an uncanny ability to imagine and project a fantasy before it is carried out – huge, graceful carves consistently run through our mindscapes when we are seated in the lineup. But if the fantasy is never attempted, or the frustration never faced, could it live on like a haunting? I think I am haunted by this wave I will never surf, haunted by the life I will never live.
“I remember a child telling me in a session,”day of the year? Am I considering all the frustrations, the 30-second hold downs, the broken board washed up on the rocks, the terror of facing such a monster? Perhaps the only reason I want to surf this wave is so that I no longer desire to surf it. I fantasise about exotic, terrifying waves for their difficulty and the achievement of having stepped out of myself, if only for a moment, into the unlived life.
