Good Friday

When I woke up this morning, the phone was ringing at 3:30 am about a fire in the projects. The “NO TRESSPASSING” sign nailed to the roof and boarded-up windows had me believing it to be a condemned building but after a few minutes on the scene, I met and interviewed Candie, a black woman who lived there with her two children in one of the building’s many apartments. It turned out there were ten people living in the building and they now had nowhere to go on this cold, Friday morning. Luckily, no one was killed in the blaze that, according to the tenants reports, shot huge flames into the dark, morning skies. I edited a piece for the news that would be tagged “Only On” since I was the only person to show up and while I sat in the newsroom drinking my coffee and eating my assignment editor’s rice cakes, those people were likely still standing on the sidewalk watching the homes that they knew slowly smolder away.

It was a chilly, overcast Good Friday. Our liveshot was at a florist talking about Easter floral designs and our story was at the Suffolk airport talking about a woman from a sexual assault advocacy group who was raising money for her organization by skydiving for the first time. Her instructor, a big, gruff, Virginia country boy was a thirty year veteran of skydiving and even instructed George Bush Sr. for his 76th birthday jump. At the end of my work day, the little sun the morning had provided had finally disappeared and the air temperature had dropped to the 40s, ten to fifteen degrees lower than the morning highs had been.

But I had a mission…

As I drove home, I planned the most efficient use of my time to get me to my destination as quick as possible, as time was working against me. I arrived home at the peak of low tide, usually Cape Henry’s best time for wave riding, and aside from gathering my gear, I still had a 25-minute drive and 5-minute walk to my break….85th street in Virginia Beach, where I hadn’t been since December some three months ago.

You see, during my lunch break yesterday, due to weeks of plotting, planning, and poverty survival calculus with the bills, I realized I finally had enough cash to get my winter gear…boots, gloves, and an O’Neill 4/3 winter wetsuit. That , with the purchase of a rash guard shirt for the warmer weather and some sweet Hawaiian Island Creations board shorts for the summer set me back about $400 which is more money than I can usually spend at once in the course of an entire year. But this was an essential purchase for my sanity and overall well-being. A non-negotiable consumer transfer.

The truck was loaded with the efficiency of a special forces commado and the drive negotiated with the skill of a New York City cab driver. I made the beach about forty minutes past low tide’s peak and the surf looked thick and fat but without much push behind it. It seemed the wind was just breaking the crests of the waves and not being driven by the power of the swell which would mean the white water I could see from the beach was merely a mirage of the waves’ energy. But after three months out of the water, I think I would have gone in during a tsunami.

My first concern was how cold was the forty degree water really going to be even with all this high tech neoprene strapped to my carcass. To my amazement while I walked in and even when blasted with a six foot shore break, I felt no cold except for the splashes taken to my bald head. With a little resistance, I made it out to the lineup, realizing the six weeks without cigars really did make a difference and I was truly glad now that I quit smoking after 18 years. As I thought, the waves weren’t very good. They rolled mostly without much push and every once in a while a head high one would sneak up on me out of nowhere and just crash on my now frozen head. For a moment I thought brain damage and hypothermia of the skull were inevitable but all the abuse my head has taken in the last 35 years made the Atlantic’s cold seem insignificant.

As a surfer, I am regular-footed, meaning I ride with my left foot forward and standing front side with my face to the wave I drop in to the right. Backside dropping left is the other option when wave riding and definitely my weakest of the two. I tried paddling into a couple likely candidates but they didn’t have much power and virtually no lift at all. My first good opportunity was a left hand breaker. I was nervous; first wave in quite a long time and a backsider at that. “Time to make my first faceplant in the cold ocean,” I thought but to my surprise as soon as I felt the lift, my mind shut down and instinct threw my body upright and I was cruising down and into the pit of a nice chest high left hander. A short but important ride for my morale which had been numbing with my head. “What the hell am I doing out here,” I thought until after that first ride. “Ohhhh….it all makes sense again.”

The feeling in those three seconds when your body goes from a furious, anxiety-driven paddle into a shearing glide across the surface of the water with the curling ocean crashing behind you is as close to perfection as I have ever been. My first ride after three months of surviving a brutal Virginia winter made up for all the lost time.

The swell was pretty poor, however, and not a great first day back in the water surfingwise. Most of the waves lacked any energy and I spent most of the time floating and paddling to no avail. But I felt at home. The dark overcast skies reflected a strange glint on the ocean’s surface and to the north I could see my familiar friend, the black-and-white-striped Cape Henry lighthouse f.lashing its beacon to the Navy ships exercising offshore. An aircraft carrier was a little more than a mile from me along with the components of its battle group. All in all, I was back home and I was as giddy as a child on Christmas morning.

The set came out of nowhere. The first couple waves looked like they would break right on my head. I navigated around the breaking whitewater trying to get further out, merely for survival rather than jockeying for better position and then I saw this one monster rise out of nowhere. I was in a bad spot and I knew this one was going to thump me pretty good so I paddled frantically to the right just trying to avoid being a direct target. Then I felt the board and I getting sucked back and lifting. Looking down, the pit seemed a mile away, but again instinct took over and I dropped.

When I realized I was standing I looked right and saw the wave’s crest at my eye level and I continued down the line. Speeding like a bullet, faster than I can ever remember riding, I rode the perfectly breaking wave for what seemed an eternity and just when it seemed like it was over the wave hit some chop and it pitched up again, lifting me up again, and shooting me down once again in the reform. I rode the wave all the way to the shore, hooting and hollering with my fists waving in the air like a returning war hero. As far as I can remember, this had to be the best ride I ever had. Likely my imagination but it seemed like I had traveled the distance of a football field but I know it surely wasn’t that far. But it didn’t matter…this was the true definition of “stoked” and was the happiest I’ve been in as long as I can remember.

So, today was a Good Friday. A spiritually enlightening day for me. To be back in my element and doing what I love has me once again reborn. Maybe the time away made for this homecoming to be even more special and my passion for the sea even stronger than before. Nonetheless, I feel whole again…and I wish you could have been here to share this with me…

By the way, rain or shine, I’ll be out there again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next…good Friday to you….