Waves do funny things to our imaginations. Pull up in the parking lot of your favorite spot on a given morning and run through your mental check of the lineup, the conditions. Maybe there’s nobody out. It’s small, onshore and sloppy. The ocean looks sick. And not in a way that’s appropriate for shakas. But you’re jonesin’ so hard to catch something that you go complete half glass full mode. “That section right there!…If I line up right here…If I’m sitting on this little peak here.” You’ll talk yourself into the most glorious session of your life when nobody else can even be bothered to suit up, just because one little imperfect wave sends your imagination wild.
But how about a perfect wave? How about those cylindrical, hollow, crystal clear walls of energy that don’t have a single drop out of place? It’s traveled thousands of miles across oceans to meet you here. And you’ve dedicated an irrational amount of your life, energy and attention to moments like this. Yes, a wave does funny things to your imagination but a perfect wave will do unheard of things with your heart. It’ll send you to the Mentawais without a piece of neoprene within what seems like a thousand miles. Somehow you’re always inside the perfect wave (you know, because you’re getting barreled). Everything slows down, you look up and see water. You look ahead and see light. And then you’re pushed out of the other end in a triumphant cloud of spray. You might claim it. You might play it cool and act like this happens every day. Either way your reaction will be perfect because well, the wave itself was.
Somehow those perfect waves are only the stuff of imagination. So we paint them, draw them, whatever it takes to let the imagination (and heart) run wild for a little bit.
Greenbush Mentawai from leandro silva on Vimeo.
