Surfing can offer us a fresh space upstairs. Which is priceless. Photos: Unsplash
Summer on the East Coast. Hazy days, a lack of waves, and for me, a raging case of writer’s block. I’ve gone from surfing nearly every morning to getting out three times in the last couple of months, and I’ve gone from writing like a madman to struggling to eke out a few sentences. When I’ve surfed, many weeks ago, the sessions were slow, crowded, and unremarkable. When I’ve worked on the book I’m writing, it feels as though the flow of pages is stuck, jammed in a typewriter. There’s no stoke, no speed, no more words flying from brain to page.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got plenty of stuff to occupy my non-working moments. Spending time with family and friends I haven’t seen, working on the house, gardening, riding our little boat around and trying not to capsize; it’s summer in all its muggy New England glory. I sometimes even wonder if I should just hang up my board until the hurricanes start rolling in or we move back West.
A few days ago, however, a little Hurricane Beryl swell filtered into the surrounding Atlantic breaks. I drove over to a little rocky spot, parked in a sweet bed of mosquito-covered poison ivy, and shimmied down the rocks to flip my board upside down and make the paddle into the dense fog.
I can’t describe the sensation that flooded me as I ducked under my first wave. It was hot, sure, and the 70-degree water cooled me down, but it was more than that. As I paddled over the swells, I felt swiftly reconnected to the person who used to surf almost every morning. The rhythm of the movements I know so well, the silence underwater, the tension and release of pulling my hands through the sea. On the way to the peak, a little right beckoned me, and I turned and glided into it, bouncing off the bottom turn, fins connecting, hitting the lip. I sped back out, grinning from ear to ear
As I paddled around, rode waves, and chatted with people, the tide grew higher and deeper, and a patchy sheen of fog moved in and out. At times, the sun beat down with such fierceness that I dunked my head. Other times, you couldn’t see three feet ahead, and the guy next to me laughed as the waves broke on ghostly rocks that shimmered and threatened to disappear. “Pretty soon,” he said, “we’re not going to be able to see the sets at all.”
As the water and the sky blurred together as if covered by smoke, my thoughts became clearer. A heavy wave of stress left me, replaced by a singular focus on getting in the right spot to get waves and avoid obstacles like the slippery rocks, or the beginner with wide eyes who didn’t know how to get out of my way as I raced down the line.
While this surf was taking place, while my heart pounded and my blood hummed through my veins, what was my brain doing? I’m not a scientist, but maybe, I thought, my brain cells are riding their own waves? In fact, a neuroscience study on surfer’s brains while surfing in Mexico reveals that surfing increases alpha waves, which are brain waves associated with meditative and relaxed states as well as entering a flow state in which brain waves speed up like pistons, pumping and whirring along in the background.
When we hit the water, we also stimulate our parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us to relax. Yet, this is not just about mellowing out during a surf, or turning our minds blue. We know that somewhat rote activities like driving or walking can help us think more clearly, and we know that exercise is shown to be good for the brain. As I moved through the water, my brain hammered away at my writer’s block. Or I think it did, since I was wholly distracted by the experience of surfing.
When the waves faded, I paddled for the rocks, having finally scored a satisfying session. But instead of the shimmering water and the burn of the distant sun, I saw a blank page. The juncture in my book where I was stuck became a free-flowing highway, and I could see the characters, hear their voices, understand their problems, and begin to also see beyond that, to the next scene, and the next, and nearly to the end of the book with a new sense of familiarity.
Surfing is familiar for me now, too, and it feels overwhelmingly natural; but it is still a powerful sensory experience each time, regardless of wave count or weather. In addition to the dose of feel-good chemicals it supplies, surfing helps us move forward, create, and see new answers emerging from the fog. The sense of mental clarity the sport demands drowns out our worries and allows our brains to spin on, unfettered by screens, emails, or tweets. Surfing pushes us to look forward to the next wave, the next day, the next swell; and for me, the new story.
Back at the car, still in my wetsuit, I scribbled some ideas into my iPhone, stoked by the idea that as I rode waves, part of my brain was in silent action, trying to crack the case. While my focus is the page, perhaps for you, surfing can help with a different problem or tough decision. This also might help make better excuses for going surfing more, too…as in, “Hey, Boss, I’m having trouble figuring something out here at my desk, so I’m going to cut out and hit the beach, cool?”
In any case, when we wax reflective about surfing — which I tend to do a lot — our non-surfing friends think we’re exaggerating or granting some sense of mysticism to what is in many ways a simple, childlike activity. Sometimes a part of me thinks I sound crazy. Yet today, surfing gave me two things: the surreal experience of drifting through the fog, trimming along in near-invisibility, and a very concrete page of words. Surfing may sometimes steal things from us: time, money, blood and more. However, at the same time, surfing is always ready to give us something new to say, to write, to think and to feel — especially when we least expect it.
