My newest right wave. Photo: Garlinghouse
I pondered my situation as I sat in the lineup, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. It wasn’t rocket science, of course, but I couldn’t seem to get a ride of any length. It was frustrating, and seemed a fitting exclamation point to the conclusion of a miserable week. Still, there was no sense in getting frustrated, I tried telling myself. It was a beautiful day, I was the only one out, and the waves, such as they were, were still surfable. It was just a matter of getting the right one, I figured. Turning toward shore, I gazed back at the cliffs, taking in the stark scenery, towering bluffs and green foliage. I watched a northern harrier circle in the updrafts above the cliff, its spiral flight lazy and seemingly aimless.
The session progressed and I found that trying to discover that “right wave” was proving more difficult than I had anticipated. I caught several more waves but these were marginal at best. The ocean simply did not want to cooperate by sending me a decent wave. Either that or my own skills were simply “off” today.
I sat quietly between sets, waiting, watching as the weather began to deteriorate. An onshore wind picked up, blowing in strong gusts that scudded across the water, riffling the surface.
A splash sounded nearby and I spun around, my concentration broken. A sea otter had just surfaced and, flipped over on its back, was banging industriously on a shellfish, oblivious to everything except its next meal. I watched the animal as it drifted slowly past. It didn’t so much as glance in my direction. Above me a lone gull circled, its white underbelly stark against the blue sky. The atmosphere was quiet and serene, and I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the brisk, salty air.
A wave suddenly peaked up outside and I watched it approach. It looked like one of the better formed waves I’d seen all day. I swung my board around and paddled into position. The wave lifted me up and I paddled hard, trying to match its speed. Just as the wave began to peak, I pushed up from my board and gained my feet. To my surprise, a perfectly shaped shoulder formed in front of me. I dropped down the wave’s face and swung into a drawn-out bottom turn, my inside rail gouging a foamy arc. I swept past the first section and climbed back up the face, banking hard off the top and shooting a crescent of spray. The turn boosted my confidence and I raced through another section, pumping the board for speed. Realizing I was getting ahead of the wave, I cut back, rebounding off the whitewater. The wave reformed and I swung into another long bottom turn, which got me past still another breaking section. From there, the wave was open face all the way into the shallows. I raced down the line, pulled another series of turns, and exited just as the wave turned concave and dumped hard against the rocks.
My body was tingling from the exhilaration of the ride, my brain afire with a rush of endorphins. I actually felt momentarily dazed, so I sat in the shallows for a minute or so, holding onto my board as if it were a buoy. I drifted motionless, allowing the waves to push me back and forth.
That was it, I told myself. That was indeed the “right wave” I’d been waiting for. That one wave had succeeded in wiping away all my earlier frustrations and doubts.
There was only one thing left to do – head for shore.
I emerged from the water with my board under my arm and crossed the beach. As I neared the trail that led up the bluff, I noticed a small white daisy drifting down from the cliff top. I stood quietly and watched as it fluttered down, falling diagonally across my line of vision, its petals spinning like a whirligig in the breeze. It came to rest a few inches from my feet, and I knelt down to pick it up. I held it in the palm of my hand, admiring its delicate white petals. I gently set it down on the sand and stood back up.
I trudged back up the bluff, carefully picking my way along the steep trail. The wind had picked up and was blowing hard from the northwest, buffeting my board.
At the top of the bluff, I paused to rest and turned back, gazing one last time at the water. Waves continued to roll in, one after the other, but by now the onshore wind was creating havoc with the swell and most of the waves were unrideable. Despite this, there was a raw, stark beauty that gradually emerged as I continued to gaze at the scene.
When I turned back around, a strange thing happened. Feeling the breeze chill against my face and watching the long blades of ryegrass sway in the wind, I was suddenly struck by a profound thought: There was nowhere else I wanted to be at this exact moment except right here, right now, seeing what I was seeing and experiencing what I was experiencing. I was wholly content and satisfied with the present moment.
So many times in our lives we wish we were someplace else, doing something else, wishing and hoping for something beyond our reach. We never seem to be satisfied or content with what we have, who we are, or what we’re doing at the moment. For many of us – me included – there’s always the perception that something better is just around the corner, something more stimulating, more enriching, more satisfying – if we can just change our lives to get there. In our fast-paced society, with its constant bombardment of stimuli, it’s especially easy to fall prey to this kind of thinking. Indeed, the Buddhists have a word for it: dukkha. Although this term has generally been translated to mean “suffering,” it is perhaps better understood to signify an all-pervading sense of disquietude or dissatisfaction – with the transitory, imperfect, often stressful, and generally non-satisfactory nature of existence. It can manifest as sharp mental and physical pain and torment or more subtly as inner conflict or existential malaise. The Buddha considered dukkha a condition that characterizes all sentient life. This dissatisfaction, moreover, frequently blinds us to the beauty, many sages tell us, that constantly surrounds us.
But at this moment I was neither disquieted, dissatisfied, nor discontent. I was, in fact, beautifully aware, present, and alert, and fully enjoying my surroundings and circumstance. I saw beauty everywhere. Cliff swallows darted about in deft aeronautical maneuvers above me and the call of seagulls echoed through the air. Everything seemed suddenly new and different. Colors were bright and vivid, sounds sharp but not harsh, and the air an invigorating tonic. My mind was not dwelling in the past or anticipating the future; it was completely focused on the present. On the here and now.
And even more than that, I was suddenly lost in the moment. The only thing that existed for me was this cliff top, with its wind-buffeted grass, flowers, insects and birds. It was the only place that mattered. The spot of ground on which I stood felt like the axis on which the earth revolved. The rest of the world simply didn’t exist.
As I continued to gaze around, I noticed things I hadn’t seen before. On the ground near my feet were several bright yellow poppies. They were partially hidden by the grass but in full bloom, bright and vivid. Another patch of ground contained a small stand of pink sand verbenas, with delicate flowers that quivered in the wind. I knelt down, observing them closely, watching a beetle crawl across one of the petals. I stared at it for a long moment, wholly absorbed. When I looked up sometime later – though I wasn’t aware how much time had elapsed – I saw the harrier I had seen from the water. It was flying low over the grass, scanning the ground, looking for prey. I watched as it suddenly pulled up, hovering in the air for a moment, flapping its wings silently before it dropped, swooping low in what seemed a casual and effortless motion.
I turned and headed down the trail toward my car parked along the side of the road.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote that most men “lead lives of quiet desperation.” Did I fall into the category of “most men”? Was I hopelessly weighed down by the burdens of life, enmeshed in a web of Buddhistic dukkha? Certainly not today, I concluded. Today, a single wave – the right wave – changed my whole perspective, and reminded me that the beauty of the world is contingent upon our seeing it.
