Caught Inside

My friends Steve and Scott and I paddled out at Seal Beach Jetty, the water oddly warm from the nearby Edison plant discharge. The waves looked promising – long, slow-peeling, and consistent – very different from the peaky and unforgiving beach breaks I tried unsuccessfully to stand up on at Dockweiler and El Porto.

It was summer vacation, and we’d driven down for the day from the San Gabriel Valley where we went to high school together. Scott’s family had a beach house nearby on the Alamitos Peninsula, and he was easily the most experienced out of all of us. Steve had borrowed his older sister’s Rusty shortboard that I don’t think had ever been used, and I brought along a 9’2 Becker my dad had bought me earlier that year.  

We sat out in the line-up and as a small set rolled in, I pointed my board toward shore and paddled hard. As I felt the wave launch me forward, I jumped to my feet. Suddenly, I’m not sure how, I was standing up and surfing, actually surfing an unbroken wave… a perfect right. The ocean below flew by, like when you stare down at the water from the bow of a motor boat. And I couldn’t believe how stable it felt. I leaned back and the board climbed up the face of the wave. I bent my knees, pushed on the pads of my feet, and it gently pitched down. And then, just as fast as it arrived, the wave was gone. I’m sure I looked geeked as I lowered myself back onto the board. I quickly turned back to see if Steve or Scott had witnessed the ride. Nope. Somehow I knew in that moment, though, that I’d be chasing this feeling forever.

I got a handful of sessions in the following two years, and made it to my feet again maybe two or three more times. But when I left for college up in the Bay Area, then for grad school in New York City, the board stayed home. I let my sister’s boyfriend borrow it for a bit, but for most of the last 30 years, that 9’2 Becker has been sitting in a woven surf sock at my mom’s house in Sierra Madre, in a dimly lit unused bedroom, lying on its side under shuttered windows.

We moved to the South Bay from Culver City in 2021, and suddenly the ocean was everywhere – the smell of salt water in the evening air while dragging the trash bins to the curb. Dodging teens on e-bikes on the road during morning drop-off, still in their wetsuits, surfboards tucked under one arm, rushing to make it to school on time. 

Not long after, weekday afternoon trips to the beach with the kids after school in September and October when the water’s still warm became routine. I splurged on a subscription to Surfline to monitor the local breaks. I bought a pair of Viper fins, so I could drop into waves earlier and bodysurf the face instead of getting buried in the whitewater. 

It was two Easters ago that I finally drove out to Sierra Madre to bring the board home. Walking into that bedroom at my mom’s house - the same curtains drawn shut, the same stillness - it felt almost like reaching back in time. At home in the garage, I slipped it out from the disintegrating board sock and propped it gently against the wall. Other than some yellowing on the nose and a couple dings along the rails, it looked exactly as I remembered it. I wrapped a couple of old towels around two exposed garage beams and slid it on top.

A couple of months ago, my wife Sevenju and I both had a Friday off while the kids were still in school, so we headed down to the Cove in Palos Verdes for a morning hike. Making our way down the steep dirt trail, we passed one surfer after another, wetsuits peeled down to their waists, returning to their cars, boards in hand. People of all ages, middle-aged moms with their daughters. Men in their 50s and 60s.

I turned 47 this year. The thing I’ve noticed about getting older is that you start to see the edges of your life. Not all at once. A thing you loved becomes a thing you used to do, and somewhere in between you stopped noticing. I don’t want surfing to become one of those things. I’m not sure how much longer I have to go back for it.

I got home, pulled the board down from the garage rafters and took it in to get cleaned up.

As I squeezed into the new 3/2 wetsuit in the beach parking lot, I turned away from the loud surf bros laughing and tossing their towels into the back of their pickup truck. I felt them size me up as I walked past and down the concrete ramp to the beach. I’m sure I looked like a kook – sloppy wax job on an ancient longboard which was totally wrong for the two-foot closeouts that day.

The sand felt cold between my toes as I walked a hundred yards or so down the shore from the nearest cluster of surfers. The waves were small but punchy, the tide falling. But I wasn’t really planning on catching anything. Just get back in the water.

I pushed the board through the surf, jumped on, and struggled to balance it under me. The shaper who fixed it recommended I paddle up and down the shore to work on my arm strength. I must have made it less than 25 feet before my shoulders surrendered and I couldn’t hold my head up. I sat up on the board and caught my breath. My hands and feet were getting numb, but the wetsuit felt good. Warm. Maybe there was something to the neck zip after all.

Watching the swells roll in was hypnotic. The water was glassy and grey under the overcast sky. Alright, what the hell… I paddled into a wave. I caught it, immediately pearled and caught a face full of sand. I stood up, tugged on the leash and pulled the board back toward me. Onshore, a line of morning walkers couldn’t care less.

I paddled out and caught another one. I felt a surge of excitement as the wave hurled me forward. I tried to get to my feet, but my hips and hamstrings had other ideas. I caught another three or four waves before I decided to come in.

Later that afternoon in the Sprouts parking lot, the sun finally out, a stiff ocean breeze moving through me, my body was buzzing.

I hadn’t stood up once. But this was the feeling.