On a balmy spring morning, my husband helps me carry my kayak down to the surf. As I watch the waves fold over, my heart starts to tingle. “Oooh, I’m scared” I say, with a nervous smile on my face. “Really?” my husband asks, “I thought after so many years you’d no longer be scared.” I think about this for a moment, as my bootie clad feet are washed by the chilly surf. I push off in the kayak and call back to my husband, “When I’m no longer scared is when it will no longer be fun.” I turn to face the demon, my heart racing, preparing for the perfect timing to break through the surf. If my timing is on, the wave will crash and I will paddle hard to emerge through its back door. Prepared to take on the next wave, I will back paddle, hesitate and push into a full throttle paddle through the second set. Once I am clear, always, I break into laughter: laughter of conquest, laughter for feeling like a kid again, laughter to release the fear.
The fear gives way to calmness, my own, and the placid ocean beyond its raging gatekeeper. If I am lucky today, I will paddle next to a pod of dolphins, or a sea lion will pop its head through the sea. But more than likely I will only have the seagulls by my side. I will be amazed by the vastness, yet stillness, of this great body of water. My head will clear and I will be overwhelmed with gratitude, for my body that can see, feel and hear and for the good fortune to be where I am.
There have been numerous times when the first set of waves have spit me back on the shore. There was even a time when the lifeguard parked his Subaru rescue vehicle right in front of me. The tide was fierce that day and I finally came back in, drenched and embarrassed. But there was one day, …after a beautiful morning, I brought the kayak in on a wave that grabbed my back tail, flipped and dumped me on the beach. As I pulled myself out of the water a lady walking on the beach said to me, “That’s so wonderful that you can kayak.” Feeling like I couldn’t kayak, I humbly moaned, “Didn’t you see me get dumped?” The woman quickly retorted, “Doesn’t matter, what matters is that you are out there doing it.”
To this day, whether facing the surf, a phone call, or an interview, I see beyond the tipped kayak, the possible rejection, the not-quite-achieved goal, because of the woman on the beach who taught me, it doesn’t matter, for the victory is in the effort.
