Entirety

July 28, 2009 16:23

By Andrew Oliver

One night, when I was quite young, I watched my father catch a piece of tomato in mid-air that had fallen from his mouth. His hand had moved faster than the slippery red chunk of fruit and, as he popped it into his mouth, he remarked upon his lightning-fast reflexes. I was amazed, stunned, overjoyed: my father had lightning-fast reflexes. The words were like a roller coaster ride for my imagination. If he had them, then surely I would have them as well one day, and I could only imagine the possibilities. I conjured images of fiery bolts blasting from my outstretched arms, giant orbs of light at my command – surely there was no limit to what one could do with lightning-fast reflexes.

Little has changed in fifteen years. I often imagine blasting lightning from my hands, only now instead of fighting dragons and sea monsters I am clearing traffic with a flick of my wrist, leaving nothing but a smouldering heap of bones in the upper management section at work, or lifting skirts with my static charges. I miss the dragons, the sea monsters, and the endless possibilities of what lay around the next corner. The magic is almost gone, not just for me, not because I am older, not just because I am jaded and cynical beyond my years, but because people have stopped listening for it. When no one notices something for long enough, it ceases to be. I don’t know if it is overpopulation, corporatism, television, or just something in the air, but tides are changing and they may never change back. I try to protect myself from the encroaching void by surrounding myself with people who are still aware there is always more than meets the eye. My girlfriend works in a law firm and spends her working hours with stiffs in suits and fluorescent lights, but when we drive past the points of Raglan and along the rolling seaside towards a favourite break she looks for unicorns through the sparkling pine trees and we both know that as long as she keeps looking, they will always be there, just out of sight.

My friends are surfers, some more than others, but they all believe in an eternal pattern of nature: that there is more than blood and bone inside us; that there is a place, a certain particularly indescribable place where the rules of time and space don’t apply. You can see it in their eyes. You don’t even have to look for it – it just radiates off them. Someone you know will lend a helping hand before you even know you needed it. They understand the energy of the world, the electricity that flows through your insides at four in the morning on your way north to the rising swell. They sit side by side in the water laughing out of sheer joy, sheer passion for being alive. They know that on any given day, on any given wave, a miracle can happen, something that could never exist out in that other world, the one with all the people and all that noise, where you could never hear it, never notice it.

As the peaks become more and more crowded and the secret spots less secret, it is easy to feel the change, the encroaching void. The familiar faces are always there, no matter where in the world you surf, but they are getting harder and harder to see. When I reach Forestry in the orange dawn light, I am greeted by the joy of solitude. I know it won’t last and so I appreciate it even more. The waves there are like an old friend whose visits are rare but longed for and always interesting and mystical. With the wind soft on my back and my board under my arm I set off, over the dunes and through the pines down to the point. A lone long-boarder appeared out of nowhere on the crest of the last of a set. The new sun exploded over the horizon behind him as he slipped down the glassy face and glided beautifully a thousand miles down the beach. He glowed like the sun as he paddled back out. I slipped into the water and surfed the morning away side by side with the glowing stranger, never a spoken word, and no need for one. He surfed how we would all like to: uniquely, fluidly, personally. I surfed till the next group of applicants came running down the beach, boards in hand and I decided to leave things on a good note and surfed to the beach, walked back to the van, and tried not to think about the rest of the day. The long-boarder walked past me towards his van. I hadn’t noticed it before: he was tall and skinny, he looked aboriginal, most of his face was covered in horrific burn scars and I wondered about it the rest of his day. I pulled the tank water from the back of my van and poured it over my head, then offered it to him. As he took it, he smiled, and showed his missing teeth. I could see the water flow down his face and his shoulders. He was a real person, someone who was born, lived life, and would one day die, but an hour ago when he rode the morning sun down the last wave of that set he was a golden god, a perfect piece of nature, a beautiful vision without skin or bones, without any baggage or painful past. He handed the water back to me and said “thank you.” He smiled again and walked away, with all his teeth and flawless skin. It may have only lasted a moment, but it happened, a particular place in time that couldn’t have existed anywhere else, a brief moment where the rules didn’t apply, and that is surfing, the last stronghold on the edge of the world fighting against the void, glowing like the sun and shooting lightning from our hands.