PART I
I begin as I always do, early at five am, clearing my mind and writing. Whatever come to my mind is what goes down on the page – sometimes mindless dribble, a word or phrase, a list, a rout with anger, an observation.
And so, it begins the same on this vacation. When no one at the resort is up, it’s like the sea is mine for the taking, it’s restless nature an endless canvas. The incoming waves have their own brand of quiet that unlatches the mind and creates a bigger space that I can trust. I take a picture of panoramic sunrise and send it to my wife. It is my way of saying good morning even though she has not risen just yet.
I am the very first one to breakfast. Michael, a young man from Cuba, pours my coffee. He works twelve-hour shifts to pay for his two children in his home country, a country that is filed with poverty and oppression and mountains of trash in the street. He takes a picture of his hand and sends it home but does not risk sending a picture of his face. He is doing his best to be a father in another land, a free land, to learn English, work hard and send every penny he can to his boys and hopes one day they will one day join him in the US. He asks me if I want some yelly with my toast.
We are a privileged few that can sit watching a sunrise and order eggs any way we like them. As a teacher, I never thought I would be able to afford a beach vacation, but we used our change for gas money, cashed in our cafeteria plan from receipts on band aids and toothpaste, and landed in what has now become our favorite spot in Florida, a land of sand, water and coconut lotion. It is a kind of second home, and even though we are only here for a short time, our small family is grateful to squeeze every moment out of every day we are here.
And so, no matter how tired I am, I get up on vacation at five and begin. Everything is varying degrees of murky dawn as the sky, the ocean and the beach all blend together like a tropical snow globe. I want to be out, beyond the door, into the quiet, on the beach to watch the waves, the continuum of the ocean renew itself, before people begin dotting the edges of the beach with their unleashed dogs who scare off the sandpipers that scoot around dressed like little British soldiers.
In some ways, I do not care about what I write about. It’s just words in a vast ocean of possibilities. In the past, when I have tried too hard to use “influencing phrases,” or forced a story to have meaning, what comes out reads like a round peg in a square hole. That plan may be good if you are reporting on the news or weather, but not when the sea has another narrative in mind. If my brain is clear, my words begin to fit together, like the warm hazels before dawn.
Remember the story of the old cat who was watching a young cat chase his tail?
“Why do you chase your tail?” the older cat asked.
Stopping his spinning to answer, the younger cat said, “If I catch my tail, I believe I’ll find my happiness.”
“Ahhh, the older cat nodded, “I can see that may be true for some, but I have found that if I just go about my business, my tail will follow right behind me.”
We are, like the young cat, often trying too hard. Everything – whether we are taking care of our children in Cuba and or writing the right words – will come when they are meant to. In the meantime, in the waiting, in our quiet marathon, what do we do? We say another prayer, edit out the words that are nonsense, and allow the good stuff to float to the surface. We make time for patience in our eighth and twentieth mile, and hold our vigil.
A couple of years back, my grandsons and I were trying out a new toy called Sumatra Sammy, a plastic surfer toy we dubbed Surfer Sammy. Balance and agility were Sammy’s gift, but he was also equipped with a unique hydrofoil under his board that allowed him to quickly right himself when we tossed him out into the tide. As we took turns tossing Sammy into the surf and allowed the ebb of rolling waves to return him to our feet, he took on a very believable character, the kind you might come to know if you trusted a toy surfer to return to you every time. For us, Sammy could talk, and he did, speaking in the language of a wave that begun rolling on the other side of the world before reaching our shore.
One morning at low tide, however, we did not plan on the current being stronger than the incoming waves. Sammy began a slow drift out, first fifty, then one hundred feet, beyond the safety of a swim, and finally, sadly, his bright board became a mere orange dot in the distance. Then, he was gone, into the void, a world tour marathon at sea.
During the next year, in that head space between fantasy and myth, we imagined Sammy out in the foam, allowing the titanic currents to tow him to the Caribbean, to the beaches of Costa Rica and Brazil. We knew Sammy was travelling the world, a kind of sojourner and reporter of our planet, observing world events while surviving the rigors of the sea. A year past, and what was once just a toy became the sage of our inner soul who searched for the mysteries of life at sea, Captain America on a surfboard.
Where do you think Sammy is now?” I asked my grandkids? “What do you think he is doing?” Each had a different answer, from eating mustard pretzels to fighting off a giant squid or perhaps a megalodon still roaming the depths.
While we wrestled with these questions, for Sammy it was the nature of the sea itself that became his soul. He was the lyrics of a John Fogerty song, the “good man through the ages, trying to find the sun.” Each day as Sammy breathed in long days under relentless storms and pounding rain, he wondered sometimes, who might stop the rain of poverty and homelessness of the planet. He rode out the massive curls north of Lisbon and balanced the scorching breakers of the Big Sur. We never knew where he was, but we knew one day he would return to us, a day when the north wind whined like a grandfather clock, when the tide tolled at midnight and signaled his return to our homeland, our beach.
Several years ago, I did a live interview when he first came back. I heard his wisdom calling in my sleep and went out on the beach searching for his voice. It was a morning not unlike this one, when the sand, the ocean and the sky were all one color, a long, horizontal and endless hazel. Sammy had come home, and as you may remember, had lost an arm when an ocean line cut across his path and snapped it off like a pretzel.
Still, he had fought the swells, “deuced the coupe,” to find our family again for that short interview. Then, just as quickly as he had appeared, jumped on his board again and pushed off towards new horizons. Sammy, was a seafarer, born to ride, trying to find the sun, and no one, he yelled back to us, can stop the rain.
Today, after breakfast, when the dim hazels turned to a brilliant sky, I returned along my morning path. A familiar form appeared from the sand, colored shapes I recognize that poked out of the seaweed from a storm the night before. There in the grit of broken flotsam and jetsam, among the detritus of the high tide, was Sammy Surfer, attached to his board as always, unconscious, but still alive.
PART II
A few days in, renewed with electrolytes and plates of mango, Sammy sat in our cottage studio, banged up but rested and ready to talk.
Me: Morning Sammy!
Sammy: Dude! Wht’s up?
Me: How ya feelin’? You were pretty banged up when we found you!
Sammy: Man, the last thing I remember I was surfing the pipes in the Bering Straights. Next thing I knew I was being hauled up on a lobster trap on an episode of The Deadliest Catch. Man, there is nothing deadly about me. I mean, I love the sea life, but I just couldn’t see eye-to-eye with those big pincers. No place for a surfer, man.
Me: So, how’d you get all the way back here?
Sammy: You tell me, dude. It’s the life of a surfer, man. One minute I’m screaming down the jaws in Hawaii, intense sick waves, the next minute I’m doing foster care with a pile of seaweed here in Ponte Vedra. I appreciate you letting me crash on your couch for a couple of nights.
Me: We are glad you’re here. I noticed your arm is back. How’d that happen?
Sammy: A veritable plastic miracle my friend. I do a lot of cruciferous vegetables when I’m surfing and well, stubby just grew back on its own a couple of digits at a time. Hard to keep the seagulls from picking at it when it first started growing out, for couple weeks, but here I am, armed and ready. Get it? Armed and ready! You can take the surfer out of the ocean but you can’t take the ocean out of the surfer.
Me: Out of bounds my friend! You cut an inspiring figure Sammy.
Sammy: Yea, no lie. I gotta tell you though I learn a lot from the whales when I run into them. The old ones are the bomb, like, they know all the secrets of the ocean from generations back.
Me: You mean like where Davy Jone’s locker is?
Sammy: Man, they know Davy himself. Always listen to the old whales, I tell you, they know all the great hiding spots and when to dive for the krill.
Me: So, everything’s cool out in the ocean world? What’s new out there?
Sammy: Oh man, like I see a lot of hope. Here’s one for you…I was on the Billabong Circuit in Australia. I saw this dude holding up a sign that read, “Homeless and Hungry. Anything Helps. God bless.” So, I put a few bucks in his hat, but dude, get this…later I saw this cat buying cigarettes. Cigarettes!
Me: Yea, that’s sad he took your money to use for that. People can be disappointing, huh?
Sammy: Maybe. But get this. The next day I saw a worker dude picking up trash in the street. Guess what he was putting in his garbage can?
Me: No idea…
Sammy: Cigarette butts. Yea, Bro, that cigarette money I gave that homeless guy turned into a job for someone else!
Me: So, we never know, do we?
Sammy: Never know, my friend, never know. Everything goes full circle. Money, cigarette butts, all of it.
Me: So, in your travels, do you see a lot of generosity? I mean, is money getting out there to the right places, helping the hungry and poor?
Sammy: There will never be enough money to fix hunger. Money’s not the answer, bro. Hey, you got a dollar on you?
Me: Uh, sure… here (fumbling).
Sammy: Take it out and look on the back.
Me: Yea, I got it. What am I looking for?
Sammy: Look at the seal. It’s unfinished, man, with the eye of God looking out from the Pyramid…
Me: Wow, never noticed that before.
Sammy: …and above are the words Annuit Coeptis. It’s Greek. Means God favors our undertaking. God favors what we are trying to do in the homeland. Isn’t that wild?
Me: What is that about, Sammy?
Sammy: It’s the hope I was telling you about. Nothing, even a dollar, is really ever finished. All over the world I see people trying to do the best they can, keeping the effort up, loving others and giving. Like the ocean tide, it is never finished. It’s the journey my friend, never finished. The seal is telling us we should keep trying to help, keep stepping on the marathon. And as long as we keep the jib up and the talk going, keep meeting each other out in the foam, God will favor us.
Me: Yes, favor the undertow.
Sammy: (laughing). No, Bruh, not the undertow. God made the undertow, for sure, but he favors the undertaking, man, the undertaking. It’s like the sacrifice, getting the toes out at the end of the board, the effort dude! Even though we are all clogged up – like in the Strait of Hormuz –ships, baggage, whatever – we surf through. I had to do it when I was there in the Strait, and I can tell you it’s a surfing nightmare – we get through it by moving around it or through it or under it. We just keep trying.
Me: And how do we know when we get there? What does that look like?
Sammy: HA! How do you know you aren’t there right now, my friend? Annuit Coeptis, dude. That dollar you gave me – it’s seen a lot of pockets. Like, I’m telling you, be the dollar, Broski. If you got the General George behind you, you got it all. Massive undertaking, but no one can stop the rain if we keep working at it together. We are thankful, we quit wishing all the time we had more. You start wishing for this and that you’re gonna get stuck in the Strait of your massive Hormuz.
Me: Oh, that is a mess, isn’t it?
Sammy: Yes, but we have the Ultimate Boardman, the Manna-se-Manna of second chances. Like the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner tells us – its time to ditch the albatross and be thankful.
Me: Annuit Coeptis fer sure.
Sammy: I’ve been in the mouth of the whale, but there is always a way out, and we’ll find it sooner or later. I made it through the Straits, through all those ships and came out the other side of the tunnel. Gotta remember, there is you and me, but there is always a third person in the conversation, the Big Man.
Me: Love that my friend. So, what’s up for you now? Where do you go next, Sammy?
Sammy: Hey, I’m chillin’ for now, watching a little Barney on the tube. I’m tired and need some couch time. But I’ll be out on the next magic barrel, you can depend on it like George on the dollar. Hey, ever look at that painting of Washington crossing the Delaware? Dude, like for real, he was standing on a surfboard. No lie, bro. He was total Pura Vida. He had that knarly three-point hat on, cut an aerial on an iceberg before he crested on the backside of the British. Totally true, man, you can check it out on the Shaka Channel, its true. Gotta love the George. He’s a surfing icon, man.
Me: Keep ahead of the righteous, Sammy. Love you like a brother, man and keep the stories coming!
Sammy: Annuit Coeptis, Later, my friend, and see ya on the flip side!
