Surfing lessons

I was going to be a natural surfer -- I just knew it. With a few instructions, I was going to be able to catch the waves and surf into the sunset. Just like that. Because I am an awesome surfer babe. 

So when Tim, Jonathan, and nephew Jake met up with Instructor Matt for our group surfing lesson, I was totally set to go. 

It turns out that surfing requires more muscles than you think it might. 

With the boards lying firmly on the sand on the shore, Matt showed us first how to stand up when the wave comes. Step one: do a pushup. Two: front leg forward. Three: into a squat. Four: stand up, but keep those knees bent. Go! Go! Go! And then if you don't fall off, you can turn it into a full burpee by jumping back down again. 

Ready?

Ok! Grab that board, and follow Matt into the ocean. Paddle! Paddle! Use those arms! 

Yikes! Wait, Matt, wait! My little arms don't paddle very fast! 

When we eventually made it out where the waves were big enough for beginners, Matt helped us take turns surfing. 

Jake was first, and he was completely awesome. 

Jake did have a slightly unfair advantage: he had taken lessons before. Sure his last lessons were five years ago when he was about eight years old. Jake was expected to be awesome, and he did not disappoint.

 

Tim?

 

Somewhat disappointing, Tim. 

 

Still disappointing. (Tim's the board in the middle there in that short video.)

And what about me? Me? The natural surfer with my innate awesome-surfing-ness? 

Ok that one didn't count. Try again.

So maybe I'm not a natural after all. 

Jonathan, though. Jonathan was unexpected. 

 

Up on his first try!

 Hang loose, surfer dudes and surfer photographer dudes. 

Tim did get it eventually. 

 

And I did get it eventually. 

 But maybe I'm not a total natural. 

After an hour, my arms were really, really, really tired, and my sinuses were full of salt water.

Time to go in, everyone, said Matt, after my final ride.

So I pointed to the shore, and I paddled. 

And paddled and paddled.

And stopped paddling because -- ow -- my shoulders were burning. 

Don't drag your arms while you rest, said Matt helpfully as he zoomed past me paddling his own board. You lose your momentum. 

So I paddled and lifted my arms onto the board, to keep momentum. 

I was basically stopped in the water. 

Surely it would be faster if I just jumped off and dragged the board back to shore. 

Nope. I can't touch the bottom. Yikes!

Paddle. Paddle. Paddle. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Finally back to shore, like a drowned rat. 

Matt saw me dragging the board onto the beach, stumbling a little.

Just leave it there, he said, I'll get it from here. 

Thank you, Matt. Thank you. I am going to fall over and die now. 

Not me, said Matt. Three more lessons to go! 

Wow. Matt is amazing.

There is a reason surfers look so fit. It is because they are fit. Because surfing is completely exhausting.

The Pink Palace of Peace

It was raining when I woke up this morning. I could hear the rain -- big, fat drops -- and just the rain. It had silenced the traffic, the birds, even the dogs in the park. It sounded a little bit like Peace. I knew it wasn't really peace, because I haven't prepared to teach on Monday or to give a talk on Tuesday or submit a grant review on Wednesday. But for a very short time, it was peaceful. 

And that reminded me all over again of our recent adventure, and our first stop in the adventure: the Pink Palace of Peace. 

Once upon a time, Tim and Jessica and Jonathan went on holiday. It started on a cold gray winter day in Melbourne, with a sky that wasn't raining but looked like it might. Also there were three suitcases, three backpacks, and a taxi. And then after the taxi left, there were some very long airport lines. Very long, winding through the deep part of the airport where the economy airlines live, back behind the shiny counters and tall windows of the Major Airlines. There, in the airport cave, we stood for a very long time, pushing our suitcases inch by inch, rolling our shoulders under our backpacks, fiddling with passports and vaccination papers and itineraries. 

One airport line led to another and to another, and then after a very long time we were able to fold ourselves with 300 other people into a small shiny airplane, bags tucked above, water bottles banging our knees below. With all passengers folded up neatly, the airplane took off into the sky and flew up up up over the vast dark ocean. It flew for hours and hours into the night, and the people stayed folded. The dawn peeked up over the other side of the horizon and the people were still folded. And just as the sun began to rise, after twelve hours over the ocean, the airplane touched down. The people tried to unfold themselves but they ended up somewhat sprawled around the airplane seats. They stumbled out of the airplane into a land where the winter had burned out and it was warm. And their long pants and coats were too hot. But first there were airport lines, snaking around the depths of the airport, and then woefully inadequate toilet situations. And then with three suitcases and three backpacks and three exceedingly more grumpy, if warm, people, there was a shuttle. The shuttle took them away from the airport, through the misty hotel-spotted hills, toward the magical land where the hotels grew tallest of all. 

The airport shuttle dropped them into a magical garden between two hotels. One hotel was white and tall. The other was smaller and pink. A pink palace of a hotel. The people at the pink palace gave them each a welcome necklace made of polished nuts, and let them rescue a summer outfit and a swimming suit from their suitcases, before they took away the bags to keep safely. And they laughed and laughed when our heroes asked if they might be able to check in early, with the laughter of people who deal with too many early morning flights all year long. But as they wiped the tears of laughter from their eyes, they promised to call if a room opened up early. And then chuckled into their fists as our heroes went to find a place to change. 

So. It was very early in the morning. And yet, we found ourselves in a magical oasis. We did, for of course our heroes were us: Tim, Jessica, and Jonathan.

Although we were surrounded on all sides by tall hotels, our hotel opened up into gardens with trees the size of hotels, roots reaching down to the manicured lawns. We found a group of pool chairs, kneeling in morning worship around the hotel pool, and we took three of them, in the back, where the shade was the deepest and thickest. 

 

We nestled the backpacks between us, and reclined the deck chairs all the way down, and put up our legs -- our crooked, twisted legs that had been folded into an airplane for hours and hours and hours. And then we slept.

And above us, the white clouds drifted through the blue sky, and the delicate palm leaves shuddered in the gentle breeze.

And after a while, we awoke, hungry, and we found that the pink palace people don't eat vegan food. But undeterred, two of our heroes went for a walk while the other carried on sleeping -- er, protecting the backpacks. And we found the beach, just a step down from the pool where we had slept all morning. 

And this story is now getting really kind of long and boring. So let's speed it up a little. 

Eventually we were able to check into a room, overlooking the gardens. And we signed up to make flower leis, and bracelets,to learn to hula dance. And by the time the rest of the family arrived, from a different side of the world that only required five hours in an airplane -- and come on, how is that even fair? -- By that time, we were calm and peaceful and happy. 

Making leis.

 Making bracelets. 

Learning to hula. 

And we all lived happily ever after. 

On Holiday

We just returned from a really fabulous vacation -- not the kind of holiday vacation where you realize you are in-between lockdowns, and you search through AirBnB listings to see where you could go within a three hour drive in the next two weeks. That kind of holiday can be good too, and it has had its place in the last two years.

But not that kind.

The kind of vacation that is planned*
(*as much as possible given uncertainty of border closures, lockdowns, etc)
where you fly a very long way to see people you love who you haven't seen -- unexpectedly -- for years. 

The kind of vacation that involves beaches and warm breezes and tropical fruit*
(*but maybe show a little restraint because too much tropical fruit can mess with your system)
and sand and turquoise water and sunsets in the palm trees. 

It was spectacular in every possible way*
(*excluding long brutal flights with no leg room, lines in the hot sun, migraines, tropical-fruit-induced-system problems, snorting sea water, and sand in awkward body crevices).

And now I can relive it a little as I write up a few posts, evenings and weekends, around the return of Real Life (TM) which involves winter, darkness, the teaching semester starting in a week, and 204 unread work emails.