Gifts From The Sea
I was standing on West Cliff Drive the other day, watching the sunset sink into the ocean as the waves pounded the shore in great booming breaks. Always dramatic and beautiful.
And this dramatic setting was the backdrop for a human drama in miniature. Or so I would like to think.
As with most epic stories, it started with a body-board.
No, not a body bag, a body board. You know, like a surfboard, but for those who prefer their surfing to be horizontal. That is indeed the technical definition of body-boarding, by the way.
Caught in the surf, being pounded and flipped back and forth, was a blue and white board, whose owner had clearly been taken by Poseidon, or whoever the equivalent god of surfing would be. Kelly Slater?
Yes, I know, it is a very small object to make out in the picture, but isn't that just so true of life? We are all just a body-board subject to the oceanic whims and currents of life.
I watched the board as it slowly but surely got pushed further up the shoreline with each wave, only to be submerged and pulled back by the receding water.
As I was watching this, a young boy on a skateboard was standing nearby, also sizing up the board, and sizing up me. I moved on a few feet, then stopped again, fascinated as I watched the board tumbling through the surf, wondering if it would get lodged behind a rock and stay on shore. The kid was also wondering the same thing. He went a little further on and descended a rock outcropping towards the sand. I think he continued to glance at me, as if he was wondering if I was going to go for the board myself.
At long last, the board was left on the sand. The kid took off his shoes and socks, left them on the rock outcropping, and trotted across the sand to retrieve it.
I could be totally imagining it, but he seemed to be walking very casually back from the water's edge. Specifically casually. Han telling Chewie to fly casually, that kind of casually. Like he wasn't sure that I wasn't going to challenge him that he didn't own that board. He took his time putting on his shoes, and spent a lot of time up at the clifftop again, taking his jacket off, putting it on again, turning the board over and examining it, as if expecting someone to say, "Hey, that's my board," so he could say, "Just retrieving it for you, sir. Here you go." Finally, he tucked it under one arm and skated slowly off to the north.
He probably just couldn't believe his luck. Sometimes the ocean taketh away, and sometimes it giveth. I'm sure that's exactly what the kid thought, too.
And this dramatic setting was the backdrop for a human drama in miniature. Or so I would like to think.
As with most epic stories, it started with a body-board.
No, not a body bag, a body board. You know, like a surfboard, but for those who prefer their surfing to be horizontal. That is indeed the technical definition of body-boarding, by the way.
Caught in the surf, being pounded and flipped back and forth, was a blue and white board, whose owner had clearly been taken by Poseidon, or whoever the equivalent god of surfing would be. Kelly Slater?
Yes, I know, it is a very small object to make out in the picture, but isn't that just so true of life? We are all just a body-board subject to the oceanic whims and currents of life.
I watched the board as it slowly but surely got pushed further up the shoreline with each wave, only to be submerged and pulled back by the receding water.
As I was watching this, a young boy on a skateboard was standing nearby, also sizing up the board, and sizing up me. I moved on a few feet, then stopped again, fascinated as I watched the board tumbling through the surf, wondering if it would get lodged behind a rock and stay on shore. The kid was also wondering the same thing. He went a little further on and descended a rock outcropping towards the sand. I think he continued to glance at me, as if he was wondering if I was going to go for the board myself.
At long last, the board was left on the sand. The kid took off his shoes and socks, left them on the rock outcropping, and trotted across the sand to retrieve it.
I could be totally imagining it, but he seemed to be walking very casually back from the water's edge. Specifically casually. Han telling Chewie to fly casually, that kind of casually. Like he wasn't sure that I wasn't going to challenge him that he didn't own that board. He took his time putting on his shoes, and spent a lot of time up at the clifftop again, taking his jacket off, putting it on again, turning the board over and examining it, as if expecting someone to say, "Hey, that's my board," so he could say, "Just retrieving it for you, sir. Here you go." Finally, he tucked it under one arm and skated slowly off to the north.
He probably just couldn't believe his luck. Sometimes the ocean taketh away, and sometimes it giveth. I'm sure that's exactly what the kid thought, too.
Labels: body boarding, found treasure, ocean, surfing, unexpected gifts
posted by Devin at 5:55 PM
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