Apr 6, 2008

in my next life

i want to be a surfer girl. yeah, yeah. i know its a running blog. but this post has absolutely nothing to do with running. as shocking as it is, i do think about other things. but mostly, i just feel compelled to write. i have tons of stuff other than running that i'd love to write about. in fact, there's a whole novel swimming around in my head & i'd need a bunch of other blogs to get all my thoughts out. this place is just for the running thing. but because its my blog, i can occasionally ramble on about something else.

so, that said, in my next life i want to be a surfer girl. i say this to my husband who says "why can't you be one in this life?" something about living in a landlocked state that makes that one difficult. i want to live in a shack on the beach and surf every day. surfy little kids, surfy little husband. surfy little life. same husband and kids i have now. just surfier. basically, gabby reese & laird hamilton are living my next life.

the surfy love started a long time ago. when i was 15 to be exact. growing up, i spent my summers on the coast of new hampshire – new hampshire has about seventeen miles of coastline, with three miles of sandy beach. we had a house on one of those stretches of sandy beach. one might think that there can’t be a very big surf culture that revolves around the chilly atlantic off new hampshire, but one would be wrong. my sister and friends and i loved it when the lifeguards left the beach at 5pm. because 5pm meant the surfers could come out and hit the waves without fear of hitting any of the seaside waders. we’d sit on the beach and watch as they walked down to the water, surfboards overhead, a leash around their ankle - they'd wade in, hop a few waves, put the surfboard down, jump on & paddle out; bobbing up and down with the waves, waiting for the occasional ‘big one’ – big by new hampshire standards at least. they could get really big, the waves were always biggest before or after a storm. on those days, we could spend the entire day boogie boarding, stopping only for the ice cream man before we headed back out again. we loved the debate as we looked out to sea over which wave was going to be the best & biggest one to take in. i remember one day being on top of a wave so high, thinking – surely i could see the white mountains from the top of that wave, or at the very least – the little shop across the street. we shared copies of surfing magazines, tearing out pictures of our favorites and made collages covered with pictures of surfboards, big waves, laird hamilton and kelly slater. in college, i took a rocks for jocks class (not that I was a jock – far from it; but it was my savior from a math class) – i forget what the class was called, but our textbook was “WAVES & BEACHES”. perfect. right up my alley. i still have it, all highlighted and dogeared. while i was always content to observe surfers, and remain on my boogie board; i never really had a desire to surf until a few years ago when i took my first lesson, and then my second one just this past summer. and now, for the past few years, i’ve signed up through one of my favorite catalogs to win a surf safari. i haven’t won yet. but i just registered again. a girl can dream, can’t she?

there's been a bit of a resurgence of surfy love for me lately - mostly thanks to some groovin' new (to me) surf tunes that i have discovered and cannot stop listening to. can't stop. my surf groove playlist is getting exceedingly long - artists like this guy & this guy and the soundtracks to movies i’ve just learned about. thought i’d share some with you so you can get your surfy groove on too. what do you want to be in your next life?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nothing wrong with posting about things other than running. (I actually keep a separate blog for that.)

In a parallel universe. I'd follow any number of bands around. Write the occasional column and just go with the flow. I love the idea of the beach though...

Anonymous said...

Ha ha! I love that catalog, too. In fact, I've spent the last three evenings curled up in bed with the latest one, drooling over all the cute stuff I have absolutely no use for.

I hope you win the contest!!

(PS Back when I first started running, I had photos of Gabrielle Reese taped to my walls for inspiration. She's awesome! :) )

house on hill road said...

ha...and i have a different (and neglected!) blog to write about running.

fabric designer. not surprised, are you?

Donald said...

As a native Californian, let me just say: surfer girls are hot.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting. I'll spend some time around here soon - just keep writing whatever's on your mind!

Nancy said...

Oh you would be perfect as a surfer girl. I hope you win.

I loved it when you said same husband and kids, only surfier. HA HA!

Anonymous said...

This post cracked me up. I would love to have a surfy life, surfy husband and surfy little kids, too. Never quite thought about it in those terms, though! Hilarious.

Nibbles said...

I can totally picture surfing off the coast of New Hampshire. I know Clevelanders who surf on Lake Erie. Do not adjust your TV sets--that's what I really said! :-)

I enjoy hearing about what you do outside of running. After all, as much as we all love it, running is a pretty small part f our lives.

Unknown said...

That's it -- I'm DEFINITELY not introducing my husband to you; he'd want to run away with you! (Assuming, of course, he could kick your hubby's arse, which is doubtful.) And I LOVE Athleta too! But I think they go a bit overboard with their catalogs; I swear I get one every other week!

Vickie said...

A memory just resurfaced because of this post. When I was in 8th grade, my best friend and I dreamed about and talked about surfing constantly, which was just about as ridiculous as you could get back then since unless you lived on the beach or moved to Hawaii, it would never be anything but a dream. We had our "surfer" shorts and suits though, just in case.

Anonymous said...

ahhh, those were the days. Sadly, I don't think we'll ever have a summer like 1984....but this is cute - a Dad in Cal's art class thinks Cal looks exactly like Laird Hamilton. We can pretend we're a surfy family...

zanne said...

agreed. there will never be a summer like 84. and if ever there was a kid who looked like a surfer kid, its cal! (my darling little nephew).