I'll take the props

I watched the waves from the beach for a while before going in today, and judging by those who took off on them they were waist to chest. I had my doubts about whether I could handle them, and contemplated not going in. Of course, the unresolved conflict and drama from the last two posts was still with me, and in fact is still thickening, and I had to make a valiant effort not to mix it up with and let it color my judgment about the actual surfing.

I had to talk to myself and tell myself the waves are often not as big and bad as they look; and in fact that was the case today. It wasn't difficult to get out. Once out, the waves would loom ominously and then poop out as they got nearer, faking out even the good surfers. I began by going out too far, as I always do when I think the waves are a little beyond my comfort level, and so I kept missing them. I had to keep telling myself to move in.

I was surfing near M., a woman near my age who is pretty good, and watching her to see where I should be.

I got four waves. On the first I took off I little bit early and I knew there was going to be a drop once I was on the wave, so I didn't even try to stand up until that happened. Do you know what I mean? I keep trying to explain it to people and missing. I don't mean the initial drop when you catch the wave. Or at least I think I don't. I catch the wave and am riding it but I can feel that I am not all the way down, that soon the board is going to drop down the equivalent of one rung on a flight of stairs. I know that if I try to stand up before that happens I will fall when the board drops.

On this wave I think I somehow got my feet on before the board dropped down, then when it did I pretty much wrestled myself into standing position. Of course by then the wave was almost over. But I did stand.

On the second wave I got up after I'd paddled some extra strokes to make sure I'd gotten it, so I had a little longer ride once I got up; but the only thing was, another guy had taken off on the same wave (whose wave was it? I don't think we saw each other, or maybe he saw me and made the calculation that I wouldn't make the wave) and our boards were riding parallel. So we both had to kind of fall off our boards to avoid injury.
No harm was done.

The third and fourth waves I got moving so fast I just could not get up. The last one was especially fast. M. saw this one and I was kind of embarrassed, but she was waiting for me as I got out and smiling. "You got that big wave! I didn't think you'd make it! You're doing so much better!" Actually I didn't think it was that big of a wave, but if it looked that big I was proud to take credit for it. And if she thought I stood up on it, well, maybe I did. When things happen so fast, it's difficult to know what happened when it's over unless someone else tells you. I was only too happy to take the props, as the kids would say.