Sea hags

Today the wind was strong and the waves (actually, sections) were absolutely no fun. Choppy windswell crap, and a lineup full of clueless kooks on softboards flailing around. (Am I advanced enough now that I can call other people kooks?) Not even a friendly face to be seen in the water. The locals knew enough not to come out or to leave early and find other amusement on a Saturday afternoon.

I did get to see T. whom I haven't seen for a month, and we greeted each other like long lost friends even though we've only met three times. That's because we're the two oldest women surfers at our beach. We recognize and understand each other. (Well, supposedly there's this other older woman but I've never seen her. I've heard she actually surfs well but all the locals hate her because she's old and unattractive, and they nastily call her the Sea Hag. Wonder what they call me?) I'm a bit older than T., so I guess that makes me oldest next to the Sea Hag.

I read somewhere about how it's hard to learn sports in middle age not only because of the physical decline but because mentally, we have learned the habits of caution. We can't just not think of consequences. There is actually a biological basis for this (which isn't saying much, there's a biological basis for everything) learned hesitation to take risk. We can't just go jumping off cliffs or out of airplanes. T. said she was afraid of getting hurt because she doesn't have any health insurance. An entirely reasonable and understandable concern, but one which wouldn't likely occur to a 28-year-old. So T. is cautious, taking things really slow, at this point riding waves only on her stomach, despite the fact that like me she wants to surf just as much as she wants anything.

Later, on a raucous subway ride home involving the harmonious clash of at least four cultures in one subway car (black, Russian, indigenous Staten Island, and Hispanic)----what, Staten Island isn't a culture?---I met another older woman surfer. Older than me, even, though she's a bodyboarder. She's 52 and from Staten Island (a hell of a long trip to the beach). She told me how she'd wanted to try surfing but had gotten discouraged after a couple of times because it's so hard. I wanted to cheer her on but all I could realistically say was, "It took me three years to stand up." "That's depressing," was her response. Plus she had a bad board. So now she's got a boogie board and is really into it.

What makes a seemingly rather ordinary, single, 52 year old woman suddenly take up the sport of bodyboarding with the dedication necessary to travel three hours to get to the beach---in the face of all our culture's insistence that she shouldn't? I wish I could say I had the answer to that question, but I didn't get it. I suspect her reasons are as complex as mine. Perhaps. All I could do was encourage the hell out of her to keep getting out there and not to mind the nasty locals.

We exchanged phone numbers. We older women surfers have to stick together.

One more thing I have to say. She scared the hell out of me, as has every woman over 50 I've ever encountered. Women: you may look much the same from 20 to 30, and not even notice any difference from 30 to 40 and 40 to 50. But there is something that happens at the 50 mark. It's the difference between being able to pass and being, and looking old. I am terrified of it. I am terrified of being an unmistakeably old woman in a culture that devalues old women. Who wouldn't be? Who would want to be a Sea Hag?