The Church of Surf

Sunday morning services were well attended today, in the dead of winter, almost as well attended as during the summer. Year-round the service starts, oh, whenever people wake up from whatever they were doing the night before. The later it got in the morning, the more people showed up. Today was truly an interdenominational service, with friends, Mafia, regulars, and no-namers co-existing mostly peacefully. Smiles all around. I was within three feet of Tim Hill (the Mafia asshole who, you will recall, abused me verbally and threatened me with physical harm at the beginning of the summer) for much of the morning and wasn't going to move because I liked the spot. But he kept his lying slandering mouth shut.

And the day was fun. The waves were small and the sun was glorious. I was working on my timing and on getting all the elements of surfing to work on one wave. I did get the timing right a bunch of times. One thing that was helpful, when I found myself catching waves but not getting or staying up, was just to wait a split second longer before attempting the popup. I'm pretty sure that doesn't work on waves that are more closeout-y than today's, but it worked today.

I think (no, I know) people were surprised at how well I was doing. No one more so than the guy who dropped out in me cause that's what everyone does, then ended up riding a wave with me.
I got comments like, "I saw you doing a popup and I couldn't believe it---I said, was that Grandma?" and "You're really doing better."

Like a certain musician-surfer says: "The first five years are the hardest."