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Seventh grade: My calling was the ocean, 613 miles away. In June I arrived at the mercy of my family’s minivan and persuaded my mother to take me to a surf shop. Frames from Universal Pictures’ 2002 film Blue Crush flickered in my mind as I tried to place the items for sale into a familiar context. Board shorts for morning jogs. Bikini tops for removing slyly beneath a tank top. Surf boards for personal devotion.
In my understanding of the surfer girl world there was no room for distraction, and that was a relief. Where I was coming from life was an open landscape, fenceless and public. Anyone could come into your space at any time and knock you down. I didn’t know where to focus, so everything was up for questioning and accusation.
If you lived on the pedestal of the wave, you became untouchable. On the silver screen I saw beautiful, strong women live a life that was only for them. They could hardly bother with boys and clothes and societal expectations — all the things I felt obliged to monitor for myself. While I was perpetually self-conscious, they were so devoted to surfing that their one-track mind kept them centered and confident. Sexist bros could fuck off. Rude customers at work could suck it. The waves were calling and they were, without a doubt, to follow that siren.
There, amidst the rental boards and Quicksilver tank tops, I tried to embody one of the first examples of cool that I had memorized. In the near future I would mimic the thrifted clothes and slouched, apathetic shoulders of high school punks. For now I was trying to fit my sense of self and and an inkling of personal esteem into a two-piece swimsuit from Target. I had built a Blue Crush-inspired wardrobe, perhaps perfected a casual, leaning pose, and was prepared to try on a few vocabulary words that seemed particularly smooth: dope, rad, stoked.
I stood behind my mom while she paid at the counter. My best friend lingered beside me, wearing a bohemian denim skirt and a string of pukka shells. Soon, my surf lesson would be underway. I was about to prove my passion, my alternative calling, and therefore, my coolness.
My instructor was tall and evenly tan from the top of his bald head to his flip flops. He wore a black cut-off tee and dark board shorts. I observed him as he loaded my longboard onto his silver SUV.
We rode to the beach together just the two of us, with mom and Sonja behind us in the minivan. We sat silent, staring out the windows in serious, moody anticipation of the waves. The radio was turned to an alt-rock station, and the DJ introduced a recent single by Audioslave. Its sparse, tremolo-drenched guitar flickered boldly, like the sun on the ocean water. I looked over at my surf instructor who was frowning with boredom which I mistook as a surfer’s deep, sacrificial meditation.
“Are you excited for your surf lesson?” he asked after we had parked. He was carrying my board for me while I walked in my Tommy Hilfiger flip flops behind him across the sandy board walk.
“Yeah,” I said cooly. “I — I’m stoked.”
He didn’t look back to acknowledge my hip vocabulary, but instead kept his gaze on the mild Myrtle Beach waves, which foamed gently to my internal soundtrack of an endless “Like a Stone.”
Love it!!! The first time I saw gauges were the massive holes in that instructors ear lobes.