KATE
MONTERO
Educator & Visual Artist
The Epic Adventures of Big Binks.
Co-authored with my writing partner Christian Kahler, and illustrated by Mike Castillo, this rhyming children's book teaches the lessons of intercultural awareness and the language of surf. Stoke out the little grom in your life by clicking on this link.
White Teeth, Yellow Boards.
“Miniature beach-clad G-I Joe’s line up at daybreak, their fiberglass missiles gleaming in the morning sun. In bright-colored and rag-tag camouflage gone awry the warrior clan begin the sacred march. Their bare feet are tougher than a pair of Doc Martins; the reef is an unworthy adversary for this paddle to battle, paddle- battle.
A war cry is heard as the first grom reaches the peak. The rickety three-story wooden tower built a half-mile out to the break serves as their sea worthy bunker. From age five to fifteen, the forty or so Lakey Peak Boardrider groms make the tower sway and creak with their presence, their Cheshire cat smiles two shades whiter than the lightest board. The energy is electric, the mood is light…but a battle is about to begin.
There is a disparity in this world; a sort of cosmic ying-yang dichotomy that flushes in the opposite way of our porcelain bowls. This other hemisphere is the bizarro world to ours. Our Big-Mac is their McRice, and our trivialities and everyday worries are a twinkle in their eye as they shred a set wave on a hand-me-down board two sizes too big.
Another war cry resounds. But this time it’s coming from an air-born grom who’s just flung himself from the roof of the tower into two feet of water. The whole crowd cheers! But not to be outdone, a second, and a third take to the air, their boardshorts feeble parachutes as they plunge into the aqua dance floor. No parent permission slip required on this field trip. It’s game on and tally-ho!
Joey Barrell, an Aussie named Indo, lives up to his name, still fitting in those almond-shaped barrels like a baby kangaroo looking for a meal. A tanned-skinned Peter Pan with a block of wax for a sword, he refuses to grow up. A showman today in the Boardriders “Expression Session” he flies out of a gnarly right-hander with boyish charm. I turn to one of the ‘Lost Boys’ and ask, “Who was that?” With a gleam in his eye and a loose Indonesian tongue, he says “Joey Ball-ell,” and then returns to his hanging perch on the third-story rail.
Here. Now. We are in the ultimate Neverland; where birth certificates don’t exist, and you really can stay young forever. All you need is a cool buzz and some tasty waves and you can be Jeff Spicoli, Peter Pan, or any other teenage rebel for as long as you can believe in the fantasy. The only reality is the next set wave pulsing in. But even that seems like a dream, as perfect and playful as it is.
The two-minute warning sounds, and all the Lost Boys jump to their feet, pounding the decks, screaming happy thoughts to the boundaries of Neverland and beyond. Barbaric and wild, their screams are sweet melody to anyone who’s been stuffed behind a desk or forced to grow up. I can’t help but join in, my own voice blending with theirs, freeing me – if only temporarily – from a grown-up and tainted world. My teeth are more yellow, my skin is more pale, but I feel accepted. Initiated. It’s that simple.
The heats are getting heavier and the waves have picked up. The energy of the event is peaking with the swell. The groms have been telling me who they deem ‘King of Shred.’ Mick Fanning, Owen Wright, and Clay Marzo top the list, but right now everyone’s amp is attuned to Indo standout Oney Anwar. Lakey Peak is his hometown shred-ground. But for the past three years, he traded plates of nasi for Bush Tucker, and Aussie fish and chips – an Indo disappearing act that baffled the mainstream surf industry. That is, until just two months prior, when he dominated the 2010 Dripping Wet Pro in Palm Beach, Australia. Claiming victory on the podium, he became the first Indo to ever win a major Pro Junior surf event.
And watching him now, it’s clear why an Indonesian presence in the surfing world is long overdue. The “front-side air” seems to be ingrained in his DNA. This surf trick is a metabolic function of his body. But he’s no one-trick-pony either. It’s obvious he’s spent time away from home the way he cuts and carves like he’s just hunkered down over a plate of Aussie prime steak.
I had been milking the last five minutes of my second videotape for at least a half hour now. The digital timecode was reading about forty-five seconds. Parched, and even a little weary it was time to paddle in, with the intention to stretch the tape to the last second with Lakey Dompu Boardrider merchandise footage.
Back on the beach, I tape T-shirts blowing in a light breeze in the middle of a perfect day. A sleeve blows and my view shifts to the snack stand the shirt is hanging from. Indonesian Beng-beng chocolate bars, Aussie Tim-Tams, and good ol’ Amercian Lays Potato Chips frame the stand owners who are sitting, strumming a guitar, singing. A rooster crows somewhere in the nearby distance, and the singer’s white teeth flash at me as the camera hits zero, powers down, and fades to black.”
Go Big, or Go Home.
“Go big or go home,” K-hole Kahler says to me in a sneer from a cushioned chair somewhere in China, just one more layover from the promised-land. I may not be able to duck-dive just yet but I fully intend to go big, I inform him. Slight, snow white Asians – many in surgical masks – mix with sun-tanned stereotypes and indigenous Indos. We are an interesting blend of old-school meets new, East and West convergence. Or, as an Indo would put it, we are “sin kan kan.” Translation: “same same, but different.”
But right now, we are all the same, stuck in an airport waiting area, sticky sweat molding our legs to a poly-plastic blend, waiting for the sweet sound of intercom crackle to usher us like cattle on a plane bringing us to our final destination. For me and my companion the journey is edging its way to the forty-hour mark, and K-hole Kahler is nearly frothing at the mouth knowing that he’s only six or so hours away from the frothy Indonesian surf. We’ll land in Kuta, do our best to avoid the Bali vortex and stay true to the reefs, kicking it instead in sleepy Tuban – where the breakfast buffets are more chronic, and the mosquitoes have less suck.
The plane arrives, and contrary to our amp we opt to board last, walking down the narrow aisle fully taking in the freak show of animated talk we can’t understand and florescent luggage being smashed into overhead compartments. My mini-dv camera – one of the few luxury items I allowed space for in my $15 backpack, my only luggage for the next two months – is recording the chaos. Kahler is even more minimal, more than enough space left in his pack, which already carries a dvd player and electric converter in anticipation for the latest bootleg releases that will lull us to sleep after surf-filled days. Mid-August to mid-June we are both teachers, but now is our time to just be, binding clothes exchanged for baggy ones, occasionally mundane rhetoric exchanged for starry skies and silent contemplation.
As with each preceding flight, we have pre-ordered our children’s meals, one of the many treats in Kahler’s travel-worn and duck-taped surfbag of tricks. And after thirty-six hours in transit, this six-hour flight seems to pass faster than Kahler can make a hat out of his meal box. From Florida, to Detroit, to L.A., to Taiwan, we are finally beginning our descent, the already familiar sights of the many Kuta Reef breaks filling the fish-bowl glimpse allowed by the double plastic-paned window. It doesn’t look like it’s pumping, but the froth is apparent, beckoning like a summertime friend to come out and play. This is my second trip to Indonesia, but Kahler is celebrating his tenth anniversary with the place. He’s been most spots in the world you can surf, but Indo is his number one love affair, and with only one summer under my belt, I understand why. I am still a novice – a Saigon schralp-warrior in training, with Kahler serving as Jedi Shred Master.
The faint sound of Balineasian bell music wafts around us as we step off the plane, the Zen-like clang a contradictory call for battle as we shuffle through customs nearing ever closer to our two-month take no prisoners shred blitzkrieg. But alas, our amp is waning with the full Bali moon. For today, just being here is enough. Tomorrow the war and love affair begin. Sin kan kan.
We rise the next day, and so does the swell. With a belly full of Nasi-goreng, and five-thousand rhupia in our pockets for boat transport, we make the reef look silly. (Well, Kahler does anyway. I mainly sit wide on the inside only partially feeling bad about wanting people to fall off the perfect ride so I can commandeer the scraps.) I’m still not “schralping,” but Kahler proclaims me the best surfer out because I’m the one having the most fun. My spirits are high, and a few days later we’re off to Sumbawa…the land of KILLER ELEPHANTS! (Or so Kahler alleged to the English gentleman who was only trying to tell us about the Bali Safari experience he’d shared with his two daughters. The old chap had unknowingly bumped into us just moments after K-hole had consumed a Bintang bottle full of Arak.)
Despite the killer elephant threat, we bravely journey there anyway. Comprised of about five different breaks, this place is Kahler’s Mecca – where the only stale fish is either served on a plate, or his grab in the air. And you’re hoping for the latter, because the former will render you hopeless in bed, shivering, and sweating, and the other s-word, all simultaneously.
With no scheduled end date here, we take each day for what it is – pure Indo perfection – and figure we’ll leave when we tire of prawn-filled bellies and chocolate waves. When you first arrive it seems you’ll never want to wish farewell to the faithful breaks and friendly vibes, but those Bali bells seem to initiate the tribal call somewhere deep in your subconscious, and that’s when you know that you’re ready for your next adventure within your adventure.
Our sketchy propeller plane barely seems to make it back to Bali, one Sampoerna clove cigarette too many perhaps, wheezing upon runway impact. No sooner are we off one plane than we are on another, this one bound for Kupang – just one boat and bemo ride from our next destination. No pink ruffled panties on this mission. It’s straight up Melarone and Maalox, with a side of Cipro. If you’re smart, you’ll have already begun the Melarone to ward off any hungry malaria-infested mosquitoes. Next, have your Maalox on-hand – the boat ride through the straights is both gnarly and exhilarating in that amusement park roller coaster kind of way. Lastly, keep your Cipro in your back pocket. Chances are, you’re going to need it.
Arriving by boat at night to this place is supernatural, as if you’d just indulged in one of Bali’s six-dollar magic mushroom shakes, with a promise to take you to the moon. Because being here is like being on the moon – the stars seem only an arms length away in a sky too clear to be real.
The surfers here are all a bunch of characters – from nomadic soul searchers to old guys wearing helmets. Daybreak comes early, and these Viking-clad warriors are on it before the sun has even fully risen, which is pretty hard-core considering the paddle out is a kilometer or more through seaweed farms. Like an ancient oracle you must use the sun’s reflection and various landmarks to triangulate the path to the break. The wave is a long left, and is faster than you’d expect with a nickname like “Geriatric G-Land.” And though you don’t have to, the unnamed aqua clan wants you to adhere to the code of the water, taking turns in the lineup.
One old helmet garbed Aussie becomes my mate for life after calling me into my first barrel. The beastly wave shuts down on me the moment I pull in, pig-dog and all. But I emerge unscathed in the inside whitewater happier than I’ve ever been, despite the ejection. I got slapped and lived to tell the tale, but ol’ K-hole isn’t so lucky after a reverse shove-it on the shallow inside renders him with a permanent tattoo. It’s ‘Tieh Ta Yao Gin’ [red stuff] time for the duration of his mission.
Even the stealthiest Saigon warrior sustains injury, and that’s when you realize this is no teddy bear’s picnic. You’re in the jungle with blood sucking mosquitoes, razor sharp reefs, and killer elephants born out of Arak-induced fantasy. The span of an entire lifetime plays out in a half-second barrel ride, and suddenly, like Alice, you’re plunging down a rabbit hole, eating mushrooms, and having trouble distinguishing reality from the dream.
I’m back drifting in a dream with blurred images of students, in my slacks and a button down shirt. I’ve answered the call of the schralp-warrior armed only with a surfboard and iron will. Anything is possible. In time I know I’ll get that deep dredging barrel I’m looking for. For now, I’ll settle for world’s best duck-diver. Sin kan kan.
Big Boy Style.
It’s (spring break) midnight, and I am sitting in an airport waiting area, about to board a plane bound for Puerto Rico with the man from the land Down Under, Aussie Chris, and his nineteen-year-old prodigal son, Big Al. If you look at the two of them close enough, you can almost see the resemblance. On the surface, they’re as different as the cream in the ho-ho is from its outer shell. Al is a six-foot-four tall, black, scrawny man-child. Aussie Chris is cracker white, and has guns for arms. But put them in the water together, and their uncanny connection becomes more apparent. The kid has been emulating Chris’ playful style for nearly ten years. That’s about when the Aussie gave Al his first shortboard.
“Why’d he give it to you?” There is a short pause, and so I follow with, “He just saw that you were a talented, young surfer-“
Al interjects. “That I was young, black and killing it.”
“Nice!”
“And I was kickin a big fro back then.”
We are called from our seats in the waiting area, and stand in line to board the plane. Al has never been in an airport before. Every experience since check-in has been a new one for him. He doesn’t seem to be too affected by any of it, though. The plane is packed, and we are smashed together as we walk through the aisle, like a frontside reverse Oreo cookie. I am the tailwhip of this threesome, my handheld Canon videotapes Al’s marker graffiti bookbag to the front of me. A week ago, when Al told us he didn’t have a bag for the trip, Chris and I found one at the Goodwill. He tagged his new travel sack with Jamaican Rasta phrases and odes to ‘the Dub’.
We take our seats, and Big Al squishes his gangly frame against the window. I ask him if the inside of the plane were what he thought it would be like. “I thought it would be bigger,” says the kid as he checks out the ‘hot’ flight attendant, who is doing a routine walk though in a Spirit Airline regulation skirt two-sizes too small. Rasta music pumps through the headphones of his Mp3 player, which is also his phone, which is also his camera. Al’s not been handed much in his life. While most kids were attending school dances and playing extra-curricular activities, Al was bussing tables to pay the bills. He’s been on his own, living with his uncle and paying half the rent for the past four years. All that’s really been given to Al has come from the surfing community.
A long car ride down the East Coast took Al from landlocked Pennsylvania to South Florida when he was ten years old. The only body of water he’d ever been in was the wave pool at Hershey Park, the amusement park less than an hour from his house.
“Every morning you’d walk out your door, and smell Hershey chocolate.” He smiles a goofy, oafy, half-smile up at us.
But besides every day smelling like a Christmas cookie, Hershey Pennsylvania wasn’t cutting it for Albert and his mom. They left his dad, and regretfully, his Grandma (who he is still close with), and most of their family behind to start a new life in Florida. But life at home with mom wasn’t always easy, and it didn’t take Al too long to find his home away from home, at the beach. Just barely transplanted to the Florida coast, Albert started fishing at the local pier. He would soon find that fishing was only a temporary preoccupation, fatefully granting him a voyeur’s pass to witness the moves taking place on the aqua dance floor.
“So, why’d you start surfing?”
“Um, I was fishing off the pier. And, Nick Lugo got me into boogey-boarding. We both started boogey-boarding, taking pictures…Me getting barreled and everything.”
“Did you ever get behind the camera and take pictures?”
“Aw, hell yeah!" His eyes shine. He’s proud of them. “I have tons of boogey board pictures!”
Al’s hot flight attendant is back. She speaks directly to him, and tells him to turn off his electronic device. The plane will be taking off soon. He is less interested in his near-approaching first duel with gravity as he is with the thin sheath of polyester gripping the woman’s thighs.
“I could definitely hang out with her,” he says to us with a look on his face like a dog graduating from puppy chow to the real thing. “Yeah buddy.” [This would mark the first of many ‘yeah buddys,’ Al’s signature phrase for anything ‘good.’]
Albert’s eyes have switched views from the navy-clad aisle maven, to the view through thick plastic as the plane lurches forward, speeding faster, and then up. He is mesmerized by the lights below. “Everything looks like ants. Yeah buddy.”
We arrive in Aguadilla in the middle of the night and take the shuttle bus to Budget car rental, not soon after finding that less money equals more roaches at Budget-rent-a -roach. Our five-minute drive from the airport to where we are staying introduces us to our new travel companions who come out of their hiding places inside the car’s air vents under the seats to welcome us. We get to Frank’s [where Chris has stayed his past 15 or so years of Puerto Rico trips] by 4 a.m., put the fins in our boards, knock down a cold one, and do our best to find sleep before the roosters find daylight.
Daylight comes fast in Puerto Rico, but somehow you always find a way to sleep in until 10 that first day. Get in the roach-mobile. Down the hill. Find the coffee. Jamon y queso. It’s a happy ritual that takes us past all the spots. U-turn, then cruise to the break you always seem to start with. Through the golf course, down the long meandering path to the surf spot that always seems to exude a friendly vibe. We tell Al to “paddle flat, and try not to hit the bottom.”
It’s chest to head, and plenty of waves for everyone. But after two sessions we decide to take a chance with a change of venue. We park the roach-mobile at Middles. It will be dark within about an hour-and-a-half, so we don’t even look. Wax the boards, then up the hill.
Our stoke deflates as fast as a nitrous balloon at a Grateful Dead show – at least Al’s and mine. The wind is on it. Chunky nuggets are coming and going as they please. It’s low tide, and the waves are heave-hoeing, boils in the water.
Al and I stand at the water’s edge watching the Saigon Aussie tear up the cheddar. He’s the only guy out, and Al and I have forged a standoff. If he goes, I go. I am thinking this, and I’m pretty sure Al is thinking the same. This goes on for about 20 solid minutes. Neither calls the other’s bluff. We settle for a draw, ditch the boards, climb up the rocks and take in the Man v. Nature show. Chris Kahler 1. Ocean 1/2.
After one more day of typical Puerto Rican wind/swell surf, the bluster quiets to a moderate breeze. Al gets a new chance at Middles ‘beeeach’, which barely resembles the grumpy, thrashing mess she was prior. Big Al chooses pole position on the peak, as close to the rocky outcrop as possible, and is soon joined by a black version of Mr. Clean with a Ricky Martin twang. They are hanging out. The Latin Cojac even starts calling the kid “Alberto.” And after a solid three hours, Al is the last one to come in. Middles is his new favorite spot.
“Yeah Buddy.” He wipes the sand off his feet, and puts on his socks. Followed by his sneakers. This is all a very tedious process. Bringing flip-flops on a surf trip never occurred to him. And if it had, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He doesn’t even own a pair. (And do surf companies even make them in size 14?)
He does, however, own a pair of pajama pants, which he puts on every night before bed. And that’s what makes the kid refreshing. He doesn’t try to be anything he’s not. In fact, that line of thought doesn’t even seem to occur to him. He is genuine because that’s the only way he knows how to be.
“What does surfing mean to you?”
“It means the world to me. I’d rather surf than do anything.”
“Do you want to do it forever?”
“I want to do it forever…I want to become a professional surfer.”
Al is standing in his pajama pants and a T-shirt in the doorway of our rental, nicknamed, ‘The Dungeon.” Frank, “The Voice” Gonzalez, who we are renting from, is speechless for maybe the first time in his life. Frank has seen guests come and go, from an 18-year-old MCD-clad Irons, to an Archie on the mend (tweaking with a pot of coffee, a pack of cigarettes busting bicep curls from the time he woke up each day until surf check at dawn). But he’s never had quite the site standing before him: a 6’4” black as the ace-of-spades kid with size 14 feet, wearing a pair of pj’s that were most likely a present from his grandma. In an auspicious, impromptu naming ceremony Frank looks over looks over at us with an incredulous look on his face and anoints the kid, “The Gentle Giant”.
We wake up on our final morning in Puerto Rico especially groggy. It seems we all slept with one eye open last night. Like something out of a horror movie, we now understand why our abode is called ‘The Dungeon.’ I refused to look at the hairy spider carcass that wouldn’t flush down the toilet, but Al’s morbid curiosity brought him to the bowl’s edge. (He squealed like a girl!)
And now it is time for Al the boy to become Al the man. We head to Jobos, which is boasting blown out mush burgers and nobody out. Al and Chris suit up like a reverse Eminem and Dr. Dre duo ready to record a track. They trade waves as easy as the unlikely rap duo spit lyrics. The Aussie gets a long right, and Big Al follows with an even longer one. The kid is pumped when he gets out of the water, and tells me that wave was the longest right he’s ever had. From the Hershey Park wave pool to the Dub, he hasn’t had a whole lot of experience with reeling right-handers.
It is the cherry on top of a trip that has been full of new experiences, but without the total absence of familiarity. New breaks, new foods, killer sunsets, and killer spiders all mixed together and played to a Bob Marley soundtrack. One we know all the words to.
Sufficiently surfed out, we pack our things and hit Al up with a few mementos’ – a Puerto Rico T-Shirt, and some postcards and stickers – souvenirs from his first trip. The moon is eerily full when we wake at midnight to catch the 3 a.m. flight home. I videotape it from the roach-mobile, while Al and Chris keep watch for an all-night pincho stand that we know does not exist. Chris sings an ode to pinchos – the delicious Puerto Rican meat-on-a-stick – to the tune of a Michael Jackson song. He tilts his head back, and half-looks at me, half-looks at Al.
“Albert, you’ve come a long way,” he says. “You’ve gone from fried chicken…to pichos. Big boy style.”
“Yeah buddy,” Al says back.
Learning to Love Yourself.
“Who are you?” The perceptive caterpillar blows wafts of smoke into Alice’s pristine face. And after a journey through Wonderland, Alice emerges out of the rabbit hole confident and assured. A woman who knows who she is. Our own lives are like a Wonderland, with mad party friends, wise know-it-alls, and queens who want to chop our heads off. Like Alice, we muddle through these reality based fantasy worlds searching for adventure, while finding meaning when we didn’t even know we were looking for it.
But, unlike Alice, Lewis Carroll, the creator of her tale, is not holding the pencil madly jotting the rough draft to the story of our lives. We are the ones in control, scribbling and erasing, perhaps even doodling our ways through “Chapter One.”
Still, every now and then, a draft we are working on gets crumpled up and tossed. Rebound, off the wall into the wastebasket at the other side of the room. And then we start over. With a blank sheet of paper.
This rewrite is what happened to me, both gradually and without warning. If that makes any sense at all. If you’ve done this sort of thing yourself, you know what I’m talking about. But if you haven’t ever chucked the rough draft of your life, know that we only improve ourselves through repetition. Then buckle up, and enjoy the ride that I can only describe as top down, car all to yourself, singing, grooving to your own beat.
I was 27 when I balled up and tossed the rough sketch to the first draft of the story of my life. The words inside the crumpled paper would have revealed a pleasant enough tale: Two kids meet in college, dance in rain showers with careless disregard, laugh a lot, fall in love (or at least something like it), graduate, move out of town, get jobs, play house, get married. Then one day, they realize that seven years have passed, and that it’s time to move on. This tale concludes rather bittersweet, and without the gratifying stamp of “The End,” and definitely not “To Be Continued.” They part as both friends, and strangers.
And then, there is only me. Days pass, turning into months, until finally I rage assault and instigate a full-fledged rebellion...against myself. I question the music I listen to, my own fashion sense. And slowly I become aware that so much of what I know about being me, I have learned from him. This insight does not breed resentment toward him, only incredulousness that I have adapted another person’s conceptualization of self. My reflection in the mirror is just that. A reflection, because I don’t know the person who is staring back. But I want to know that person, or remember her even. Who was she before there was anyone else holding her hand or was by her side?
And so, I channel Alice – the post-adolescent version of me. Together we engage in intellectual ramblings with Mad Hatters, laugh often, cry occasionally, and fully thrust ourselves into the Wonderland of life. Trying to quench a seemingly insatiable thirst.
I am so thirsty, in fact, that I find the ocean. And surfing. Being able to tackle the exhaustion and fortitude of face-fulls of whitewater, finally making it to the calm place where the waves don’t break anymore; everything about surfing reminds me of life. That comforts me. Knowing that I am strong enough to take on any obstacle. Conquer the ocean, and you conquer yourself. Make it to the calm place, past the break to the quiet and blue sky. And realize that sometimes even just the journey to the water is as fulfilling as riding a wave.
This is when your page begins filling with prose so sweet that letters from nowhere occupy a new blank page with the words ‘Chapter Two.’ You haven’t been to this point before. You’re not starting over. You’re continuing something great. This draft makes your heart pound when you reread the letters that form words. The story is exciting, and the heroine is brave. Then one day, when she least expects it, a man in a shirt and tie will pull up in his car next to her. (Did I forget to mention?...She’s crouched on the ground in the adjacent parking space scraping wax off her board, about to paddle out.) He offers her some of his wax. And as cheesy as it sounds already, they paddle out together, and find out that they’re both teachers who love to travel and drive Volkswagens. After they get out of the water, he asks her if she wants to have dinner with him that night and she turns him down. She has leftovers, she says. But she’ll call him tomorrow.
You’ve probably guessed. That’s actually “Chapter Two” of my new life. Life changes. And that’s why it’s beautiful. And wonderful. You can’t ever get a grip on it. Or when you do finally get to your feet you feel the crest of life like you’re standing on the top of a wave. You’ve made it to your feet with speed and confidence. The span of an entire lifetime plays out in a half-second barrel ride, and suddenly, like Alice, you’re plunging down a rabbit hole, and having trouble distinguishing reality from the dream. The energy and intensity of the water holds you down until you think you may really drown, finally popping up into the world again, gasping for air, gulping and filling your lungs for what feels like the first time. And after you assess that you’ve made it - that you’ve lived to ride another wave, you are presented with two choices. You either paddle for shore and call it a day. Or you paddle back out to sea, more determined than ever to get a better ride, not making the same mistakes you did last time to become fish food in the inside whitewater.
Just be. Accept who you are, and learn to love yourself first. And then…paddle out.