To The Surfers Journal
Dear TSJ,
I am thinking of gifting two of your magazines (31.4, and 32.3) to a couple of local boys here in Nicaragua. Over the years of my extended stays here, I have become quite good friends with these boys as we share in the notion that surfing should be a rather boisterous affair. Surfing with them is never less than a hilarious, and they are without a doubt, my most treasured surf buddies.
Disrupting the status quo of solemn, pensive line ups is our favourite activity-almost on par with surfing itself. I taught them how to yell ‘PARTY WAVE!’ in English before dropping in on people, although they have started doing it to me now which I hardly think is fair. Diving competitions, underwater fist bumps, and calling beginners into hideous close outs are our most endeared form of entertainment. We also like yelling at less-than-capable strangers to do airs, or 360’s on the smallest of waves.
One of the boys, quite a scrappy looking thing, found me on the beach the other day and managed in the same sentence to explain that he saw me tuck into a nice little tube and that I should really consider taking surfing lessons because my cutbacks are really lacking in force. He continued for the next half hour, reiterating with sandy diagrams just how lousy my surfing really is. I’ve never seen him so serious…
5 or 6 years ago I spent a year in Northern Nicaragua, where I lived in an old storage room of an abandoned discotheque. It was right on the beach- so close to the ocean that in the middle of the night these giant crabs would find their way under the door (which was just couple haphazard 2x6’s nailed together ) and I would wake up to the sounds of their scuttling around next to my face. Seeing as my face was only separated from the concrete floor by a worn-out mattress, it was quite an unsettling sound. I would in turn arouse my x-boyfriend who would run around buck naked in the dark (we had no electricity) with a big steak knife trying to stab the cute little motherfuckers in the back so we could get some decent shut-eye. It was during this time that I miraculously stumbled across my first TSJ.
In another time, your magazine may have simply seemed like the material product of some not-quite-pro’s attempt at a real job featuring a couple slang-ridden blurbs on surfing, but in that moment your journal was akin to an otherworldly awakening. The journal was in English which I hadn’t spoken in quite awhile, and the words hit me like a breath of fresh air. TSJ quickly became a token of almost religious prestige. I would spend hours on the beach, reading the articles on repeat, and remembering a time when surfing and such things as running water, good food, and even cold weather could co-exist. When I had finally managed to memorize every word, we cut out each picture and taped them (along with some others from SURFER) onto the wall, creating a smorgasbord of surfing inspiration. One image in particular sticks in my mind.
The photo was of a physics defyingly fat man named Jimbo frozen inside of a perfect tube. We dubbed him ‘The Surfing Buddha’ and offered him the place of highest exaltation our little shack could offer. The front door. We quickly fell into the habit of praying to him for good waves and offshore winds-honouring his presence with piles of sacrificial crabs.
My two surfing friends here don’t have much by way of material things. They protect their boards at all costs, even opting out of bigger waves for fear of breaking them. I doubt they have their own rooms, and during the rainy season their street becomes a swimming pool of mud-more fit for a kayak than walking. But despite our differences-sex, age, race, language, socio-economic standings-they seem to have found a friend in me. And I wonder. What will these boys see in these magazines? What will they think of little Tosh Tudor in his fluffy parka? Or of ice-encrusted Johnny Meehan surfing New England’s frozen point break? Will they see what I saw in those magazines so many years ago? Or will they simply dismiss them as some sort of honky, pompous English trash?
Only time will tell. But until then, I think I owe them a couple of ‘PARTY WAVES!’