Welcoming Life Challenges

Surf lesson with Evandro Santos Barra da Lagoa Brasil

Last weekend I took my first surfing lesson.  I am 43 and have never been  what I would call an “athlete” although I’ve gone through times of having a good physical fitness routine and was actually an aerobics instructor in college for a short while.  In recent times I have to admit that I have fallen away from regular exercise.  I always seem to let something else get in the way.

So you may be surprised to hear that I took a surfing lesson.  So was I.  I will be completely honest: my older daughters wanted to sign up for surfing as soon as we arrived in Florianopolis and they soon completed the 4 class course.  Not long afterward, my youngest daughter began begging for lessons as well.  Last weekend we journeyed by bus to the beach for her first lesson.  I was completely caught off guard when the instructor asked if I would also like a lesson.  I politely declined.  He then said he would include me for free just for fun.  This was quickly followed by his wife stating that I should take him up on the offer because it was unusual for him to make one like that.  I dodged with my next excuse, “I wasn’t expecting to take a lesson – I don´t even have a swimsuit with me”.  “Not a problem”, she replied, “you can go naked under the wet suit”.  My daughters were eagerly pushing me to do it.  I was trying to think of any other excuse I could imagine when the owner’s wife began measuring wet suits to my body.  I couldn’t think quickly enough and before I knew it I was being ushered into the changing area, wet suit in hand.

I have always been passionate about parenting through example.  As a mother of 3 daughters I want them to be physically strong and confident.  I have been a weak example in this category but I hate blatant situations like the one I was in.  I do not want to model a woman who is unable or unwilling to stretch physically to my kids.  It was exactly this line of thinking that had me climbing a 25 foot ladder to swing from a trapeze a couple of years ago.

Now I was in my wet suit practicing how to catapult myself in one move from my belly into a perfectly centered straddle on the sample surfboard the instructor kept outside his building.  No way was my body going to do this in one move. It was taking me about eight moves  I’m sure.  After attempting this a few times I found myself carrying a surfboard down the beach getting ready to enter the water.  My mind was racing.  “God dammit! I do not want to get into this water and make a fool of myself on this god damned surfboard in front of my family and this pro surfer!”

Nevertheless, I was now in the water after a brief explanation of what to do.  My 9 year old daughter went first.  The instructor pushed her and yelled in his cute Brazilian accent, “Standy uppy now!” She nimbly leaped up and surfed all the way to shore in her first attempt. I was so happy for her and excited to see her abilities.  This excitement soon turned to dread however as the instructor turned me towards the shore and I felt his inevitable push.  “Standy uppy now!” he shouted.  I got to my knees, felt the imbalance of the board, got to my feet, wobbled and flew off into the shallow water hitting my hip on the hard sand.

I won’t repeat the words going through my mind, but I got up and went back out.  The subsequent falls didn’t hurt as badly as I learned to stay flatter when I hit the water but I feared that I would not be able to do what all my kids had done so easily.

On about the 4th try, the instructor said, “Just believe – likey  you are 5 years oldy”.  What the hell, I thought, I’ll pretend to be 5 – I was falling every time anyway.

“Standy uppy now!” I heard him yell.  For that moment I let myself be 5 years old without fear.  I got to my feet, balanced, and before I knew it I was all the way to the shore.  What a feeling of accomplishment!

I fell a few more times in that lesson but I surfed to the shore about 4 times without falling.

Experiences like these are what make life full.  They also keep us young.  Of course, physical exercise is vital to maintaining a more youthful body – but more than that – the mental effects of challenging ourselves to new activities are extremely important.  It is easy to fall into the mind numbing state of complacency with our daily lives.  It is easy to feel like life has very little new or exciting to offer or perhaps that we have the ability to take advantage of what it does offer.  But to truly stay young at heart we must strive not to let ourselves be lost in this.

Let me quote Gabriel Garcia Marquez from his final poem to his friends as he met the challenges of lymphatic cancer,

“Marionette”-

If for an instant God would forget that I was a cloth marionette, and he was to present me with a little piece of life, possibly I would not say everything I thought, but I would definitely think about everything I said. I would value things, not for what they are worth, but for what they mean. I would sleep little, and dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes, we lose sixty seconds of light. I would go when everybody else is stopped, wake when when everybody else was sleeping. I would listen when everybody else was talking, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!

Through my surfing experience last weekend I realize that one of my great challenges as I get older will be to continue being a worthy owner of my life by keeping my mind open and willing to try new things so that I can enjoy all there is to be had and give to others more fully.

I ask myself why I mentally fought the idea of surfing when it was presented. Why is my knee jerk reaction to challenges to say “no”.  Once I completed the lesson I was happy and felt exhilarated by the new experience, just as I had felt after the trapeze lesson.  So what is it at a deep emotional level that pulls us to stay in that mind-numbed state?  I don’t have an answer yet but I know it comes from the dark side of ourselves.  I challenge you as I challenge myself to look closely at that dark side, accept it for what it is and try to understand it for only through that understanding will we be able to work with it and free to make choices to own and design our lifestyles.