On Surfing
I think of longboards as a challenge. I always appreciated bigger boards as a kid but never rode them. I ride them a lot now, but maneuvering and controlling a bigger board requires pre-emptive thinking—the way I paddle out, where I sit in the line up, how I paddle for a wave and where I ride it. Smaller boards feel more flippant. Also, letting myself experiment and not repeating the same choreographed dance is always a challenge. More recently I remind myself to listen, and to be inclusive and community minded in and out of the water.
Surfing offers an overwhelming sense of relief that I haven’t been able to replicate. Things feel so simple post-surf, so in that way it’s rewarding.
I’m not an elegant person — I walk with heavy feet, I have thick fingers. Floating across the wave feels elegant and flashy, and in that way it’s redemptive.
Wiping out on a wave humiliates me in a good way — I can blush and laugh and move on to the next set. It’s given me a profession, a creative outlet, and something to talk about at dinner parties. A feeling of being in sync with wind, water, and weather patterns; an overall connection to the planet and a reminder to take care of it.
I can go years without surfing! I moved to Manhattan when I was 18 for school and became wrapped up in my studies and new-found city life, I stopped surfing for 3 years and survived. I recently moved to London, which will inevitably mean longer bouts between sessions. I mind-surf almost daily now, it’s partly how I meditate.
I wasn’t a natural at it. I was 8 years old in low tide New Jersey beach break and I remember feeling like I had to work hard at it, which I think made it all the more physically satisfying when I got those first long rides. Matt Kechele was there that day, and he told me that he made surfboards, which got my brain firing.
When I started working at my local surf shop at age 14 I really fell in love with the culture. It’s a shop that specializes in classic board design, so older guys would chat my ear off about the last swell, and I would eat up the stories of grandeur. There was a lot of passion and heart behind it, which kept me buzzing through the flat spells.
The pre/post car rides, stuck in traffic with friends and acquaintances, is prime time for candid conversation. I also like ending my surf sessions with a swim in the white water followed up by a smoothie from Bob’s Natural Foods or beer.
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Michael is a writer and photographer born in Florida as a first-generation American to Austrian and South African parents. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Bitter Southerner, and The Surfer’s Journal among other magazines.
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