This is a catch all for anything in my heart besides fashion, culture, light, sound, house or home. At the very precise center is this thing that holds me captive all of the time. I’m either thinking about it because I’m doing it, because I wish I were doing it, or because I’m watching the real guys do it. It, the thief of my soul, is surf.
Now, let me be clear. I get to surf only enough to almost be considered a kook. I have my own board, but I don’t live in reasonable proximity to surf every week. I know a lot…like I’m not a goofy (I’m a regular), I know how to pop up, I have my own rash guards and block of Sticky Bumps, I know in rough weather it can be VERY hard just getting to the outside, and I’ve mastered strapping my board to my car. I stood up on my first surfboard at 15 at one of the best surf breaks in the U.S. (Huntington Beach), I’ve surfed in Costa Rica, and I have a solid break in the state in which I live (Folly Beach, SC) along with a great team of guys who coach me – they’ve also become great friends. I’m inspired all of the time by the baddest ass surfers out there (e.g., Greg Long, John John Florence, Kelly Slater, Laird Hamilton, and Gabriel Medina to name a few), and the ones who got in the game late and are just happy for the chance to surf for their own edification. One in particular, Peter Heller, wrote the book Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life and Catching the Perfect Wave, and he inspires me to keep searching and to keep trying. Throughout his book, Heller captures the Heart and Soul of what it is about surfing that holds so many of us in a magical, melancholy trance.
Does surfing inspire my style? Yes, just as much as my favorite music. It feeds my affair with the sun, and I’m happiest when my skin is salt-stained from floating on a board. It drove me until I gave up my sassy Mini Coopers in exchange for a turbo sport wagon so I could haul my board. Music synonymous with surf culture, like Jack Johnson, is also right up there with all of the other music I love. Surfing inspired my first tattoo, the Thai symbol for passion, which I courageously got at a little tattoo joint in Costa Rica. And certainly part of what I adore about the 70s is the look and timeless style of the hip, California girl, like Ali McGraw yesterday or Jennifer Aniston today.
Heart & Soul is a place where you can see me pour out heart and soul for this thing I want to be, as I share moments of successful surfing glory, and through stories of when I place my feet on hallowed surfing ground around the world. My bucket list shimmers before me like the water under my flying board.
Intermittently in life I’ve found myself interrupted by a crush – you know those silly emotions usually attached to a tweenager running amok on the fumes of angst and raging hormones. One happened recently and unexpectedly that on one hand humored me for all its schoolgirl silliness, and on the other, made me feel a …
For an entire year now I’ve been living this series and writing it in my head. I’ve put off actually drafting anything because I keep waiting for it to tie up in a nice, perfectly wrapped parcel. Because of its nature, I’m finally admitting that won’t ever happen. In short, the very …
Those words and images that landed in my travel journal this year need a space to live. What is it…?
I’ve struggled to find clarity in penning these Adventuring posts, and all along I kept reminding myself that something would trigger the words to unfold on the page. I had to be patient. I had to remember to embrace the journey where introspective learning happens. I had to relish the anticipation of the writing …
The back-to-back California trips in late 2014 stirred something in me in a giant redwood kind of way. The places, the people, the air, space, and great wide Pacific, the creatures, the light – all of it imprinted on me and wrapped itself around my center, around my soul. It impacted me from a thousand …
I’ve spent a lot of time this year pondering wanderlust and adventuring. I had a rapturous taste of these things in 2014 and managed to keep that spirit alive in 2015. But it’s far from satiated. The hunger is only getting louder and more demanding. The things I want to see and do are …
By definition, bucket list items are things we dream of seeing, doing, winning, achieving. Some bucket list items also come with the thrill of the chase. For me, both are the formula for most things at the top of my own list, and they usually entail the words surf or wave. And by surf and …
The year that was 2014 really started out very, very, VERY bad, having lost a dear friend on Christmas – an event that would shape the lives of the people around me right up to Christmas 2014 and beyond. I learned a lot about myself dealing with a fresh type of grief, the kind that …
It’s an interesting thing – that labeling of a girl, classifying her distinctly in one class (a girl’s girl) or another (a guy’s girl). I’ve long known I’m considered the latter and have gradually accepted it, although it’s alternately a curse and a blessing depending on life’s circumstances. I see it generally as something that …
I’m in an intense place this year, healing over the loss of a special friend, and taking from that the lessons this life has to offer. I’m again in that word picture I created in another difficult life moment, where I’m sitting on a rock in a river, the beautiful summer sunlight casting brilliant, blinding …