Surfing on Acid

The prologue ... manuscript draft.

So clearly I am a novice writer. I googled the difference between an auto-biography and a memoir. Apparently I am writing a memoir. I like the sound of that better, slightly less pretentious, and it is more accurate. So for my edification, and yours if your don’t already know, an auto-biography chronicles the full history of someone’s life, while a memoir is a slice, or certain subject related to someone’s life. My book will be the later, and while I will probably end up touching upon most of the major milestones in my life, they will be in support of the narrative of spiritual growth and how I learned to find more joy and gratitude in my own life via the challenges presented to me.

Here is the prologue for my memoir, this is my second draft and will still need the skilled hands of professional editor. So there may still be a few rough spots (hopefully only a few.)

This is a big experiment for me. I have received feedback from other writers to be really cautious about publishing unfinished work, you only have one chance to make a first impression. I am hoping the constructive feedback I get makes taking this risk worthwhile.

My wife asked me if I was sure I really wanted to get feedback at this stage. “You have worked really hard on this, what if you don’t like the feedback?” I thought about this and realized, I would rather know now if it sucks, than spend a year on it, publish it and find out then. That would truly suck.

For those of you who are up for participating and helping me here is some great advice I got on getting feedback from family and friends:

Please tell me one thing you think I must absolutely keep, and one thing if I had to remove it you could do without.

(This isn't a bribe, but I may be sending out some art pieces as my way of saying thanks to those who help on this :)

So without further ado …

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Prologue - Surfing on Acid

I thrust myself deeper into the sea, pushing my surfboard down and forward, escaping the grasp of the wave surging above me.  A trail of air bubbles streamed down the sides of my board and over my hands in a shimmering kaleidoscope of colors.  Time was slowing down.  Just a few hours earlier, in the twilight of the morning, I had taken my second dose of LSD; I was tripping hard.  I was also paddling out at one of the most iconic surf breaks in Southern California - Lower Trestles.  A place I had never surfed before.

It was an unseasonably balmy day with warm offshore winds gently blowing, grooming the ocean’s surface oily smooth.  The swell was from the south, larger than most days, and when these two conditions exist, something magical happens at Trestles:  the ocean lights up with a series of glassy emerald peaks that rise and fall, folding upon themselves to crash upon the impossibly dark cobblestones; ribbons of water that unfold and peel away with the precision of a machine.  The allure of these sublime waves becomes a siren song beckoning thousands of surfers from within a hundred miles or more, which was evident from the densely packed throng of surfers dotting the ocean.

On the bigger sets, the waves were approaching double-overhead in height, and while not the heaviest waves I have ever surfed, certainly not trivial.   The stone-faced surfers sitting shoulder to shoulder, bobbing up and down in the water, were another matter entirely; like the holy season at Mecca and a NASCAR race combined.  Surfers feverishly competing with each other, vying to secure their privileged commune before the winds changed direction and the swell faded away.

The wave at Lower Trestles is a classic A-Frame peak, where gravity overcomes the highest point of the building wave and forces the ever steepening wall of water to collapse upon itself, peeling symmetrically both left and right.  Unlike waves that only break in one direction which only one surfer can ride, a wave that breaks in a peak allows two surfers the opportunity to hitch a ride, each one going in opposite directions.   Everyone else must wait for another wave.  How those two lucky surfers are chosen is some combination of a chess game and a gladiator match.  A surfer has to anticipate when and where the wave will be coming from, when and where the wave will break, and ideally position themselves as close to the peak as possible, sometimes aggressively paddling through and across other surfers to claim their spot calculating where everyone will be positioned when the wave finally arrives.  The unwritten rule, one often enforced in vitriol and violence, is that the surfer closest to breaking part of the wave has the right of way and once they are up and riding the wave is theirs.   Everyone else must yield.  

This rule of etiquette pushes competitive surfers to take off deeper and deeper in the most critical and dangerous section of the wave in order to establish priority.   

At a surf break like Lower Trestles, where a single peak peels in both directions, determining which surfer is deepest and has priority can become a contentious judgement call depending on which direction each surfer chooses to go.  The name of the game is to be the surfer taking off deeper, with no one behind you, claiming the wave as your own.  When two or more surfers are attempting to “split” the peak; it can be arguably confusing.  It is not uncommon for each surfer's competitive drive combined with their subjective perspective on which way the wave is truly breaking to take off in conflicting directions.  Oftentimes this results in injury or violence when the surfers either crash into each other or a conflict breaks out because one or both riders feel like the wave was legitimately theirs.   A very similar situation as the road rage that can occur when drivers merging into traffic feel slighted by another driver who does not yield.

I never enjoyed this competitive aspect of surfing, the tense vibe and palpable tension of testosterone filling the air where everyone is competing for that one wave and trying to find their place in the lineup with some weird pecking order that reflects a combination one’s skill, competitive drive, and the number of local surfers you know. But here I was, sitting shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of surfers I had never met before, at a place I had never surfed, happily chatting, and sharing my newfound insights of acid induced consciousness. 

To say I was relaxed would have been a understatement.  I was floating in consciousness, connected to the ocean in a way I had never felt before. Feeling a sense of warmth, love and connection with the strangers sitting next to me in the water - completely at peace.  I was absorbed by the details of the world around me, mesmerized for long periods by colored rays of sunshine reflecting and refracting on the water rippling above my hands, or the intricate fractal patterns of fiberglass and resin on the deck of my surfboard.  There was a keen vibration of electric energy pulsing through me and everything around me.

Snapping out of my trance I saw the horizon tilt upwards as ominous shadows started to form on the ocean surface delineating the large dark masses of water approaching us.  As the surface bulged, the gladiator chess match began, with dozens of surfers jockeying for position. I spotted a wave approaching that angled a little further to the north of the frenzied pack I’d been floating amongst.  I arched my back, and started paddling  towards the incoming wave.  I was going for it. So were two other surfers.

As the wave rose up in a mountainous dark peak, the three of us pivoted, sprinting to shore as fast as we could, generating enough speed to jump to our feet and drop into the clean open face of the wave.  I was the furthest surfer to the right which meant my only legitimate claim to the wave was if the surfer to my left decided to go left.   It was a dicey call, but sometimes part of the game in crowded surf conditions is to just paddle harder and want it more, hoping the other guy gives up and just lets you go, relinquishing their position.   The guy to my left was looking in the other direction and not making the telltale steely eye contact saying “get the fuck off my wave.”   So I was going for it and hoping he went left while I went right.  All of these decisions on who was going where and in what direction happened in less than a second.  

The wave was almost double overhead in height and I was just to the right of the large peak that was now beyond vertical and throwing a chaotic mass of foaming water out in front of itself.  I put all of my focus onto the wave itself, popping up to my feet while gravity slung me down to the bottom of the looming wall of water.  As I neared the bottom I caught something out of the corner of my eye.  Oh shit!  The surfer to my left had chosen to go the same direction on the wave as I had.   In my eagerness to grab this wave I had committed one of the cardinal sins of surfing, dropping in, putting us both at risk of colliding and, worse yet, ruining his wave. 

I needed to fix this, immediately.

Reaching the bottom of the wave I let the momentum of my speed drive my hips down while squatting and loading my legs like a compressed spring.  I drove as much of this force as I could into the heel of my rear foot while simultaneously releasing the pressure on my front foot and turning the board onto its side, burying the rear rail deep into the water and twisting to the right, pivoting my board in a sharp turn pointing back up the face of the wave.  Extending both my legs and shooting my hips upward I accelerated up towards the curling lip in a dramatic arc, throwing a sheet of water in a fan outward and away from my outside fins.  I was attempting to exit the wave as quickly as possible, following the proper surfing etiquette and yielding the right of way to the surfer behind me.   All of this happened in a fraction of a second.

Despite the forces involved, and the precarious nature of the situation, I felt at one with the ocean, the move felt effortless.  So effortless that I rocketed back up the face of the wave in a near vertical motion at a speed and a trajectory I had never experienced before.  I was going too fast and shot past the top of the now overhanging wave, my board becoming inverted, as I began falling backwards… back down the face of the wave I had just ascended.  I could not see where I was falling, but it occurred to me I would be falling directly onto the surfer below and behind me.  

And fall I did.

Just a few weeks later I found myself handcuffed, sitting on the hard plastic back seat of a police car.  Wire mesh cage separating me from the two officers sitting up front, shotgun hanging vertically between them.  I was being transported to a local psychiatric hospital, the lock down unit.   

My journey had begun.