I’m on the train to Paris back from beautiful Biarritz, and one of my favourite surf-mechanisms is hitting me with full force: my imagination is flooding my consiousness with surf thoughts. There's something about surfing that sparks your inner child, setting off a cascade of daydreams that lay somewhere between delusional and realistic. I cherish every single one of them equally, wherever they sit on that spectrum. Maybe one day I’ll pick one and make it happen ?
If I owned a mid-length board,
then i would have brought it to Cenitz and caught 100 waves with no shoulder pain… I would have tried weird turns, landed a few and progressed 2x as much.
If I had committed to the take off on that wave,
then I would have had a long driving bottom turn with a huge wall facing me and a clean shoulder to ride after that.
If I could work remotely,
then I’d go live in Sri Lanka until I get a proper barrel. I would probably save more money than I currently do, surf everyday, enjoy sunrise and sunset everyday… life would make sense for a while.
If Paris had a wave pool,
I would not fucking go. (remember the duck dive #11)
If I had the equipment,
then I would dedicate a full week-end to shaping my own board, and the one after that to glassing it, and take it for a test surf the week after that.
If I shaped my own board,
then it would be unsurfable, but cool room design.
If I had surfer friends in Paris,
then we’d organise monthly trips on every month’s first week end, wherever that needs to be.
If surfing was music,
then it would be aggressive hard-rock. Yes, that would depend on the waves & board you choose. But I just came out of a week in Biarrtiz where “could have gone pros” spent the entire lunch break launching airs on a hollow sand bar section, wave after wave, relentlessly. I commited to that section once, and felt like that was the one big speed rush I spent a week in Biarrtiz for. So my point is: surfing is not that chill.
If you offered to tow me in a 2.5m glassy barrel fully equiped on a sunny day,
then I would have to dig very deep to grow a pair and send it. But you go first.
If she had seen that last wave,
…
Song of the week
I'll just keep playing back These fragments of time Everywhere I go These moments will shine I'll just keep playing back …