Taste of Waves

Enjoy today - it is a gift. Thats why it is called the present.

I was surfing right after the hurricane. The storm was passing, and I was in the ocean, paddling out into huge waves - waves that have their own soul, their own motion. I could feel the sting of saltwater in my eyes, hands gliding down through the water propelling me closer to life.
There is a indescribable sacredness when you are flailing and fighting lost in the rhythms of the ocean. You will find, that you are smaller, weaker, and far less important than you previously imagined yourself to be. The ocean is a being; it is unmoved, untamed.. constant. When you are surfing, or swimming, you feel the movement all around you - in your ears, your eyes, your heart, your stomach.. it consumes you.



I fought my way out to the edge of the breaking waves, CRASSHHING! RUSHHHING! the feeling of being in a stampede. I waited on the right wave to come, I wanted to time it just right. There it was, looming behind me - like a sea monster rising from the depths. I paddled furiously, urging my board to catch the current.
In a split second I had jumped up onto my surfboard, and was now riding the face of the wave - plunging down, across the hissing surface.
5 seconds of glory, and then a face full of sand and seawater. I was flung from my board, pushed, pummelled, held beneath the frothing ocean. I clawed upwards, straining against the pounding force of the wave.
Finally, my face ripped through the water's surface, I gasp for air! Ahhhhhhh! My lungs drank it in.
Never has the most common of all things tasted so good, or been so desired. There, in the depths of the crashing waves, you find that the thing your body craves the most is simply life. Not food, not money, not friendship, not comfort - simply life and a solid breathe of air.

I paddled back to shore. Wiser. Took a look at the waves, and then did it again.
The taste of waves, makes you realize the insane beauty of simply being alive.




(Andrew Tipton)