SURFIN’ SAFARI SUMMER THREE - DAY ONE - June 4, 2021

This year’s edition of Surfin’ Safari Summer (SSS) includes a signature safari hat, a new board, a new leash, and some cool, new sunglasses someone left on the wall outside of our apartment building.

We stopped by Rider Shack in Mar Vista to change the fins out on my Blackbird board to a bigger blue board; both given to me by my old, young friend Ian McColl.

I learn something whenever I go to Rider Shack. This time I learned the leash needs to be about two feet longer than the board, and that my new stick is seven-feet, six inches long, and that you shouldn’t coil the leash around your board when you put it on the car rack. Just take it off, otherwise the leash will wrap around your leg when you’re on the water.

Living it all over again, I could have a place like Rider Shack and be happy enough. I still want to be relevant, important. It’s my definitions of those things that have changed over time.

On Thursday night I surfed Malibu with my brother-in-law Clinton and, at one point, we switched out boards. His was heavier, broader, and longer than mine and it worked well, although you lose maneuverability and speed with that kind of board: two things I look for in sport.

A board that makes catching waves easier is associated with older surfers, and guurrls, and for 16 years I’d be gosh-darned, damned and done-in before I rode one a those logs etc. etc. ...Anyway, the blue board, which I held in reserve, was similar in dimension to Clint’s and so the summer switch was made.

At home court - Marina del Rey - I had no trouble adjusting to the new ride, which is pretty good for a first outing. It has just what I have been missing -- which I could have only known after lots of practice -- a touch more tank and a snub nose that tracks well.

This is a third time ‘round for SSS. We have to keep moving and stay out of the house. The first year Anna was thin and fit and fastidious about her dress. She could talk and, though, there was some drama, most of the summer went, well, swimmingly.

Now she is heavier and unconcerned with her appearance. I am the stylist. I call her “Panda," because of her roundness and delayed response to things. She is not apt to wander. There is an autistic aspect to the illness that invites routine as comfort. I am a North Star for her at this point and, if visible, she has bearing. Such is not always the case when I am surfing and Anna will take off as consequence.

I have no apps, or trackers, or bracelets anymore. Just my own eyes. I drop the blanket at water’s edge and tell her to sit and watch as I surf, but soon enough she is off down the beach.

I used to run out of the water sputtering after Anna, berate her for not honoring my simple request, not yet accepting that I would never again reach her - never get through - and that, if I did, she’d forget in 10 minutes.

No more. I am much changed and simply paddle down the beach, keeping her fluorescent orange shirt (by design) in my sights, picking off waves where I can. This is how it has to be done, and so it shall be.

If she gets too far ahead, I go ashore and track her down, as she is wont to join some unsuspecting strangers on their blanket or engage shore strollers anxious over her odd familiarity. I return her to the blanket and squeeze out another 10 minutes of surf while she watches and shivers, as she once did in the golden years before her misfortune won out.

Surfin’ Safari Summer Three returns upon the request of its fans. The posts were started as a way of keeping those who love Anna apprised of her circumstances, but some found more and I'm grateful. Perhaps they evoke the way joy (surfing) and tragedy (Alzheimer’s) share the same times and spaces in our life together, and in the life of the world. 

On the water, I can do this! There are energy surges, aqua ballet, gliding pelicans and, ashore, my wife is mad, ambling, beyond herself, vulnerable, unknowing. I grab a wave and yelp aloud. She gives our lunch of ribs and corn to a terrier. His owners run through the sand waving, yelling, "Thunder, no!" 

You either laugh or die.

Joy and tragedy, alternating their impositions, each probing the other’s space, turning days light or dark without warning. This is how we all live.