When life gives you life, go surfing.
Words & photography :: Erin Hogue
“Make sure your seatbelts are fastened,” the flight attendant reminds us over the intercom as the seatbelt sign glows in my face. Vomit is streaming down my chin and not one, but two, full barf bags sit in my lap. It’s at that moment—90 minutes after boarding—that our plane finally begins to taxi toward the runway. Which means the only napkin I’ll see for the next 20 minutes is the nicest jacket I own.
“I’m sorry,” I reluctantly mutter into the phone. “I have to go.” I hang up, trying to figure out what I must have done in another lifetime to rack up this kind of karma. What the f*ck, universe?
I’m flying home from Ontario. The day had kicked off at the funeral for my two stillborn nieces. Something so heart-wrenching I’m not even going to attempt to put into words. Emotionally spent, I had turned to my boyfriend for support.
I hang up, trying to figure out what I must have done in another lifetime to rack up this kind of karma.
He’d been doing the best job at being there for me all week—that is, unfortunately, until moments before the plane took off. It seems the rocky state of our relationship had become too much, and the person I thought could be “my person” ended things over the phone while I sat trapped in my seat. This all proved to be too much, causing me to do something I almost never do: throw up. Then, to really show me where my karma stood, the first barf bag I reached for was sealed shut with someone else’s disgusting old chewing gum. Really, life? Really? This is how this all has to all go down?
Out of pure stubbornness I refuse to ruin my favourite jacket by wiping puke on it. Instead, I wait an agonizing 20 minutes for the seatbelt sign to turn off so the flight attendant can bring me a tissue. Somehow I survive the flight, deplane and make it home to Whistler. The proceeding 72 hours find me in a daze of confusion. My entire focus is set on simply putting one foot in front of the other, desperately hoping the weight of the past two weeks would disappear. It doesn’t. Instead, I soak my camera in water and eliminate my ability to shoot the story I was flying back for in the first place. Everything has fully and quite literally just been one of those “What the F, life?” situations.
The next decision comes almost too easily. What does one do when yet another attempt to put the pieces of life back together falls apart and none of it makes sense? One says, “F*ck it, I’m going surfing.”
The gloomy clouds of Whistler fade from the rearview mirror, and within days I roll a fully set-up Wonder Vans campervan into the dry, sunbaked desert of Baja. The air feels like a warm embrace and the landscape is a mix of golden sand and jagged cacti stretching endlessly under deep blue skies. I’m excited to meet up with snowboarder and Pemberton/Lil’wat legend-in-the-making Sandy Ward for our first surf together. At the beach, we bask in the smell of salt and sand as the ocean glimmers a shimmering invitation, no wetsuit needed.
What does one do when yet another attempt to put the pieces of life back together falls apart and none of it makes sense? One says, “F*ck it, I’m going surfing.”
I paddle out, feeling the dry heat on my back, until the first giant wave rears up and smacks me right in the face. I try to duck-dive the next—but instead get tossed. I’m insistently reminded that I have zero clue what I’m doing as I’m pummeled by one wave after another and pushed back to shore.
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I fight with the ocean, like I’d been fighting myself for months—trying to get somewhere but ending up in exactly the same place. I’d been secretly hoping the rolling waves of the ocean would not only lessen the crushing weight in my chest, but also stop the endless circles in my head as I struggle to make some kind of sense out of everything. I feel like I try so hard to do everything right yet somehow still get it wrong.
In the water, I glance back at Sandy—she’s in the same situation, paddling hard only to be relentlessly pushed back to shore. We catch each other’s eye and burst out laughing: “Who made surfing so bloody hard?”
We immediately abandon any hope of making it past the break and decide to become whitewash queens, sticking to the bunny hill of surfing.
Those early days of the trip feel like a never-ending, beyond-my-control, uphill battle—a hurricane hits us, I get heatstroke, Sandy gets food poisoning. Nothing goes to plan, and everything feels harder than it should. Yet through it all, a smile never seems to leave Sandy’s face—the perfect companion for less-than-ideal circumstances.
More faces from home arrive, including Pemberton-based snowboarder Darrah Reid-McLean. Our crew of snowboarders is joined by the world’s best surf coach, Matt Lindsay. Every morning starts with the smooth aroma of cappuccinos and cool, almost crisp, air wafting in as we slide open the van door to catch a hint of morning light rising over the horizon.
Paddling out into the glassy ocean, we can feel the stillness around us, broken only by the gentle splash of our hands cutting through the waves. The sky slowly shifts from deep indigo to soft shades of pink and orange as the first rays of sunlight touch the water. Each morning brings me a little further back from the edge.
But surfing is still so hard. Stop forcing it, I tell myself. Wait patiently for the right wave. Know that it’s coming. I remind myself I cannot will a wave to break or force myself into one that’s not ready—it doesn’t work that way. Instead, I must learn to sit and wait—hoping, knowing, the right wave is coming. And somehow this acceptance of patience also helps me realize I no longer need the walls I built around myself to keep me safe. Let go. Trust that the right wave will come. I can’t force the pieces of my life back together. Instead, I have to be open. I have to wait and trust that life has got my back.
Somehow this acceptance of patience also helps me realize I no longer need the walls I built around myself to keep me safe.
And if not, Matt does. “Erin, let’s get you a wave,” he says. “This is it…PADDLE!”
So I do. I paddle, I arch my back, look up, pop up, look down the wave and this time—for the first time—it all comes together. Reality slows down and nothing else in life matters as I pump up and down the face of the wave, all the way to the beach.
A corner has been turned. Catching wave after wave, my mind begins to quiet as the sorrow and anguish slowly dissolve into the sea. Just one more, just one more. Even when it’s too dark to see. Just one more. It’s not about the biggest wave, the gnarliest trick or the first anything. It’s about the feeling—a feeling of letting go, blended with the quiet triumph of achievement. It’s the undeniable rush of overcoming challenges, and this time, for me, it’s also the feeling of piecing myself back together in a way that makes me realize certain facets I once thought were so integral to life are, in fact, completely irrelevant. I, we, everything is already whole.
Everyone gets it. “Dude, you did it,” Darrah hugs me on the beach. “You did what you came here to do!”
Who knew surfing had the power to lighten the load and illuminate the darkness? I guess lots of people know it, and maybe subconsciously even I knew it. That’s why I ended up here. Because, for me, it’s very similar at home, on a snowboard, in the mountains—waiting for the right storm, the good light, the moment everything lines up. Gliding on a board—of wood, foam or whatever—can somehow just make everything make sense again. Maybe it’s because it bends time and forces us into the present. Maybe it’s because it challenges us, or that it surrounds us with friends. Or maybe it’s that it forces us to fall, over and over and over, until the only option is to just get back up.
But really, it doesn’t matter—who cares about the “why?” It just works. Every time.
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