Surfing

The place we visited in Mexico was this little beachside town Diana suggests we move to every time I have a bad meeting at work. It has everything I need: No movie theatre, no wifi, no Xbox, no comic book stores.

Every morning we would walk down the hill from our rental house and say hi to Bubby, this little mutt who didn’t seem to realize his name was Bubby. We’d then cruise past the dapper Mexican folks and dusty hippies and end up on the beach.

Diana would park on a blanket and entertain the parade of beach salesmen and women with her chipper “No gracias.” The boys and I would head to the water where I would slowly, every so slowly enter the cold water, which feels like needles on my pampered skin. The boys would already be engaged in their favorite game of getting pummeled by waves while was only up to my shins.

Eventually I would reach the boys and we’d watch the surfers while I sucked in my gut. We’d pick out the ones we thought were cutest and then scream, “Wipe out!” when they fell. They hated us.

On the last day, Luca asked if he could rent a boogie board and go surfing. We got one from a stoned surf shop owner who didn’t seem to care if or when we ever brought it back.

Once in the water, Luca got this was a serious, smooshed face mixed with utter joy. He would stand with the board and wait until a wave crashed over him, at which point he would jump on the board and get immediately thrown off.

He did this roughly 34 thousand times.

Since I’ve seen “Point Break” 14 times, I felt like I could instruct Luca how to boogie board. But I decided the best way to teach him was to think the lecture in my head, and then not say anything.

It went like this, in my head I would say, “Okay Luca. Now listen. You want to wait until just the right moment. Not when the wave is too high, but also not when its’ too low. Then wait until the perfectly right moment to jump on. No, you’re doing it wrong. No, wait. Not like that. Come on. You aren’t listening.”

But then out of my mouth I would say, “Yay Luca!”

Suddenly, every star aligned in the universe and Luca caught a wave, riding it all the way to the shore. He screamed and laughed the whole way in. I shrieked with dad-joy. It was the greatest moment in either one of our lives.