In Control, with No Control



Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left —
“Paddle Faster,” my surf instructor yelled.
Right, Left, Right, Left —
the green Wave picks me up.
the nose of my board 
Touching the front of the Wave,
tail to the Sky,
hands to my waist, flat
push my arms straight,
right foot up near the back, left foot to the middle.
knees bent, arms out, 
standing.

In control, with no control.

weight on my back foot —
white water to my left —
lean my body to the right.
The Board climbs the glassy Wave —
it isn’t mine anymore,
was it ever? —
the Wave is carrying me, the Board
I am not in control.

Inhale,
Exhale.

weight on my front foot,
lean slightly to my left,
the Board glides down the Wave, moving with it but never moving.

In control with no control,

the powerful, yet gentle Wave carries me with ferocious love. 

Working with Nature, not against, for the first time in a long time.
“strength…discovered by the little girl inside who just wants to playing the waves”
a “relationship with the Land…the Land itself”
An experience with the Ocean, with the Waves, with the earth “as something expressive, as something that is active, is animate, is alive.”
“developing a friendship with the ocean”
Respect for the Ocean, love for the Waves, 
please keep me safe, but keep me humble.
STOP
It’s not about you.

In control with no control.

Trust in the Wave.
Love in the Wave.
History in the Wave.
Respect in the Wave.
Safety while terrified in the Wave.

What wave is this?
Not on a board, 
not in an ocean,
no.

“embodied imagery that…fit to what they perceive as experience”
College, the peak of the wave?
or a climb?
a step forward?
a leg up?

Absorbed in the Wave?

of what one is supposed to be?
supposed to feel?
“living according to plans someone else made for them?”

Blinded and bound by rules?
by rights and wrongs?
by goods and bads?
by authority?

What if there isn’t one answer?

What if the answer is in the Wave?
the waves?
What if we have been blinded by another’s wave?
by the page, by people?
with the sun, “the winds and the weather powers,”

unable to shine through?

_________

Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World 
David Abram, Random House Penguin Books, 1997

Surfer Girls in the New World Order
Krista Comer, Duke University Press, 2010

Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth Century Hawaii 
Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, University of Hawaii Press, 2011

Entry on “Embodied Cognition” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-cognition/

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