I feel the sensation of wet, full body wet. My
pony-tail holder slips down, leaving clumps of knotted wet hair flopping haphazardly in front of my face. I barely notice as rainsqualls race across the beach. I am too wet. The sun soon returns anyway. The waves breaking at three and four feet race toward me. I power through them with my body. I, too, am unrelenting. 

Around me the sea life swirls. Bright blue small oval jellyfish with a cellophane-like half circle protruding from their center swarm around me, cling to the middle of my surfboard. Their tiny tentacles will only sting my hands mildly. My full wet suit protects my body and feet. I am lost in the moment, a moment that slips into hours, broken only by a short break for nourishment. My husband climbs the sand dunes to 
return to the car for our hasty lunch and the surfboard wax. I sit on a beach log between the surfboards, watching the waves break and the surfers rise to their boards. Jonathan returns with a peanutty tiger milk bar covered in chocolate and pieces of pesto bread stuffed with sharp cheddar cheese and proscuitto, which I had baked the night before. We rub Mr. Zogs Sex Wax on the surfboards to improve the grip of their surface. Stowing the rest of the wax in a beach log, we return to the surf. 

I am determined to release myself to the waves, to ride up high on top of the surfboard and land in a pile of board, surf and body at the edge of the beach. Life as I have lived it the last six months is cast aside. Presidents will wage war, wreak havoc within their own countries. Friends and family will struggle with illness, fight for their lives, but life keeps moving. An endless movement of waves, currents, tides that directs all sea life is here. I struggle against those forces, as the waves wash through me. I swallow water though my mouth and nose, as the surf churns over me, throwing me under the board. I rest under
water, waiting for a chance to surface before the wave crashes the board down on my head. 

I do this over and over. Even as exhaustion ripples though my body, even as I feel myself growing weary and less responsive, my dogged determination flings me back into the surf, my pony-tail holder long lost to the sea, hair streaking across my face and clinging to my back. I search for the wave, the right wave that will lift me from my knees to a standing position. 

Battered and sore, I fight to stand up, having landed in two feet of water. I stop, breathless and beyond breathless, to watch my husband being pounded into the surf, after riding for a moment almost fully standing.  When we feel success at almost standing tall we yell just loud enough to have the other look our way and see us tumble solidly to the ground. We laugh aloud. One more, just one more ride before we stop, we say over and over again as we plunge back into the cold
pacific waters. 


After four hours, we finally surface. We stumble ashore among thousands of blue jellyfish that have come like most sea creatures that beach, to die. I learn their common name is "By the Wind Sailor." Their clear cellophane cylinder, a perfect 45-degree angle to their body, allows them to sail towards warmer water in milder winds, but today the strong winds blow them to shore in mass. Apparently this is an unusual occurrence on these Northwest shores, since their typical habitat is warmer waters, especially along the shores of Japan. Today they bring the sure sign of seasonal change to this Northwest Washington beach. 

Later we will feel the full body muscle fatigue that comes with being in your mid thirties and trying a new sport. We will fight exhaustion to drive home, laughing at ourselves, wanting more. If this is a mid life crisis, bring it on. Like the "By the Wind Sailors," we have embraced spring.