Waves and Troughs
What a week it has been. Flesh-numbing blasts escaped their arctic confinement and washed over the country’s heartland. BRRR! Mind-numbing legal sophistry inundated the news cycle, revealing more than we suspected and resolving less than we may have wanted. NOT AGAIN! The COVID body count inched higher, its deadly grip now threatening politicians who should have known better, while we struggled to surmount the logistical nightmare of inoculating enough of our herd to reach some semblance of normalcy. YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! This week served notice that we all need to get away to a different time and a better place.
So that’s what I did. I went to the beach! February’s ups and downs gave me license to revisit my youthful summers to once-again test my skill and moxy on the gray-green waves that pounded the Jersey shore. Lacking any hang 10 tidal giants, this stretch of the Atlantic allowed my friends and me the tamer indulgence of body surfing, that is, riding the waves sans surfboards.
Venturing into the biting chilliness of the Atlantic this far north, we once again stood waist-deep in the salty brine, the surf both pushing and pulling us in rhythmic cadence as it relentlessly clawed at the shoreline. Staring into the vastness in which we were now engulfed, our gaze fixed on the rolling waters bearing down on us, we searched for one we hoped could carry ride hitchers like us. And then it happened…
The big swell we were tracking was right on top of us. Just as it started to break we pivoted shoreward while frantically paddling and kicking as fast as we could. In a second we would know if the launch was a success or a dud. Legs floating up, our torsos lurching forward, we were wave-propelled toward the beach. For a few heart-pounding moments we reveled in the conveyance we had just booked, helplessly hanging on in hope of a gentle arrival when the wave’s energy was fully spent.
A good wave can carry you 50 feet or more before depositing you in the sandy shallows. With luck you might catch 20 or more rides in an afternoon. But more often than not, the wave disappoints, or your timing is out of synch with the thrust of the curling water. So you settle for the smaller pleasure of bobbing like a cork, or, having been flipped or dunked, springing up from your salty baptism, eager to take on the next wall of water heading your way.
It was good to ride some waves this week, if only in my recollections. Without realizing it back then, my attempts to ride waves and navigate troughs in the ocean taught me more about life than I ever realized in my youth. And during this present moment of a still young century, when each of us has all we can do to stay afloat in this February’s turbulent seas, I find myself pondering two important lessons that wave riding keeps teaching me.
First, never make a big decision about yourself, or about life, when riding the crest of a wave or looking up from the bottom of a trough. The view from any summit, whether it is the top of a monster wave, or a lofty mountain peak, or even while standing on a podium where awards and medals are conferred, is always distorted. Everything we see from such a vantage point is smaller and of less consequence than in real life, while our sense of self inflates at higher elevations, well beyond its reality too. The rarefied air we breathe on any of life’s summits is both exhilarating and disabling. Finding ourselves at the top of the heap, be it a heap of water, fame or fortune, who can help but lose perspective about who we really are and how we really got to this pinnacle.
Equally distorted is our view when buried in the trough of a huge wave, or mired in one of those “valleys in which death’s dark shadows” overwhelms. How did this happen to me? What sinister collusion of forces beyond my control has conspired to bring me to such low estate? Dispirited and without hope it is easy to give up, awash in self-pity, and convinced that both our worth and our prospects are nil. Like those going under for the third time, we lose sight of those close at hand reaching out to help us.
Waves and troughs provide the choreography not only for our coastlines but also for each of our lives. All of us have enjoyed and endured both the heights and depths of living, perhaps more times than we can remember. Doubtless we have come to conclusions or made big decisions when flying high or when slogging through the depths of despair, many which we now regret; others that proved us foolish.
That being true, we should always wait until the sea of life calms before making up our minds or changing our direction. Ocean waves are always preceded by, and followed by, troughs. Neither exists without the other. But this is not the normal condition of the ocean. It takes gales from above, tectonic upheavals from below and, like clockwork, lunar forces working invisibly to set it in motion. Left alone, ocean waves roll rather than break and calm seas normally prevail. Waves and troughs are maritime upsets and interruptions. So it is with us who live on land: life’s highs and lows are fleeting rather than chronic episodes that punctuate, rather than write, our stories. That is if we choose to see them that way.
This past year we’ve all had to do our share of wave riding, whether or not we can or like to swim. Disturbances of seismic proportion affected our health, our economy, and the very fabric of our democratic political process. Tsunamis of unusual force and frequency came crashing upon us, washing away the rock jetties and castles of sand we thought would last forever. The storm surges of 2020 have not yet abated, wearing at the shoreline of 2021, leaving us uncertain as to when, or if, this tide will turn.
If ever we could use a wave rider’s perspective, it is now. Our country has survived seas as foreboding as the ones upon which we are now trying to navigate. Yet as a people bordered by oceans and led throughout our history by mariners and surf-riders of uncommon vision, courage, resilience and faith, we can do it again. May God awaken in those who lead us, and in each of us as citizens, the wisdom of those who have learned what waves and troughs teach about life. Surfs Up!
