Chapter Eleven: In Which Brianna Suffers Bruised Hips

This is not a true adventure. But here’s exactly how it happened:

A few months ago, I was in studio, pressing the buttons to make the radio show go… and I noticed that there was a new email on the computer screen. Once I had “successfully” mixed one song into another, and thus had a few minutes to spare while Joel Plaskett did his thing, I went to check my inbox.

There was a very brief, anxiety-filled, note from my man-friend. He got the job in the Caribbean. He didn’t know what to do. I could tell from the syntax that he was in a bit of a tizzy. My stomach dropped out from under me. I was now in a tizzy too.

And even though I shouldn’t have done this while I was a-makin’ the radio show, I called him on the phone, just so we could try to calm each other down a bit about it. We decided it would be okay, we would figure out what to do, and he would come meet me after work so we could talk.

I hung up the phone, and I pressed the “talkback” button that lets me chat with my host so that only he could hear it.

“Chris just got a job in the Caribbean,” I said.

“What?” said my host, with more delighted surprise in his voice than I had ever heard before… ever ever. “Are you gonna go?”

“I don’t know…” I said. “I think so, right?”

“How can you not?”

Incredulous.

“I’m going to take up surfing.” My non sequitur response.

“I think you need a lot of upper body strength for that,” he said.

I flexed my muscles. And we did not speak of it again.

But you can see that the surfing had been on the top of my mind from pretty much the very first moment I knew this adventure might exist.

For months I joked about how I was going to give myself a wicked surfer name. “The Pink Pickle.” (Because I love pickles. And, yes, I realize there is an unfortunate double-entendre there… but my love of the briny snack trumps any unfortunate penis metaphor…)

I truly did create this bizarre little cartoon in my mind. An animated version of myself standing next to a Barbie-pink surfboard with a green pickle painted on the top. I would ride the waves, get a wicked tan… it would be a great way to have purpose in the absence of a structured job. Like, if I didn’t have enough freelance work and was starting to freak out– I’d just go surfing. Right? Right. Sounds like a plan.

And then, it happened. Yesterday, at the end of an incredibly stressful day… don’t ask me why this week has been so stressy work-filled, I can’t really figure it out… I hopped into a pickup truck belonging to a real honest-to-goodness surfer dude. He had about six or seven beat up surfboards in the back and a bodaciously friendly vibe. So off I went, to conquer the waves.

You know by now how afraid I am of the water. So you’d think putting me in an especially churny, wave-filled area would probably not be a good idea. But that’s the thing about a goal-oriented lady like me. Ridiculous existential fears, step aside. I told myself I was going to surf and DANGIT I am going to surf.

So what was it like? Mouthfuls and mouthfuls and mouthfuls of warm salty water. Spinning too deep under the heft of weighty waves. Getting thrown, pushed, shoved in the current. Cutting feet on rocks. Snot pouring out of one nostril and nowhere to blow my nose. Hair won’t stay in a ponytail, so it becomes a big birds’ nest that keeps falling into my eyes. Arms giving out. Legs giving out. Eye strain, back strain, neck strain.

And, too, there was the freedom. Like flying. Like, exactly how I imagined it would be. Feeling the ocean– that I’m normally so afraid of– lift me up and bring me a moment of pure, powerful joy. I felt like a shooting star. Like I was actually in a dream.

This isn’t one of those stories like the ones you may find below where I try to do some simple thing and then get caught up in a frustrating or scary turmoil.

The arc to this story is more of a flatline. I had a fantasy of doing this awesome thing. I went and did the thing. And then it was awesome.

It’s not the plot of an action film, that’s for sure. (Though, am I now eligible to be an ‘extra’ in Point Break 2: Surfing Boogaloo?) It is a nice affirmation, though, that sometimes little hopes can come true.

The only downside to the whole affair? I need to build up some “hip calluses.”

When I woke up today, my muscles were just fine. But my body ached like all heck as I lay there on my tummy.

I lifted my PJ top and discovered an impressive array of bruises and chafing on my ribcage, hips, elbows and knees.

It’s not pretty. But this is what it looks like when a little dream comes true.