Marco the Magnificent and my rambling surf saga

I think he looks bored. Do you think he looks bored? Look at the under-enthused one thumb sort of up! Remember 18? What were YOU wanting to do when you were 18. Probably not hang around with someone who is (although kinda cute and youthful) old enough to at leeeeast be your mother. Even maybe grandmother (they marry early here).  Whoa, I just imagined one of my grandmothers surfing. No, she had the spunk for sure. But, I don't think she ever wore a bathing suit or even a pair of pants. My grandmother wore a corset, stockings, dress and Nancy Drew-type high heels (black, thick heeled with ties) every day. I remember she wore hairnets and dyed here hair and her pillow always had this blue/grey tint to it. But, she played a mean game of gin rummy. And she moved fast around the house in those heels.  No messing around. Oh, and then there was her driving. They called her Gallopin' Gertie, really! She rode the wave-y streets of Cordell Oklahoma in her 1948 green bubble car Buick. That was before seatbelts and I can remember sitting next to her going over the bumps hitting my head on the roof of the car  (The only changes in altitude in western Okla are the bumps in the roads). So, Marco....not impressed that I am learning to surf at the age of %&! No...and I'm pretty sure his mind is s-o-m-e-w-h-e-r-e else doing
s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g else, and often. Give him a little slack. He teaches year round, at least 7 hours/day, 7 days/week,  365 days/year unless it rains. Lucky for him it gets dark at 6pm year round here. So they close up at 5pm every day. His hours are tide dependent. I had lessons at 7am and sometimes at 4:30pm depending on the tide. His father is a fisherman and although Marco loves the sea, he did not want to be a fisherman like his father. His mother is a school teacher. Age 55 (see, I'm about his mother's age).  Anyway, he was not easy on me. He did, however, protect me from breaking myself which I'm grateful for. He shouted at me and looked perturbed a lot. I think I was a pain in the ass because I wouldn't give up, but I was also a wimp. Frustrating combination of qualities for a teacher - the tenacious wimp. I often got little mini lectures about how surfing was not easy, and just because I was determined to do it, didn't mean it was going to happen fast. Dead-on right. I think he thought that I thought I would just be able to do it (spot-on again). After graduating from the white-wave kindergarten with flying colors, leccion three was to "paddle out" into the big boy waves. The first paddle out was on rough ocean (see Rollin and Tumblin). I had the fear-o-god after that. The second time we paddled out was a week later and again the ocean was not in the mood and quite a rough. I was getting thrashed about, my surfboard would get yanked out of my hands. I was feeling terror at the oncoming waves. Marco had instructed me in two ways to get through the breaking waves. One way was for the smaller waves. You kind of do a pushup on the board so the crashing water runs between you and your board. For the bigger waves, he taught me to do a turtle roll which I thought was surely going to break my nose the first time I tried it. Right before the wave breaks on you, you grab the sides of the board and roll over so the surfboard in on top of you as the wave is breaking. If you do it too late, the wave tries to separate you from your board and laughs while your puny little arms fight back. Timing is critical in this sport. No doubt about it. Also, learning which waves are big enough to do the turtle roll is one of those trial and error processes. Marco says: "That wave was too small to do a turtle roll". Oh. "You don't want to waste your energy". And it is quite a maneuver. You rarely end up on your surfboard after a turtle roll. Climbing back on your surfboard all the time takes a lot of energy (as does panicking). I was panicking a lot, and I am really the non-panicking fish type when it comes to water. Height, yes, I predictably panic.(I won't be learning to skydive) But fearing water, I was not used to that. Panicking, of course, is one of the worst things you can do for your health while surfing. I had a mini lecture in the middle of the ocean about not panicking.  At one point (pre-lecture) I was screaming, "Marco, I can't do this!" at the top of my lungs and was flailing around like shark bait. I just about almost gave up totally. But, he said the waves would get better in a few days, and my stubborn side was not letting me give up. For probably ten days, I went, hoping for a calmer ocean. Psyching myself up each time to overcome my paddling out fear. And each time Marco would say, not today. Too rough. Tomorrow for sure. Finally after a series of successful but unfulfilled psych-ings, the day came. After mentally punching my hand through a few walls, shouting obscenities, chanting the nasty badass honey badger theme and flanked by Steve, Lyn and Athena, I went once again to bored, aggravated, babe-deprived Marco and the wave machine to "paddle out". Eureka! The ocean was in a much better mood. Marco - no, but at least I got a glint of a smile out of him. I was not afraid. I turtle rolled beautifully, kept on paddling and smiled, laughed! Nasty badass Meret badger EATS waves! I caught my first wave! And didn't eat it! Yahoo! I (sort of) hugged Marco and got a high five from Choco. Sittin on top of the world tooo-day! The next day I paddled out with Steve (the big boy surfer). Another victory for me. Didn't do much, but I learned subtle things like how to turn my board around quickly without someone shouting commands at me and when/when not to do a turtle roll. So, I mostly sat on my surfboard and coasted for a long time realizing, there are a lot of waves out there and there are no signs (and no Marco) saying "This one is yours". I had no idea which wave to take. So, when I went back in to shore, Marco asks me 'how was it?" and I said oh, great, but one minor detail, I don't know which waves to take! Marco (eye roll) said, just take the waves like we did yesterday. Uh huh, but yesterday he was standing up on his surf board watching the waves and shouting orders to me. "THIS YOUR WAVE", "TURN AROUND NOW!", "PADDLE!", "PADDLE FASTER",  "DON'T STAND UP". Oh, I thought you said STAND UP! (sh**t). (another Marco eye roll). Anyway, when he was out there with me, I never knew what was coming, wave-wise. It could have been a tsunami. I was just belly-on-surfboard facing the shore getting ready to paddle-never-fast-enough, and trying to hear broken english commands over the surf. Of course, I was supposed to "look the wave", "LOOK THE WAVE!". But, I thought right now HE'S there to "LOOK THE WAVE!". He's going to yell at me anyway, so let him tell me which wave to take.  "I have to think about a million other things right now, Marco", I'm thinking in my stubborn, spoiled american girl way. I did try one wave but I stood up too soon just like he told me not too and the wave got away. He says "you have to do what I say". I say "I know, I know, I go into fight or flight when this wave is about to send me on a roller coaster" Sorry (feeling like a BAD student). So, here's Marco. Very sweet, very competent, but really disgusted with me, and longing for the babes.  Oh, and I was the ONLY woman on the beach with a one-piece bathing suit. How un-cool is that!. I do have a bikini with me, but imagine trying to retrieve the two pieces of a bikini AND trying to figure out where your surf board is (like, is it coming toward my head?) AND having a nose full of ocean AND Marco yelling "PADDLE OUT!"     S-o-r-r-y!

Epilogue: I did paddle out twice with Steve and I caught two waves all by myself and ate them for dinner!