Waves

At Turtle Bay, both an inlet and a resort on the northern side of Oahu, Marlou and I and everyone else spent long stretches of time on a grassy, secretly volcanic, spit of hotel land watching the waves roll and the surfers ride them.  The current sweeps in close to the swimming pool and terrace and rum-intensive bar, tropical drinks overflowing with fruit and ice and tiny paper umbrellas.  The waves break only a few meters from hotel guests, then continue rolling right past them down Turtle Bay.  Volcanic geology designed the place for sports viewing.  Except that I'm not into sports, and the waves and their riders held an inexplicable fascination.  It wasn't the skill involved.  I can barely relate to the whole endeavor, being so minimally equipped in the neuromuscular department.  There's something inherently beautiful about the waves, their natural occurrence so unpredictable.  In fact, the sport of fishing seems to have much in common with surfing, for both require lots of patience, lots of waiting, and days that gratify and disappoint, one after the next.  So if Marlou is waiting for the sea to wash in upon her, and I am waiting with her, it seemed wise to remember this practice of wave seeking and wave riding.

Back at Oahu, the most exemplary moment came from a young couple.  Not that everyone who surfs isn't more or less young, but these two were in the range of 20 years of age, perhaps the midpoint in the surfboard demographic.  I watched them paddling out together and thought little of it, being of a dreamy and often less than practical disposition myself.  A more grounded soul would have asked the logical question regarding two people and one surfboard.  But never mind.  Within moments all was revealed.  They appeared on the cusp of a breaking wave, the water falling glassy in an endless roll, one kneeling in front, one behind.  And then they were both up on their feet, surfing on the same board, holding hands, dipping and weaving, then jumping as the ride petered out.  It was a moment from figure skating competition, except that they were remote from their small audience.  The noise of the swelling sea and circling birds and breaking waves was all that the afternoon could bear.  They were on their own, enjoying their own grace and achievement and, very brief, mastery of the elements.

Marlou and I are at the point of talking frankly and openly, and even frequently, about the end of life.  We need to deal with wills, household items, matters outstanding and who knows what else?  The details don't tell the story.  The story is dealing with the end of the story, or what seems like the end.  If Marlou is facing a big wave, I prefer to remember this other relationship to waves.  How one can catch them, even ride them.  How even a couple can do this, in tandem, fulfilling what are probably different roles at the front and rear of a nautical device.  Romantic and idealized and, yes, one surfer has to jump off before the other.  But, still, there it is, another way of taking a wave.

I do know that this afternoon when we began talking about dealing with Marlou's car, the carpet, the lawyer, the living will, everything felt better.  My job, it has often seemed, has been to keep hope alive while facing the prospects realistically.  Maybe we have both taken a cue from Marlou's oncologist.  Her message was to face things.  Hope?  Life and disease play out in mysterious ways, she said, and one patient she had long expected to die was out cruising the Mediterranean.  Her approach seemed sober and balanced and down-to-earth.  That's where hope seems to lie, down.  In the general direction of gravity.  Marlou and I know a lot about gravity these days.  But there's also such a thing as buoyancy.  Waves carry you where they carry you, and along the way, for entire moments, then lift you up.