Podcast Archives ~ Waves to Wisdom

*An update on Brad’s important work:
Brad has gone on temporary hiatus in his work with Black Girls Surf and Inkwell Surf. Check his Instagram for updates! In the meanwhile, this organization and the others listed above continue the inspiring and empowering work of addressing historical inequities and bringing equal access to the waves.

Transcript

Brad:
I think will be very beneficial for everybody to take a look at the ocean, smell it, listen to if you’re brave enough stick your toes in it. It will surprise you. There are some people who have a lot of fears about it but I believe in in learning about dangerous things that you deem fearful. You can go far. With knowledge there comes power. so a healthy education about the ocean with would definitely be a first step I would suggest. Theres a lot of learning to do but comes with steps or waves, if you if you will.

Intro
Maia: We are deep in the winter of the Great Pandemic. We are losing so much but we are also learning and growing in ways that seem long overdue and right on time. The same week in which I’m recording this introduction, Brad Turner and I did what a zillion other people did, we logged onto a Zoom call. It was a conversation that came about because Brad was and is a generous teacher and collaborator. He’s also walking around with one of the biggest hearts I’ve encountered in the world of ocean-loving humans. The particular Zoom was the latest step in a journey we’d just begun earlier this year, when we recorded this interview. On my Zoom screen were members of the Surfrider Foundation from all over the country logged on for a discussion with historian Scott Laderman author of the book Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing. For those of you who don’t know much about Surfrider, here is the organization’s mission statement:

The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s ocean, waves and beaches, for all people, through a powerful activist network.

This conversation with Dr. Laderman was the second in an ongoing series Brad and I are organizing through our local Surfrider chapter and putting up on a YouTube channel for all to learn from.* We’re hoping to talk with scholars and artists, filmmakers and poets, and any other humans whose work can help all of us who love the ocean understand “access” in ways that are more cognizant of our country’s history at home and abroad and the ways the politics of whiteness have impacted access to the places we ocean lovers hold dear.

During one moment in a rich and informative talk Dr. Laderman discussed the way localism, the tendency of surfers to keep their own line-ups for and to themselves, reinforces white supremacy and someone asked him, what should be put in its place. He said, I don’t want to sound all airy fairy but we could just be nice to one another. Later he said (I’m paraphrasing) we need to enter these surfing spaces with reverence for where we are in this moment, mindful and informed about our past, so that we can be effective stewards of the experiences open to future generations.
With knowledge, comes power. Brad Turner has a tremendous amount of both to offer. Welcome to Waves to Wisdom.

Brad: My name is Bradley Turner. I am 38 and I have been surfing for going on 21 years.

Maia: Wonderful! We are on your front porch near Carolina Beach [correct] where we have surfed now a few beautiful mornings together. We had some good days— one of them I had to overcome terror more than once.

Brad: It’s okay, it comes…

Maia: Okay good so that there are so many exciting things about your life and your relationship to the ocean I hope we can get into but would you start by telling us a little bit about this nonprofit organization you are instrumental in. And my understanding is there it basically has two names two different legs of the body, if you could tell us little bit about that.

Brad: Sure I run the East Coast variation of Inkwell Surf which is based out of Santa Monica, California. Additionally Black Girl Surf, and we deal with coaching and mentorship for the younger kids and we also provide a release for them in the ocean and just a place where they can discuss how they feel will and have an opportunity to see things that they normally wouldn’t see.

Maia: And are these primarily children of color?

Brad: They are.

Maia: Okay and we’re in North Carolina and I started to surf, now it’s 14 years ago, and I played sports growing up in North Carolina and one of the first things I noticed when I entered what I thought of as a sporting space— I’ve come to understand it as something much more akin to a religious order [definitely] almost with a discipline and a worldview but at that point I was thinking of it as a sport and I noticed right away that unlike almost any other sports environment that I had been in, there were almost no people of color in the lineup.

Brad: I can agree.

Maia: And that, it was startling to me and set me on this path of figuring out why? Why that happened and I hope we can talk more about the ways that you have been working to address that disparity and and some of the history that got us to this conundrum but first, please would you tell everybody about how you started out your adventure as a surfer?  Brad: I started my adventure as a surfer back in the year of 2001 to deal with what I was experiencing at the time in the military at Camp Lejeune which is in Jacksonville, North Carolina. The first place I surfed was on base at Onslow Beach. That, that is my home break. At the time I was bored in the barracks, it was a hot summer and a few of my friends, we decided to go out to Onslow Beach and I had taken a boogie board and ridden my first wave. I had never seen the ocean, mind you…

Maia: Wow! How old were you at this point?  Brad: I want to say I was 17 at the time and that one that one moment it, it replays as if I’d press rewind over and over again. I’m sure like every other surfer they remember that that first wave it was magical. I took off on, on a boogie board and I’ve never stopped since. LAUGH

Maia: So you took off on that first magical wave on Onslow Beach— Were you a strong swimmer at that point?

Brad: I’ve always been a strong swimmer. I played in pools as a kid. Eventually in middle school to high school I was a maintenance man apprentice and began to work on pools with the chemicals and such and cleaning it and also enjoying the luxury of swimming in it. So, yes I’ve always been drawn to the water in one way, shape, or form. It’s always been a place where I’ve felt comfortable.

Maia: OK, good so you’re in Camp Lejeune, you take off on that wave, and did you know right then that you were going to come back?

Brad: I was hooked! I think Kelly Slater termed it once, it’s like joining the Mafia, once you’re in you’re never getting out [LAUGH]. Yeah, I was hooked for life at that point.

Maia: And did you, did you have friends who you were in the military with who were standup surfing at that point who you started to go with?  Brad: I unknowingly found out that America’s best and brightest, the tip of the spear as we say in the military, I was, I was surfing around them. I slowly learned their names and their stories. Most of them were special operators and I learned that that’s how they be compressed. They did their job for America and they came home and surfed. Many of them are still my friends and we all surf to help deal with her different paths and journeys in life.

Maia: Interesting! I’ve never been in the military, I do have some— my uncle was a career Navy enlisted and then officer and it has always struck me that for many people who serve especially for more than just a couple years that there’s they’re repeated traumas inherent in the job description and we I mean we have with all sorts of developing and ongoing research showing that surfing is a uniquely or at least exceptionally effective way of dealing with trauma. So it sounds like you just what happened into this community who had figured this out for themselves?

Brad: Correct and it just so happened that drawing to become a Navy corpsman which is the individuals who are attached to the Marines— from the Army would call us the medic. We’re there for medical attention, for, in the field, religious purpose and so on and so forth. And it just so happens that, you know, we were healing together in the water— doc and Marines— we were redoing it together, on the same journey, healing together. Not knowing the terminology at the time but we were, were definitely on the same vibration.

Maia: You weren’t talking about it you were just doing it.

Brad: Correct!

Maia: And how long was that period of your life that you were surfing at Onslow Beach and serving as a Navy Corpsman?

Brad: I served off and on entirely throughout the military for five and half years.

Maia: And did you grow up in North Carolina?

Brad: I did not. I was born in Canton, Ohio— football Hall of Fame! Just about when I was two or three, my mother and I, we moved down to Georgia from Georgia to the military from Norcross, Georgia.

Maia: So you were in the military for five and half years, you learned how to surf with, it turned out people who form the tip of the spear [correct]? Fascinating! And then you transitioned out of the military…

Brad: I did. The transition was a little Rocky, to say the least. I was dealing with a lot at the time: divorce, getting out of the military, moving away from that dynamic and learning how to be a civilian again. All those things culminating together different. I can say that throughout that surfing definitely kept me afloat, as it were, and I can go even further and say that it, it went as far as saving my life [really?]. Yes, yes.

I’s been instrumental in many points that I‘ve been very much at the bottom of the barrel it is definitely been my, my place of salvation. Yeah, I don’t know where I would be without surfing if we were to to be perfectly honest and upfront about it. Right now, if I want to think about it I can’t I can’t pinpoint where I would be without surfing life so I’m pretty thankful, very grateful. It has me or talking to you!

Maia: Oh my goodness, yes! And I am so grateful for being able to be here talking to you and I never would’ve found you with, without surfing myself.

So, as far as I can tell, the primary audience for these interviews is not surfers and one of the reasons that I love doing this podcast is that I’ve spent— I’m 54 years old at this point and I have spent might my adult life on the very edges of grown-up employment And as many surfers do and even before I was surfing I always knew that I needed to have the what we think of is the real-world aspects of my life which basically means the economic aspects of my life. that those parts of existence needed to not undermine my relationship with the more than human world in my ability to be active in and learning from it. So, one of the great parts about getting older is that you start to understand what you have to offer in new ways and and I’ve come to believe at this point with the zeal of the evangelical that it’s not just we as individuals who need to learn how to work less and play more, and be in our bodies, and have relationships with the more than human world, it’s not just we as individuals who need that, although we desperately do, it’s actually the entire planet that needs us to [oh, yes] to temper our priorities with these relationships in this web of life [definitely].

So, I’m very interested in how you would describe the value, I mean, you’re really clear about saying. “If it weren’t for surfing, I don’t know where I would be. I think it could’ve been really bad. It saved my life.” [Right] How did it do that?

Brad: I don’t know how to speak outside of surfing [Go ahead. please do] so I apologize for those who do not surf. It’s, it’s been basically an ebb and flow, a tidal adventure, drawn by the moon if we’re to go that far!

Maia: Yes, please let’s go all the way!

Brad: Yes it’s um… it’s been very beneficial definitely when I got out there was a veil that was lifted from my eyes as a African-American who served our country I started to see and feel in the real world that, what I fought for as a black person, I didn’t feel— I don’t know how to describe it, the same when I got out but my surfboard in the ocean it kept me balanced throughout the waves of difficulty that I experience. Even with people with different viewpoints I’ve surfed with, been best friends and had deep discussions in and out of the water which I think of a lot of the world needs right now. I’ve sat on the beach Onslow Beach of Carolina Beach of Wrightsville Beach of many beaches and talked to people who are real who they have real stories to their life, purpose. The ocean despite whether they surf or not allow some the release what they may be holding inside. I mean I’ve been lucky enough to be a surfer in and all of that happened in the water and I get to ride the, you know everlasting vibration starting at one point with wind and forming a wave. I’m grateful I hope that everybody can discover the, the blue mind, if you will, be able to apply it to their life and heal maybe I can help you I would love to.

Maia: yes I think you can help a great many people and that will be sure and put up a link to J Nichols’ book Blue Mind which you and I both read and less it is essentially the idea is that just being near the water heater have to be in it for the surfboard but just looking at the lake looking at the creek even looking at a photograph of the water can lower your blood pressure and chill you out.   Brad: yes

Maia: Okay so you were in the military and you had one idea of the America that you were serving [correct]. You left the military and what I heard you say was that America turned out to not exist outside of the institution of the military

Brad: through my lens that’s correct [okay] As an African American who served in the military yes okay that’s exactly what I would say my experience my personal experience was like

Maia and did you run into was it a difference in opportunity for you or was it a difference in attitude of your fellow Americans are what what what was different

Brad: I would check all of those boxes. On one hand the military, we were almost encouraged to work with each other to form one team and, you know, accomplish one goal and individuals from all around the world and all throughout the country working in a small knit community we have to get along and work through our individual differences. We worked as a team of blue, if you will, in the Navy or we all were green as we would say of Marines.

Outside of the base it didn’t feel the same, it felt divided. that American dream that we all talk about and reach towards it felt a little, a little more out of reach once I stepped outside of the gate. I used to hear the stories that my, my grandfathers and uncles who also served in the military talked about with regards to racism and you know their experience and you know for some reason as an African-American is served I was almost too naïve to think that we had moved past that as well because of the work experience in the military and it being so diverse it be calling each individual that I worked with family you are my brother you are my sister you know despite where you were raised how you were raised. I learn about your story you learn about my story let’s work together move together that’s how I thought America work outside of the military as well. I was quickly smacked in the face with reality as far as that goes.

I moved to a town called Wilmington North Carolina the history was a little overwhelming but through learning and my own personal experience it open my eyes in through discovery and conversations with locals it allowed me to learn where I resided and I know I just felt different almost ostracized from from that dream that I was you know I signed up for

Maia: Yeah I ‘m… I’m a white person in a country that has a long stubborn history of white supremacy so I can’t really understand what you went through but I do know that if something like that had happened to me it would hurt my feelings to the– on an existential level it would… I would feel betrayed um… and, and that would be traumatizing, a very difficult thing to come back from because if you— first of all you don’t get this years back of believing, that feeling duped, “I just did this thing is a big thing I did” this her and then to connected to a know that everybody in this community no this that there are people of color who are serving their country in this way and to still have those attitudes in touring and that history be you know as best swept under the carpet and at worst celebrated, It must be horrifying for you it, it’s horrifying for me

Brad: Well what I would describe it as my my experience getting out was more of awakening that everyone is, going through right now as we speak. An eye-opening experience. It was a trial by fire personally with me, learning my worth as a black man in America. Despite service, like, I was black at the end of the of the day. I was still a black man and my service, it was almost rendered, you know, moot.

Which hurts. It sent me through a heavy depression. I went through a lot of drinking and a lot of different paths that I had to reach out to the ocean to rebalance myself each time with those personal struggles. At one point throughout all of that I eventually met Rhonda Harper who runs Inkwell Surf initially out of Santa Monica where she mentored inner-city kids, and allowed them touch tanks to learn about the ocean, and how to maintain their environment and also keep the ocean clean and also to surf and allow them to know that it’s a space for them to be as well.

Inkwell initially was a space where only African-Americans could go in California. Ronald was instrumental in having the area recognized with a plaque for Mr. Nick Gabaldon who was of African-American and Latino descent and he was a great surfer. He surfed with the best of them and he he lives on to this day throughout, throughout all of us with his story. And I carry that on and pass it on to the next generation that I work with here on the East Coast.   Rhonda has been instrumental in teach me the ways of what she does and I have implemented with her direction a program on the East Coast to do the same thing. And it’s been magical. It’s been a journey. I’m a disabled veteran and I take the rest of my income and apply to the program. And slowly we’re gaining traction. Unfortunately, with the demise of George Floyd we all had to take a moment and reflect what’s going on in the world. And from kids to the elderly we’ve all had to, I don’t know, pay attention to what’s always been there in front of our face the elephant in the room, if you will. The racist elephant in the room if you will. And Rhonda recently organized the paddle out that you helped me organize locally.

Maia: This is how we found each other [correct]I’m so grateful for that solidarity answer

Brad: Correct. That was a magical moment for me— meeting individuals like yourself that made me leaving in humanity again. That showed me that people do care about compassion and, you know, that we stand together against this wave of injustice and are just going to get on the wave or wipe out, here we are, we’re all surfing together, riding together in solidarity. I still haven’t really reflected on that day, it was it was that big was too jittery to write a speech. It just kinda just came out of me in I’m told it was a great speech [It was incredible!].

I haven’t heard it but you know it was very moving to say the least don’t think I can really place words on the feeling that I experience. Everyone came together the traditional surfing way were we paddle out and pay respects to those who have passed. And for everybody collectively to come and paddle out and say that black lives matter… it, it brought me to tears. It took the breath out of me.   There was a young man that I’ve known my whole military career that showed up that day— He took the air out of me. Because he’s seen my journey up until this point I still surf with him on the regular at my local spot at the Pipe at Carolina Beach. For him to show up that day as a married older man when I met him as a grom on Onslow Beach and, and show up at that paddle out it was very moving for me it’s

Maia: It says something about your life for sure that and at that moment and especially now since you are, you’ve really stepped up and stepped into this role as elder, as mentor to, to young people. To see the results of a relationship, to see somebody grow into a compassionate person who is willing to take a stand it’s gotta be hopeful.

Brad: It’s been it’s been a struggle in my head. We all struggle with personal choices in our lives and I chose to help people heal, despite my own struggles and, it’s just the way I’ve have always been. I’m a very compassionate person. When it’s time to stand up and fight for what’s right you’ll usually find me there, whether it’s through surfing or art our any other medium that I’m capable of doing. You’ll usually find me there.

Maia: Tell us a little bit about your life as an artist.

Brad: It’s kind of been there as a release for me— before surfing. Where I was able to escape to and kind of make my own world. I graduated from Cape fear community college with my associate in fine arts and right there after they hired me as a tutor to tutor the whole program— printmaking, art history, photography, the videography program— what have you. I was there for the next generation in line. And I met some amazing people in the art industry in Wilmington, North Carolina. Unfortunately, with my health in decline I haven’t been able to, to work with my art as much but I’ve been busy with Inkwell and other surf avenues so…

Maia: And you’re a dad…

Brad: That definitely keeps me busy. I am the father of a beautiful nine-year-old going on 20— Bethany Alden Turner. Her first name is derived from Bethany Hamilton the surfer. More so for her struggle and still being a professional surfer despite the struggles.

Maia: she too has overcome true adversity

Brad: I just tip my hat every time I watch a video of her surfing. Her surfing with one arm puts my surfing with two arms to shame any day.

Maia: Well that is true and you are also an amazing surfer. She is just somehow on another plane.

So you and I just met a little while ago and, and we met through this paddle out and I want to tell the story briefly because it was such an important moment for me. So, I am in, as everybody else is, this post George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmad Arbery moment looking for a way to do something I know not what. I just know that it can’t be about me and so I reached out to Rhonda after I saw that there was a Solidarity In Surf event in California. And said, “Okay I would love to have one of these here.” And she said “Well is Wilmington anywhere near Carolina Beach? “Why, yes it is.” And she said okay I will put you in touch with Brad Turner, and that’s how we found each other. And I have been so grateful, not just for that moment because it was really a turning point for me I would say in my entire really life as a surfer since those first questions came to me like where are all black surfers, why, where are they because literally maybe 1/100 maybe when I 200 surfers out there are not white never mind black.

Okay so so we meet at your Solidarity in Surf, which is incredible in such a beautiful, profound, moving moment, mostly white people– but one thing that I saw happened during that event was we’re in our circle on the beach the way these events work is you circle up on the beach you say some words you paddle out and circle up in the water splashing through flowers more words then you come back what I noticed happening as we were circling up listening to your incredibly moving speech were these two African-American families who came up and joined us and were so moved by what you were saying and I think by the whole scene there. And it really made me proud in a way to be a surfer that I have really not been. It many proud of our community surfers and I thought, “You know those kids just have suddenly gotten a different view of surfing than they ever could have gotten without you and that speech and that moment.” And it was so intensely beautiful and transformative for me

Brad: You know the family that you are speaking about I got to see that moment in photos and it’s pretty hard to look at them currently tearing up sorry about that at [no need to apologize] that was, was a powerful moment I can I can barely looked up at those photos because it was just a beautiful day and that, that very moment got captured and I don’t know if I can translate how it made me feel that day other than powerful and moving.

Maia: It was amazing and and and I— in no way do I mean to denigrate at all or minimize your service as a Navy corpsman but it made me realize that, I mean you’re still a very young elder. You are very youthful elder— it really put me in touch with the, the potential power of you to serve and I don’t, I don’t know if there are many people who can do what you did that day. I mean that, that seemed a unique especially in this environment— in this—
And we, you talked about Inkwell Beach which was an African-American beach in Southern California we had black beaches here [that is correct] as did many places especially in segregated states that really all over the country where it was de facto segregation is not legal segregation and those black beaches were, were crucial to African-Americans relationship to the water and just ability to decompress and reach this feeling that you have so eloquently described. And it was systematically and frequently violently remove. That access was removed. [Very much so] Mostly by white real estate developers and their allies who wanted that land for themselves [That would be the correct]. Freeman Beach [yes] yes is the name of the local beach which was owned by the Freeman family along with a lot of inland acreage as well [correct] and will link to this historian and some podcast interviews about it.

There’s a wonderful book called The Land Was Ours that you turned me onto and they’re a couple of podcast interviews with, with Dr. Kahrl the author.

But basically the disproportionate application of laws— one reading for, for the Freeman’s and another reading of the law for the white families. And the, the Army Corps of Engineers decisions to save white recreational fishing grounds after white fishermen complained and instead route this cut, which is not called Snows Cut, in a way that the environmental impact was all on the Freeman property.

Brad: That is correct.

Maia: And that kind of environmental racism has happened throughout our country’s history. The environmental movement writ large is dominated by white people who have worked to save their own playgrounds much as those white recreational fishermen did and in the act of saving “special places” in a lot of ways— and I’m not a historian, but a lot of ways in my opinion white environmentalists have at best ignored the disproportional impact of places that are very special to the people who live in them and love them and whose babies play in the dirt of them and the water of them. And it really feels like, post-Breonna Taylor, post-George Floyd, we have a moment in which leadership of these mainline environmental organizations is open in a way that they haven’t been before [I agree]. I hope that’s, that remains true you have what I think it’s just a tremendously beautiful vision. Would you please talk about your vision?  Brad: Well, my vision for Inkwell and Black Girl Surf locally— I would like a safe space here in Wilmington, North Carolina— more specifically Carolina Beach that would be available for the youth to come and acquire mentorship, coaching, education— a space, much like I said, for release, a safe space, that’s their own, within reach to the ocean. Most of these kids that I plan to work with, and work with now are far from the beach and they live within the city’s reach.

Maia: Yeah, we’re were talking 10 miles which you for most of us who have cars and trucks is nothing but these kids have neither [correct]. And the busses where we live in Wilmington, North Carolina— there was at one point a streetcar line that ran from downtown to Wrightsville Beach. That’s why the street car was put in. The streetcar was taken out with many other streetcars in the 20th Century. The bus service the public bus service does pickup in downtown Wilmington but Wrightsville Beach, at this point, will not allow the buses to drop off in the town of Wrightsville Beach. This, to me, is a problem and that I hope at some point we can address. You hand I have been talking with an organization called Surfrider that is very focused on access to beaches, but you’re talking about the next level.

Brad: Correct, in my vision I would describe it as a surf STEM program with a little bit art included [Surf STEAM]. There you go that’s to summarize how I would describe the my vision for Inkwell Surf and Black Girl Surf to acquire a plot land and space where we can make those dreams come true, to have that opportunity to say “This space which at one time belonged to the African-American community, is now attainable to these kids.” And that’s a remarkable dream to think about and hopefully with the community’s help and Surfrider and a few other organizations we can make that happen.

Maia: I know from my own life that— you want to learn what you need to learn to survive always and once your survival is assured you want to learn what you need to learn to allow love to flourish. And people fall in love with the ocean… I mean they fall in love at the ocean— you got married on the beach very close to where you surf.

Brad: I did, my local break at Carolina beach— I got married right beside the Pipe there and I love it! It’s a very spiritual place for me every morning when I go paddle out with my friends I welcome everyone.   Maia: I mean, your service is built around that love— You’re a healer this is what you’ve been doing your whole adult life and now you seem to be very clear on who you would like to help heal and how. And it strikes me as only good stewardship of our community resources that we, the collective we, of southeastern North Carolina put enough wind in your sails so that you can do the work that you seem to me predisposed, and uniquely able to do.

What would you say to, I mean, you are a responsible adult— you know how to maintain a disciplined existence, I could never make it in the military so my hat is off to you! What would you say to other sort of stressed, harried, overwhelmed grown-ups who don’t take time, or make time, or feel like they have time to get out into the more than human world, to get out into nature and be active. Make your best case for for why they should try

Brad: I think we live in a dettached world. We’re all intermingled and entangled into our electronics. I think we’ve taken our attention away from nature and, you know, a lot of pressure on everyone. We’re very stressed out people and I think will be very beneficial for everybody to take a look at the ocean, smell it, listen to it. If you’re brave enough, stick your toes in it. It will surprise you. There are some people who have a lot of fears about it but I believe in in learning about dangerous things that you deem fearful. You can go far. With knowledge there comes power. So, a healthy education about the ocean with would definitely be a first step, I would suggest. There’s a lot of learning to do but it comes with steps, or waves, if you if you will.

Maia: If you will. And you are married to a scientist right of the water quality experts I suspect you are all the time learning by osmosis [correct- LAUGH] in addition to your intentional study, which I know is that is also ongoing.

Maia: So, one of the driving assumptions and orienting beliefs around this Waves to Wisdom interview project is that as I entered the community of surfers I began to realize that surfing is much more than a sport and much more than a way to just get outside. It seemed to assume the role that religion or spiritual discipline assumes in the lives, not just of, you know, some devout people who go to church on Sunday, or go to Synagogue on Saturday or or pray a couple times, a week.   But really much more along the lines of people whose full days are structured around this relationship to a higher power. It looked like surfers were, were very similar to you know, monks who had taken orders, or to devout Muslims who always know which way Mecca is, and are ready five times a day to make sure that they have in mind what their sacred power is asking of them. And it starting to feel like, for some people, not for everybody— some people are just out there for the rush, and they’re grumpy and not necessarily on a spiritual what we think of is a spiritual path but for some people this really helps them figure out meaning and purpose in joy and beauty and was a discipline. You think I’m on to something?  Brad: Oh, definitely. I think we all feel the same vibration that’s in tune with the waves the ocean sends our way. And, it’s a therapeutic environment I dunno, it just draws you in, heals you without you even asking it to. I don’t know, it’s powerful. What can I say— it’s where I go and speak to my higher power. It’s where I go and release. I just feel it is beneficial for me to pass along to others as many as I can, old, young whatever dynamic you can throw in front of me. I just want to help people heal through water, through waves hopefully.

So wonderful!
Aside of that, I’d just love to crush of those stereotypical ideals that you know, black people don’t do this or that— fill in the blank. As a kid I heard a lot growing up in Georgia. To my surprise here we are doing everything from the moon literally to the bottom of the oceans, and the surface now— we surf, we swim. All the way in Africa around is in Senegal right now. Most people would say that you know those things swimming and surfing they are not attached to Africa but I would have to disagree.
I would almost say that, as a coastal people, they also had their own watermen’s story to tell…

Maia: Absolutely! And as a matter fact maybe one of the most famous surf movies of all time is Endless Summer. Plenty of people were not surfers saw that movie and one of the lies really untruths I don’t I don’t know that Bruce Brown did this on purpose he was probably just ignorant but they go to the West Coast of Africa and Bruce Brown, who’s narrating it, says this is the first time anyone’s ever seen surfing in Africa. And as a matter fact one of the first times that Europeans saw surfing, people riding boards recreationally in waves, was Cape Coast Castle, Ghana— long before [that’s correct] any white Americans had decided to surf. And we know for sure that people of color were surfing in Hawaii for centuries.

Brad: Right, and that very spot you’re speaking of, Ngor Island in Bruce Brown’s and Endless Summer that’s exactly where Rhonda is coaching local kids providing surfboards and lessons right there as Ngor Island at the local break making a change for the male and female population providing an education and mentorship right at that very spot but yeah in the video you can see Bruce Brown and the like surfing right there at the break and the local kids looking very tribal and cheering them on. you’ll now discover in that same spot that we surf too. Um, there is a hunger and a drive in the African and African-American, and each diaspora to surf. When we’re close to the ocean. It’s a beautiful moment to, to lay eyes on. You know, I started surfing very young and learning about the dynamics and the history and I am finding out much like my own Black history that there are gaps in surfing history that need to be told. and seeing it in Senegal right now is just beautiful. There are little groms with broken surfboards with the biggest smiles taking off on taking off on waves, you know, right there outside of their door. That’s something that you wouldn’t think would be tangible here in the US. As a matter of fact, I can’t really think of a place where that’s a thing here in the US where kids can go out the door, maybe a few yards from the beach and say this is my local spot.

Maia: Certainly not black kids. Plenty of little white kids.

Brad: Oh yeah, that’s the standard, I would say.

Maia: And we will link to some, some really powerful histories of how we got into this situation. And we actually live at the very northern tip of an historically African cultural community called the Gullah Geechee
down to Jacksonville, Florida— the southern tip of it. And until the transition of ownership around real estate values— waterfront real estate values started, there were really, especially on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, a lot of African culture endured. And so many of the things that we think of as Southern, like Shrimp and Grits, are really African!

Brad: Oh yeah!

Maia: And I don’t think a lot of people are talking about that. And I think it’s time we started.

Brad: Definitely!  Maia: OK, good. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about?  Brad: Just like to let everybody know that, you know, as far as the surfing community goes, Inkwell Surf, Black Girl Surf, and many other organizations— we’re out here and we’re trying to make a difference in the community through surfing. Through surf therapy, through competition, through mentorship. And I think with this new wave of change we can all come together and make some things happen in the surf community to make it right. Make everybody feel like they belong at the beach and everybody feel comfortable.   I can always use a hand. You can check out Inkwell Surf and Black Girl Surf and I would very much like for everyone to donate wherever they can— financially, with a surfboard, a wetsuit, your personal time volunteering. I’m a disabled vet so a helping hand would definitely be appreciated in any aspect and we’re looking for the whole community to come together and make a beneficial change for the surf community and hopefully let these kids know that, you know, they have a place on the beach just like everyone else. Hopefully, I can be beneficial to that happening.

Maia: Or instrumental.
Brad: Or instrumental. Thank you

Maia: Yes! We will make sure that it’s easy for everybody to find you and find your cause. And we’re still at the very beginning of figuring that out- figuring out ways to support you. So if anybody out there has any expertise, [yes, please] you know, fundraising or project management or any of that sort of thing we are wide open to your input.

Brad: Yes, very much so!

Maia: And I can hardly wait until the next time we surf again!

Brad: Oh, thank you!

Maia: Thank you! So much for your time in doing this—it’s been, as usual, a thorough pleasure.

Brad: It’s been a blessing, thank you.

Maia: And we’ll see you in the lineup very soon!

Brad: Oh, for sure and hopefully there’s another dolphin.

Maia: Oh my gosh, tell the story about the dolphin!

Brad: LAUGH

Maia: Do! Tell that story!

Brad: So, the day before yesterday we were all having a session out at the pipe and right in front of you pops up a beautiful, beautiful dolphin. You kind of have to make one of those split-second decisions as a surfer. To decide whether it’s a shark or a dolphin and it was a dolphin, so close that you could touch it.

Maia: I was amazing!

Brad: They often show up there and it’s always magical.

Maia: It blew out of its blowhole and I got spray on me! It was incredible! I felt like I was Baptized! It was to powerful and wonderful!

Brad: That’s how we do it at The Pipe!

Maia: Oh my goodness! Holy cow- yeah, I want that to happen every time!

Brad: Only way to make it happen is to show up and surf…

Maia: Keep showing up! I intend to do exactly that, Sir! Thank you so much for your time I am so grateful!

Brad: Thank you!

Maia: I want to end this interview with a few words about whiteness, my whiteness. When Brad talks about learning about what we deem fearful, he could be describing my own heart when it came to developing deeper understandings of the ways whiteness has played out in my life, what I’ve seen and, perhaps more important, what I’ve easily ignored.
Now, I hold a deep hope that these interviews offer something substantial to all humans, but right now, I have a few words for those of us who, to loosely quote James Baldwin and Ta’ Nahesi Coats, those of us who “believe we are white.” Unconfronted, the lie of “whiteness,” can make the expanse of what we don’t know, the territory of our own ignorance, oceanic in its scale.   Dipping your toes in the water of the knowledge that might reveal that ignorance might mean letting go of some long-held patterns and assumptions— It can seem terrifying but once you get those toes wet and wade out into the water, a lot like surfing, you can learn to value the tumbles and tossing you’ll get as you learn new ways of seeing. I began to relish every wipeout as I watch my ignorance evaporate, bit by bit.

Have I lost you? What does whiteness have to do with surfing? In its modern construction, especially in the popular imagination, ideas of whiteness are foundational to our understanding of what it means to live a coastal lifestyle. These dynamics continue to play themselves out on beaches all over the U.S. and all over the world even as people of color reclaim or claim anew the pastime, riding boards on ocean waves, that the ancestors of Hawaiians and West Africans and other people of color invented— and that some of them never let go of.
So when we, when I, went to the waves and felt afraid that the locals might make me feel unwelcome, because I was a stranger, because I was a woman, because I didn’t know how to surf, because I was old, or because I don’t look straight, or because of a million things I was scared of, either real or imagined, one thing I never had to worry about was the next level of vitriol that I might face if my skin were darker. I never had to contend with 400 years of systems that worked against my family building the wealth and a culture of access that allowed me to have the leisure and resources to get to the waves and be right! And in the process find so much more than surfing.
I never had to contend with a history that worked even more insidiously after segregation became illegal. As the poet Ross Gay says after the “Brown v. Board of Education…” Supreme Court decision, the U.S., north and south, ‘[inaugurated] an era of great racist innovation.” Increased entry fees at public pools where kids might learn to swim, increased parking fees, decreased public transportation, and a million other apparently race-blind decisions, had deeply disparate racial impacts.
None of this learning I’m inviting you to engage in means we, not you and not I, have to disregard or disconnect from the hurts we’ve suffered. It’s not about that. It’s about making time and space to learn our history and see who isn’t here with us and why. It’s about opening up to the truth of who we have been, of who we were taught to be without thinking, and in the process, opening up to, regardless of who and what we personally intended, the truth of who we are. It’s the kind of truth that must precede not just reconciliation, but healthy relationships– between humans, yes, but also our relationships with ourselves and with the more than human world.
Something comes in the place of these old patterns, once we start to dismantle them. What came for me was an unending gift I’m still, after years of wonder and discovery, just seeing the outlines of, like a massive headland emerging from the fog— it’s one that has a thousand promising and abundant paths for further adventures.
Now this one path, the one I began alone, the one that allowed me to find Brad at the Pipe during Solidarity in Surf— it made space for us to collaborate on a plan, to work with a local, predominantly white organization that hasn’t focused on barriers people of color. We drafted a proposal for a new volunteer position with the Cape Fear Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. I’ll put a copy of the proposal on the website for you to use as you see fit. Our collaboration is just at its beginning and it’s already been a profound gift to me.
The capacity of water to dissolve artificial barriers, not just between ourselves and others but between our deepest, most wounded selves and the healing we need, in whatever way we most need to heal, has been unparalleled in my life. So has dealing honestly with the way I was able to access that relationship with the ocean just because I decided to and, more important, dealing with the fact that it occurred to me in the in the first place to seek healing in the ocean and looking squarely at the ways that ease of access might be one aspect of whiteness, well has led to some of the most difficult, rewarding, utterly beautiful rides of my life.
I invite you white-bodied surfers to join me on this heart expanding journey of connection and healing. There will be links to the YouTube channel, to Inkwell and Black Girl Surf, and to many other resources on the Waves to Wisdom website, with this interview. I heartily, really, with my whole heart, encourage other surfers who believe they are white to ride some of these challenging waves too. I promise, Brad is right. With knowledge comes power.

by Waves to Wisdom

A man lies propped on a surfboard in the water with a big smile on his face.

Interview: Dr. Antonio Puente

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Player at the bottom of the page.

Learn more about coaching with Maia

" ...it was a very difficult time but then you know it's when things are falling apart is when you really get a chance to make things happen so as I tell somebody when I took over the position, I'm tenured, I got my citizenship and I don't give a shit."

~Dr. Antonio Puente

Show Notes

Dr. Antonio Puente’s Website

Dr. Puente’s Twitter Feed

Blue Mind Research and References

Interview with Blue Mind instigator Dr. Wallace J Nichols on The Unmistakable Creative

Introduction to Aloha

Waves to Wisdom post about Aloha

Transcript

Tony: it was a very difficult time but then you know it’s when things are falling apart is when you really get a chance to make things happen so as I tell somebody when I took over the position, I’m tenured, I got my citizenship and I don’t give a shit.

Maia: I’m Maia Dery

How do you feel when somebody or something with much more power than you have, knocks you down? Or tells you or maybe even shows you aren’t good enough? What do you do about it?
Get back up?
Struggle to not believe the naysayer? Or ignore the knock-down? Try to learn something so you can come back with more capacity and strength?  
When I recorded this interview with Dr. Antonio Puente, who, among other things, is an avid surfer and celebrated neuropsychologist, we couldn’t know how much this pandemic would knock us all down. But I suspect that, had we known about the coming challenges, the interview wouldn’t not have been much different.   Surfing and all ocean play, after all, are practices of scanning, of seeking, of developing relationship with something powerful over which you have absolutely no control and, at least for the first umpteen years, of getting knocked down over and over again. The kind of play is also a way to connect, with yourself, with the more than human world, and with other humans. Whether you love waves or weaving, hiking or haiku writing, some kind of passionate, disciplined engagement in an endeavor that allows your body to come into nuanced collaboration with the wider world is, I believe, one of the most rewarding ways to inhabit your time. In Dr. Puente’s case, it seems to have helped him overcome some long odds and some powerful forces that might have kept him from becoming who he is now. In addition to being an inspiring surfing story this tale of an immigrant boy overcoming long odds is, I think, also a great American story.

This episode is dedicated, with love and so much aloha, to the memory of Tiko Losano.

Welcome to Waves to Wisdom

Antonio: I’m Antonio Puente, or Tony as some people call me. I started surfing I believe in 1964, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. It’s been quite some time.

Maia: So, you were just little boy.

Antonio: Yep, on a wooden, woody surfboard. It looked more like a battleship than a surfboard. As you paddled out the waves actually broke for you.
..this is not, you know, as you catch the wave, as you paddle out, as you paddle out the waves would part for you.

Maia: You had a little Moses effect on them. Would you just talk a little bit about where we’re sitting right now?  Antonio: Sure, this is a club called The Surf Club. It’s towards the north end of Wrightsville Beach and it’s a beautiful, small pavilion overlooking the ocean. And we’re very fortunate to be away from the wind but in front of the view.

Maia: And the sun has just come up above the water’s edge and it is a gorgeous morning here! Okay, I would love to start by talking a little bit about your childhood.

Antonio: Well, I was born and raised in Cuba. I was privileged. One side of my family was involved with rum. The other side of the family was involved with legal affairs. In fact, my maternal grandfather was head of the legal department at Bacardi. So we were well to do. Had my own nanny and a chauffeur at that. And then after Castro took over we came to the United States on November 6, 1960 with $300 and a change of clothes and no knowledge of what we were getting into. We assumed a good revolution in Latin America would only last a little while and we would return… well, that was 1960.

Maia: It was a while ago.

Antonio: It was a while ago.

Maia: Do you have any memories of Cuba from your childhood?  Antonio: Yes, I do. I not only have memories but they’re reinforced on regular occasion by the family and especially my Mom and Dad talking about Cuba. And then subsequently I returned to Cuba, first almost 40 years later in 1999. And have returned pretty regularly since then. So, I left as a refugee and I come back as a decorated psychologist.

Maia: How about that! And did you and your family speak English when you came here with $300?  Antonio: No, my mom did. She had gone to boarding school, high school in Philadelphia but my dad and my brother and I didn’t know. In fact I remember it being explained to me that “I know this is maybe odd for me to tell you, Son but they don’t speak Spanish here.” I said, What am I gonna do?” And she said “Ah, you’ll figure it out.”

Maia: Oh my goodness! How old were you then?  Antonio: I was almost 9 years old [almost 9]— nine years old in North Miami Beach. We lived in a 1-bedroom apartment with two families, my brother and I were very fortunate, we had the kitchen floor to sleep on. [Wow] So we were the only ones who had a private room.

Maia: Wow, okay incredible— so you went right into an English speaking school system then I imagine?  Antonio: Right.

Maia: So then you were surfing the whole time then, in Miami?

Antonio: No, in Miami I didn’t get a chance to go to the beach very often. We were just trying to figure out how to get food and learn the language. We subsequently moved to San Antonio, Texas when I really first came in contact with what I guess we call discrimination. I realized at that point even though I was a child, despite the fact we didn’t have food, and then at one point, we didn’t have housing as well, that there was very active discrimination and there was a pecking order, at least in the United States in Texas at that time. There were the white people and then there were the black peopled then there were the brown people. So considering that we were really out for the count and we were being discriminated against, it seemed to my mom and dad that, if we were going to suffer, under those circumstances, we might as well be among other people that were similarly like-minded.

So we returned to Florida where my family settled in Jacksonville, Florida

Maia: And there are waves— as opposed to San Antonio and even Miami there are consistent waves in Jacksonville.

Antonio: And that’s where I first came in contact with waves because one of my father’s friends Cezar Garcia, had a son that— who knows exactly how, he had been exposed to surfing and he was always willing to give me a ride to the beach. From 1964-65 on I went to the beach with him as often as he would and I’ve continued surfing ever, ever since then.

Maia: And you ultimately decided that you interested in psychology and went to graduate school and…

Antonio: Yeah as far psychology, I was really curious about how people came to understand and engage and successfully adapt to the world and it seemed to me that psychology was as good a discipline as any that that provided a vehicle to address those issues. It came to me in my first psychology course in a small community college in Jacksonville, Florida. It actually was a segregated grammar school that had just been given over to this fledging concept which was junior college in those days. So, I went there then subsequently the University of Florida where I was able to continue surfing and subsequently to, to pursue the career at the University of Georgia where there were no waves but on to graduate school and psychology as a formal career path.

Maia: What, what a fascinating motivation that the curiosity about how people adapt to the world. So, we’ve surfed together a few times at this point in Wrightsville Beach where it’s a home break for both of us, including it really spectacular surf morning a couple of couple of days ago.

Antonio: It was the vibe of Wrightsville Beach, aloha spirit all over the place with wonderful little waves.

Maia: It really was. So many people, it was very crowded, it was it was the kind of day when I normally would not have gone where we went, but because I was with you I did and I was so grateful because I was surrounded by people but they were the best people.

Antonio: We’re very fortunate.

Maia: It was wonderful, it was like being in a welcoming friend’s home, it was really fantastic. Okay so you went to graduate school and you told me a story previously that I hope you’ll tell again about wanting to put together what were then, speaking of segregation, two really separate areas of psychological inquiry.

Antonio: At that point I was curious about this issue of adaptability, understanding the world and moving forward and it seemed to me that studying abnormal behavior was really successful because some people would make it and others wouldn’t but the mechanism that would mediate the entire process to me seemed to be the brain. And unfortunately at the University of Georgia then, even now, the individuals that study abnormal behavior were the clinical psychologists, they were on the first floor. The people who study the brain were primarily studying animals and normal behavior, like learning, and they were on the sixth floor.

I wanted to bridge the gap between those two… I did so by getting a Masters in, what was it January 6, 1978 and then I defended my dissertation January 13th, 1978 so I did them pretty much in parallel fashion rather interactive which is what I was hoping to achieve.

Maia: One of the things that I have noticed since learning how to surf breakfast yeah one of the things that I’ve noticed since learning how to surf is, it looks to me as though, certainly from my own experience and from observing others, that many surfers, not all, but many tend to have the capacity to see past artificial barriers that we erect. And I spent 17 years in an academic world and there is really nobody like academics to construct some really impenetrable barriers, especially between disciplines. I wonder if your habit of surfing and all of this fluidity and these distant horizons might have helped you understand that these two things are not actually separate?  Tony: Well, let’s go back to your comment, you said regarding academics, having been in academia formally since I was the age of 18 and continuing as a Professor of Psychology at the University in Wilmington, I can’t tell you how surprised I am, even after all these years, the unbelievable politics associated with academia. People fight so aggressively over so little to accomplish even less than that. It is beyond surprising.

You kind of wonder— there are certain places that life should be pure and the pursuit of knowledge and dissemination of that information seems to me that would be an obvious place were peacefulness, truth, collaboration, and collegiality should be present to try and move the big agenda of our world forward. I have to tell you it is still a surprise to me that that has not occurred. But that has been the place where I chose to pursue a career largely because of the opportunities that academia does have. For example, access to young people, access to thinking what you want, when you want. As long as you produce then maybe you’re in a position to do that, but academe has been the foundation for where I was able to pursue that.

Now at same time it seemed like a fulcrum needed to be established so I could handle that. Because, whereas I was very interested in the pursuit of knowledge and dissemination of what I knew, as well as having access to young people, and fresh ideas, etc. I also felt that that aggressive attitude that seemed to be so contraindicated in the pursuit and discovery, of knowledge— that I needed something that would help balance that. And for me that was living at the beach so I could somehow or other manage that, that difficulty which was present, ever since I came to the US, in many ways. And has continued even to this day. A place where I could disappear, at least emotionally and mentally, that would help ground and establish a place to, to provide a balance that can only be achieved if a fulcrum had been set up— on one side the motivation for the pursuit of information, knowledge, discovery, on the other side a sense of well-being and, as you sometimes say, wisdom, that really is hard to find anywhere else except when you come in regular contact with lots of water.

Maia: Yeah, we talked a little bit about this but there is a loose association of researchers and an idea called “Blue Mind.” People are studying something that many of us know intuitively that being around the water feels good and you go from the water back to whatever world you live in on dry land rejuvenated, relaxed, and potentially more creative and effective than you would’ve been if you had not.

Tony: Yes, I’m familiar with Blue Mind and actually we use it at the American Psychological Association, at least one branch of it. Yeah, to me, some how or the other I don’t know the science of it but I know the life of it. So it’s been part of who I am for that matter, my immediate, and my extended family.

Maia: Alright, well that observation is really interesting to me because you’re in a position to understand how the brain is actually responding to this stimulus much better than I am. You wrote a paper in which you were talking about the traditional mind-body split we have in Western culture and the ways that psychologists have approached behavior and brain over the history of the profession and you came up with the phrase “reverse epiphenominalism,” which is so interesting to me. My understanding if that is that it’s not just our brain that dictates behavior but that what we do in the world and the ways we think in turn create the ways that our brains act. Is that part of what was in the paper?  Tony: Pretty much. It was my way of trying to get some understanding of how is it that we end up producing who we are. It really is an idea that emerges from the work of my intellectual mentor Roger Sperry who discovered the two sides of the brain. His concept was pretty straightforward, and that is that neural structures of the brain give rise to a mind or consciousness and in a sort of epiphenomena, upward causation and then the consciousness in turn dictates how the neural structures underneath end up functioning. And that’s sort of downward causation. So it’s a reverse epiphenomena because we think of epiphenomena as an outgrowth of something but this is the outgrowth of the outgrowth. So, it’s a unified system of function.

Maia: Interesting, okay so if someone, for example, like you had a multi-decade habit of, of going to the water as a way to make sense of, recover from, regenerate for life— especially that they sort of intensely intellectual world that you live in to have this embodied practice, it could potentially change the way your brain was structured and functioned. Is that correct?  Antonio: I don’t know, certainly could be, I don’t, I don’t again I don’t know the science, I don’t do the science of surfing at all but I certainly do the lifestyle pf surfing and I think it’s been endemic and core to who I am and maybe has allowed me to maybe to engage life in a more successful fashion than I would’ve done otherwise.

I always wonder, for example, if I had been given the opportunity, which I was it and seized it, to go to New York University where I would work tons of hours a week and be exposed to asphalt rather than water, what would’ve happened. I wonder whether I would have ended up in the same place, unlikely. And I wonder if I would’ve been as successful, unlikely, and maybe as comfortable with life, most unlikely.

Maia: Really interesting. So, let me just, for anybody who doesn’t understand the significance of what you said, you were essentially offered what in your professional world would’ve been an extremely high-status job at one of the premier tier 1 research institutions in the country and you decided that it was more important to be someplace where you can access this lifestyle?

Antonio: Well I thought the lifestyle was really important to both raise a family and have a personal life but have a balance with my professional life and I… whereas I think being in a top-tier university may have been very useful in my career and probably in anybody’s career at the very beginning, there comes a time in a career where the institution stops caring a person and that person starts carrying the institution. And that lifestyle becomes really critical. I’ve never been one of the opinion that you should ignore your personal life as you pursue your professional one. In fact, I thought that having both successful would be very good. I often tell my kids it’s not that hard to be a successful academic but it might be not as hard to have personal life that’s also gratifying but it’s insanely difficult to do both and when you do both you and end up having great results.

Maia: Present company a testimony to that fact! Fantastic, so, my understanding is that you recently spoke at a commencement ceremony?

Antonio: Oh, yes that was, that was really surrealistic. I spoke the Department of Psychology commencement ceremony in Athens, Georgia. It was really pretty gratifying. It was a great audience, several hundred students graduating but was what was really unique— it was actually two things were unique. The chairman of the department was the mentor of my oldest son who graduated from the University of Georgia as I did. But also when I was a student there in 1974-75. Specifically, I recall being told that I didn’t know enough English to be able to succeed as a psychologist. And I was encouraged to to leave the University and possibly psychology. So I took a, a few weeks off, went surfing, to be honest, worked at a psychiatric hospital, the 11-7 shift. I couldn’t tell difference between the residents and me at that particular juncture of my life. But did that, surfed in the morning, and came to the conclusion that they were wrong and returned and off to the races I went.

Maia: Oh, my goodness, that gives me chills that the waves told you that or that you were able to hear that from yourself in those waves.

Antonio: Yeah, they were important in trying to reestablish that balance I had lost by spending nine months not being very successful. So it was really great to return. I’d been there as a student, an unsuccessful one and I was there as a parent cause two of my kids ended up going there. But this time I came back as a celebrated, distinguished alumni. When they invited me I said “Are you sure? Forty some years ago you guys were asking me to leave the program and now you’re you asking me to speak at your commencement. Their response was “That was then, this is now.”

Maia: It’s a different world in some ways, that’s quite something. And, and one of your, one of your many roles in addition to being a professor at UNC W and an avid surfer is you’re head of a branch of the American Psychological Association. Would you tell us a little bit about that?  Antonio: Sure. I’ve been involved with organized psychology for many years in one role or another and I particularly was interested in making sure that psychology had a seat at the table rather than a line on the menu and the goal was basically to get this way of thinking more active in our society and, uh I decided to become or run for the position of president which after a couple tries I was unusual opportunity to you become that as 125th president 2017. That was a particularly tough period for our society, also for our country. I inherited an association that was essentially broke and fragmented largely because of the assault on such things as science and the importance of person and diversity in our society, largely because of the current administration. And it was a very difficult time but then you know it’s when things are falling apart is when you really get a chance to make things happen. So as I tell somebody when I took over the position, I’m tenured, I got my citizenship and I don’t give a shit. So, let’s make things happen.

You know. I left my country, left everything so no reason to be cautious during times of crisis. So we were able to turn the ship around and in the process we realized that we do not have infrastructure to do advocacy which is so important in our society. Somebody has to carry the flag of discovery, the flag of truth, and of diversity, and of decency. We didn’t seem to have that in any way, shape, or form. So we started a new association that is part of of APA and I took that over when it started earlier this year. So I finished my tenure as president, and took over in this particular capacity at the present time.

Maia: Excellent and so now you, having engineered the organization so that it can support advocacy, you are actively engaged in doing that.

Antonio: That’s right. We now have an infrastructure. We have 20 attorneys, a director of advocacy. 60% of the basic budget, the membership fees, excuse me, that comes into this association gets directed to this activity. So we now have an economic revenue source and we’re developing the agendas as we move forward with the basic foundation that if, if it has to do with human behavior and has to do with science then we’re there to provide direction and as much as possible advocacy.

Maia: Okay well to bring us to a level that people can understand what you mean when you say advocacy, what would be an issue that right now and 2019 your branch of the organization is actively engaged in trying to address?

Antonio: Well I’ll give you one very specific one and one that applies to me as well. For a long period of time back I did not have appropriate papers, I was an undocumented individual. In fact, in fact, in 1978 I entered the country from Grenada, West Indies, not realizing I was undocumented and had been undocumented for 10 years. So I’m one of those undocumented people we talked about. And also, as you know, the president of the Association and so, so involved in our society today. So, so we held hearings in Congress and now we’re trying to develop bipartisan support to make sure that we don’t separate children from their parents and that we come up with a reasonable approach to border security. I am not against border security but I am against dehumanizing people and causing trauma. In some ways what we’re doing to these children and these families will cost the United States a lot of money, a lot of pain, and more importantly, loss of direction of who we are a country.

Maia: Here, here. Yes!

It’s really quite a story for the ages and for this age in particular. You’re a living example of how somebody can come in with no skills relevant to the workforce, being a child who had no English, and wind up really changing our country for the better on a very high level.

Antonio: Well, whereas I appreciate on the surface the idea of, you know, let’s populate certain skill sets that we need, for example, computer programmers or coders and so forth, the idea that we are no longer going to value family as a way to populate the immigration system shows a lack of, of empathy, understanding of how human nature works. And also, also this is really important, we were founded on an open attitude about people.

Maia: Yeah, one aspect of your work that I think is particularly interesting is your legal work. Would you talk about that a little bit?  Antonio: Sure. When I started this work on cultural neuropsychology the idea was to understand the role of culture and how is it playing in brain mediation of discovery and adapting and in the process it became more pragmatic in terms of trying to figure out what tests could be used to were measuring the construct in question. For example, intelligence, rather than some variable that was extraneous, such as time. So the, the idea became develop tests that were true to the concept rather than the measure of a variety of things that provided all kinds of problems and errors in our understanding of the client or the patient.

And in doing so, I started getting more focused on developing appropriate test for Spanish speakers which is a large population United States and a huge population of the rest of the world. There are very few neuropsychologists in general almost none who speak Spanish, about 50 of us in the United States.

And unbeknownst to me, some of this became interesting to the legal field. Specifically, individuals involved in the death penalty. Because it turns out an increasingly large percentage of individuals on death row are Spanish speakers and for what it’s worth it turns out that Hispanics are sentenced to die four times more frequently than Caucasians and for African-Americans is three times. So, a disproportionately large number of them were being sentenced to die and the question was, are we simply not understanding these individuals? So, I started being called upon first, interestingly, in a local county and then subsequently throughout the US. In fact, I have a case coming up next week in New York. The goal is to go discover what’s going on with this individual and make a reasoned estimate of whether their brain is affected.

So, along those lines I have been working on doing neuropsychological assessments of Spanish speakers that have been sentenced to die— I don’t know for sure I think I’ve done between 100-150 these cases throughout the US. It continues being a significant part of my work I see more patients who are clinical, if you will but the bulk of my time seems to be in these death penalty cases, that they take hours and hours and hours. I just finished a case and worked on for approximately 10 years, several hundred hours. I interviewed the family tested the went to their hometown, Mexico. When you, when you get to that level analysis not only do you know the brain, but you know this person probably be better than they know themselves. And the goal is to provide information to the court so they make a good decision, make sure that we’re not sending to do someone just because of their culture or other misinterpretations. The goal is to provide good data, as best scientific information as you can at that particular instance so the issues are just entirely legal rather than anything else.

Maia: Fascinating— yeah, seems so important because many of the people who are making decisions in court, the judges or the attorneys who are structuring the argument may not have the cultural competency to put the context to it…

Antonio: Could well be! I’ll give you an example. In Harris County, which is basically the county seat of Houston, Texas sentences to die more people in that county alone per year than the entire world combined. [Wow] There can’t be that many [unbelievable]. So, there’s something awry and my job is to bring an understanding to a very complicated situation. Justice obviously goes both ways— for that person who has been victimized as well as the person who is being sentenced. But either way the goal is to erode error and increase accuracy.

Maia: Wow, such important such important work. Okay, just to put this in a nice little package. You have a very busy academic post at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, you have graduate students, undergraduates, departmental responsibilities, you’re director of a branch of the American Psychological Association, you have this active practice as a legal expert providing this kind of crucial context in capital, mostly capital cases. You overcame a language barrier and economic hardships to achieve all this professional success. What do you think has been your greatest success?  Antonio: Well, for me the greatest success, in general, has been raise— raising three very normal children, all who surf. LAUGH All decent human beings that contribute to society.

But maybe one of my greatest successes, at least this question was asked me when I was president, “What’s been your greatest success as president of APA?” I’m sure there’s something more tangible than I can provide than what I’m doing now, but probably one of the greatest things that came to my mind immediately was that I surfed in three different continents in one week as president of the US (sic). I surfed in Europe, and I surfed here in the states and then I surfed in South America. It seems to me that if I consider that to be a crowning achievement of my year as 125th president of United States, excuse me, of not of the US but of the American Psychological Association [wouldn’t that be wonderful if you were!]. LAUGH Oh that was a Fruedian slip! But if I could be president of the society and that was my greatest accomplishment one could argue that maybe I have my head in the right place.

Maia: I would absolutely argue that, yes! So it’s, it’s a very busy job, has you traveling all over the place and some of those places you are able to get in the water…

Antonio: If I have the opportunity, if it’s close to the water, I’ll make an effort to make that happen, which is always extremely gratifying and to my hosts extremely surprising.

Maia: You are a distinguished character and so to don a wetsuit or some board shorts and take a big board out in the water and you are a shredder, you know, to really catch and ride, gracefully, some big waves— I’m sure it gives them pause.

Antonio: Well, I’m not sure I’m a shredder, I’m probably closer to a kook but either way it’s a pause for those people who are not familiar with this lifestyle.

Maia: Do your children surf?  Antonio: Yes, all my children surf and my wife, in her day, used to boogie board as well. So, in fact, all of them grew up literally a few feet from where we’re having this discussion. We bought an old house here at Wrightsville Beach and didn’t have enough money to establish a heating and air conditioning system but we did have a small tent that we would pitch up, or at least my wife would, every day and the kids would just spend their days on the beach. So they all grew up right here. And as soon as they could, put a little life vest on ‘em and then boogie board, after that a board. They all still do it.

Maia: So this practice has really been central to your personal life for your entire adulthood?

Antonio: Yeah, and for my kids [and for children] yeah, as a matter fact we try to take a family vacation every year and we’re going to do so, this year all of us. To where I took my wife on a honeymoon and I told her we’re going to some of outer island in the Bahamas. She goes, “What’s there?” I said “I think there’re waves.” And we’re going back to celebrate the beginning of our married life which started with riding waves in the middle of nowhere in the outer Bahamas.”

Maia: So wonderful! And how many years have you been married now?  Antonio: I think 100…

Maia: One hundred years, ok good

Antonio: We were married in 1977.

Maia: Okay, beautiful and your children are grown now?  Antonio: Yep. My daughter’s a psychologist in Melbourne Florida and she and the kids live the beach life. My other son, my oldest son, Nicky’s a neuropsychologist at George Washington University and he still surfs as well. And then Lucas, my youngest son, is married and has a kid and lives in Northern California and surfs from Santa Cruz to right below the Golden Gate Bridge, which is Fort Point which I always worry about because between him and the open ocean and lots of current is not much.

Maia: Right! Yeah that is a… it’s a dynamic ocean environment there. But talk about a selection of waves, wow!

Antonio: He gets the better waves of all of us.

Maia: Yeah…So, one of the papers that you wrote which I was particularly fascinated by, addressed cultural bias in testing children for cognitive impairment and in particular a relationship to time, would you talk a little bit about that?  Antonio: Yeah, we’ve actually done research on the topic for a number of years. My area’s primarily neuropsychology and specifically the relation between culture and brain function and the idea of how culture plays a role in understanding how people discover it, understand it, and adapt to it, and the difficulties that some people have with it, and the success of others who are fortunate to have been able to conquer it. So we’ve dedicated many years of study on that and in many countries, whether it’s South Africa, Russia, Spain, Cuba, among others— we discovered that sometimes we misunderstand what the construct is that we’re trying to measure, to understand what is it that the person is all about. For example, in the case of intelligence. And that is, how is it that we determine whether the child is smart or not?

So, instead of telling you a story about our research I’ll tell you a story about myself. So, when I was first given these tests, I don’t recall much about them because I didn’t know English. So my mom just said “They’re going to give you some tests. Just do your best, be courteous.” And I’m almost sure that diagnosis to this day may have been “moron but friendly.” [Laugh- oh my goodness!] I had no idea what they were asking me!

“What are the colors of the US flag?”
“Whatever you’re asking me, I’ll just smile.”

So in that case they misunderstood intelligence with, with language. And in the case of people who speak Spanish, time is something that we enjoy. In the United States time is something you conquer. So, the faster you do something, the smarter you are. In our country, the more you savor it, the smarter you are.   So when you have those constructs mixed, you may have a kid who enjoys the experience. As my own child, Nicki, when he took those exams as a small kid, he was enjoying it and he asked all kinds of questions so he got a low score as well. I said Nikki, “No, this is not what you’re supposed to do. So it had nothing to do with intelligence it had to do with your approach to problem-solving and sometimes we confuse the two.   I sometimes say that I spent my time trying to figure out why people from Latin America score by 15 points, or one standard deviation lower than their counterparts in the United States? And why is it that after all these years we’re trying to figure out why they’re not as smart as people from US, here I am at 67, still trying to figure out why they’re not that smart but they all have retired back to Central America…

Maia: LAUGH— Who is the smart one?

Antonio: Who is the smart one?

Maia: Oh my gosh, that is, that is remarkable. Yeah, I spend a lot of time in this, in a Spanish-speaking country Costa Rica— this beautiful little, little village that has a lot of ex-pats, many of whom are fluent in Spanish. And my Costa Rican friends have watched me struggle to try to learn Spanish for five years now and get almost nowhere, and I’m pretty sure their diagnosis would also be “moron but friendly.” LAUGH

Antonio: As long as you try. [laugh] But we’re discussing, I think, more important than the construct of intelligence or even language is the construct of culture. Cause, one thing is to speak the language, another one is to appreciate the culture. And that’s a whole lot more complicated. Going back to Costa Rica, things just don’t happen fast. [never] And if you go with the attitude “I want this solved today” by going to a store or a government agency, it just doesn’t happen. And people are going to view you as an irritant, as difficult, as arrogant, when in reality you’re not. You’re trying to solve a problem. And you have to put in the context of that— that’s what the brain does.

And for that matter that’s what surfing does. It puts a context in place. Because otherwise, you get so busy and so full of “I got to get another publication. I gotta earn another dollar. I gotta fix another patient.” And then when you come here you realize— Well, it’s not that simple. It’s a bit more complicated.

Maia: Yeah, the late, in my estimation great, Irish philosopher and poet John O’Donohue said that that a lot of Westerners, Americans in particular, tend to be victims of their time instead of inhabitants of it. And I have found for myself and maybe you’re saying also for you, that surfing really does help me inhabit my time. It makes me able to live in this moment instead of according to the “to do” list.

Antonio: And to establish your true North because otherwise you get caught up in the system. We talked yesterday how religion very often provided a framework for many of us and then industrialization and consumerism has done that in the recent past but you know both have left us with big vacuums. In some ways surfing provides a way to resolve that vacuum which is so critical.

You know we’re in this for the long haul. This is a marathon not a sprint and I think surfing allows you to, to think of drinking that water during that marathon otherwise you get dehydrated and you lose.

Maia: Beautiful analogy! So the underpinnings and framework of the Waves to Wisdom project is that surfers’ regular involvement in the natural world, in this medium, this dynamic, embodied activity, and in general, adapting it for people who don’t surf or don’t love water, just a really important play discipline, a discipline of playfulness and embodiment that, that’s central to your life. That, that’s crucial and it’s something that’s missing from a lot of our lives in and I think our culture unfortunately has promoted this bifurcation where, you know, children can play for a minute… We seem to let them play in an unstructured way less and less, children can play but grown-ups have to settle down to the grim business of earning money and counting pennies, making sure there are always more and are there practical benefits that you haven’t mentioned to having this regular play discipline, that you can tell people about.

Antonio: I’m not sure if I can articulate it but I will say generally for me it’s a re-centering, it’s critical. I’m not sure if it’s the washing of the waves or the act of surfing or the disconnect. It’s really hard to be thinking about how to cut the grass or how to earn income when you’re out there. You just, it sort of absorbs you, literally and figuratively in a way that people talk about in contemporary terms as mindfulness. It, it takes away from the logical, sequential that were so focused on a day-to-day basis to the Gestalt, the emotional, and it just washes away all those worries and sort of resets, re-calibrates. I think for me that’s the takeaway.

Maia: Okay, I’ll just give you an example of something that I noticed when I started surfing, speaking to artificial barriers, I grew up in ACC sports country. I grew up in Durham in the county, situated between Durham and Chapel Hill North Carolina. And this is some virulently fanatical basketball culture and so there were very competitive sports teams in my youth and I’ve never been athletically gifted. And came out of youth with a little bit of a complex that I couldn’t hang with the real athletes, the strong big agile fast people. And when I learned how to surf I found that one of the many beautiful things about the sport is that kind of diversity. I can go out and have and have actually interviewed someone, I can go out with somebody who was a Division I college athlete, who is my physical superior in every athletically measurable way and we’re both having a great time, we’re both challenged and it really helped me dissolve that interior barrier that I had constructed over the course of my youth and that in and we’ve had conversations about that the professional we don’t have a ton of racial diversity in the surf line up where we are but but the professional diversity, you have plumbers and electricians and neuropsychologists, everybody is out there and nobody even knows what anybody does. [or cares] or cares! And so there’s this mental construct that I had erected in my life and surfing really helped me dissolve that barrier, helped me learn how to get up after I’ve been knocked down in new ways.

Antonio: Well, since you— I talked about the personal side of things it, it’s a way to recalibrate, and appreciate what’s important, what’s much less important. But you addressed the issue of the social side of things. Let me address that as well, and that is in terms of the “aloha spirit” as we often refer to. We don’t really seem to care too much about what you do for a living and in the lineup for that matter people don’t seem to be terribly concerned about whether you’re good at surfing or not. What they’re concerned about is more like, can you bring something to the equation? Can you bring a good vibe to this group. Can you give a good story? Are you the one that’s willing to share the wave? And for that matter, are you willing to give to the community which you are part of? So, nobody really is very concerned whether you’re “a shredder” but we are extremely concerned if you are willing to take off on people or if you’re rough. On Sunday will we caught those, oh Monday, when we caught those wonderful waves there was a guy that came out to the lineup who got right in the middle of us and one of the older guys, a guy from Hawaii said, “Hey, Dude, you gotta wait your turn.”   And the guy says “I’ve been here since the beginning, who in the hell are you?” This is not the kind of attitude that we want. As Tiko, the one I was referring to, he calls this our happy place. We, we don’t want you to come in here and give us what we call “aggro attitude.” This is not where it’s at.
And this carries into the community as well. We help each other when there’s a need. And one of us lost their husband she now has significant Parkinson’s disease so when she needed a roof we put our two cents in and got her a roof or when she needs her yard cut…

So, the aloha spirit starts in the water continues onto the land.

Maia: It really does and I’m personally not a churchgoer and had never really felt like I was missing that from my life but when I started to surf at 40 and it began to really, I think, occupy a lot of the place that church occupies for many people, I realized how important that community aspect of what sociologist Emile Durkheim referred to as “collective effervescence,” where people come together and celebrate something. And it really does feel as though surfers do that— celebrate not just the beauty of the ocean and the excitement and dynamism of the waves, but just the incredible gift of being alive to enjoy them together.

Antonio: Yeah, and that’s it that’s what happened— we didn’t plan it but the waves were fun, the water was clear, and the vibe was amazing. When people took off, “Go Maia! You go, Girl!” Come back, you might talk some trash, and yeah it’s, it’s sort of an ecologically valid church, if you will.

Maia: Yes, yes! That is exactly what it feels like! Is there anything else that you can think that you would like to tell people about?  Antonio: Well, you mentioned play, I never envisioned surfing as play, it’s more of a way of life but it does have a play attitude. The consequences are really somewhat irrelevant. The focus is on the process and I wonder whether you could emulate that in other ways? I don’t know, maybe— the other side of the coin is there more to it than surfing yet we focus on to how it surfing is critical to me as a human being and and to us as a community one wonders if everybody surfed whether we’d find ourself in this terrible mess that we are in with our country for that matter with our world.

Maia: There’s a fellow named Stuart Brown and he posits that playfulness at work, the capacity to act and feel occasionally as though you’re willing to risk failure, you feel like doing something just for its own sake not just because you’re required to, or paid to— that kind of attitude is is crucial to be successful on the level that you are successful. You think that your regular practice of play in the water has allowed you to potentially at times when it’s appropriate be more playful at work?  Antonio: Well maybe maybe not necessarily playful but, I think of my personal life as being relatively traditional and conservative but my professional life as being very unusual— the way I approached it, and how I managed it seemed to be very unusual and I don’t think I could’ve done that unless I had that foundation. In the United States— and I’m very involved in healthcare policy— it’s all about how you make money, but it’s very little about how you enjoy the experience and I think we would find ourselves in a much better place if we could balance the two.

Maia: In what ways were your professional maneuvers unconventional?

Antonio: Well, I went to a small school that had an ocean next to it, I was the first neuropsychologist, as far as I can tell, in the state of North Carolina. Those are two little examples. When I didn’t get promoted at the University of Georgia after my first year because of my lack of knowledge of the English language, I kept on going. When I was not given tenure at UNC Wilmington, I reapplied. These are not wise things to do but I understood who I was I thought it was a misunderstanding of the people who judged me. So I was able to maybe be more risk-focused?

Maia: Being a surfer myself I can absolutely see how a practice of surfing that set you up to get back up after somebody tried to knock you down.

Antonio: If things go bad to go surfing!

Maia: Yes, and then practice getting knocked down and get back up over and over again. That is so interesting!

One of the aspects of surfing that is is so powerful to me is the, I think the word that we have that best describes it is relationship, the way that the relationship between the surfer the surfer’s body, the surfer’s brain and body, and the ocean has to be the focus. You can’t be thinking as you say about mowing the lawn or earning more money and that regular requirements that we focus on relationship and all of the benefits that we gather from being present for that relationship, including and especially in our inter-human interactions. It really does for at least a subset of surfers, look to me like it enables us to go into the rest of our lives focusing on relationship and our bodies in relationship to our minds and relationship and worry less about the next level of meta-existence— the abstraction, the grades, the economy, the dollars.

Do you think that’s valid?

Antonio: Yeah, it puts it in focus. You stop worrying about accomplishing and start being more concerned about being there. Or just being mindful as the contemporary psychology folks are all talking about. We often think that success in how much money I make, how many publications I’ve achieved, or status in life, but we don’t measure very well, or even consider measuring very well, how much you enjoy living.

Maia: I can’t imagine anything more important than that.

Antonio: Well, we’ve structured an entire society and civilization where that doesn’t seem to be very crucial to our equation.

Maia: Yeah, we really have.

Antonio: You look at some of the statistics of why young men are dying or the opioid epidemic that we’re experiencing. Obviously people are trying to find happiness quickly in many cases unsuccessfully.

I think we’ve emphasized the importance of surfing as foundational. There must be, as the scientists and researchers involved in Blue Mind suggest, must be some foundation that’s scientific or empirically explained. I don’t know if, if I need that.

Roger Sperry who, as I said, was my intellectual mentor, the first psychologist to win the Nobel Prize, said that our job with science is to anticipate what nature will eventually give us. Maybe in terms of waves to wisdom, the wisdom in this process is that we don’t need scientist to validate the wisdom that the experience of being surrounded by water and participating in the act of surfing on a regular basis provides you but that wisdom is provided to us in other ways. In my case since 1964. I think I’m past needing science. I do know that it’s a requirement for me.

Maia: Surfing is a requirement for you?

Antonio: It’s a requirement for me.

Maia: You are a model of what this kind of integrated lifestyle can do for someone’s success. I mean there aren’t a lot of sixty-somethings in the hyper successful professional world who are as fit, active, healthy as you are. And, you know the big smile you have on your face all the time is testament enough.

Antonio: Well, maybe people think I’m smoking pot.

Maia: Laugh- instead of surfing waves…

Antonio: But that’s not true. I will tell you it’s a requirement and it’s necessary just as much as other things like eating, sleeping, it’s just part of the equation. So, waves to wisdom… Or, maybe the alternative should be wisdom to waves.

Maia: I love it! Thank you so much for your time!

Antonio: Oh, my pleasure!

Maia: I hope you found Dr. Puente’s story to be as inspiring and instructive as I did. Sharing these stories is a great privilege but I also have the honor of playing a role in stories I don’t share. If you’d like to have a conversation about whether I might be the right coach for you, visit wavestowisdom.com

by Waves to Wisdom

Waves to Wisdom Interview: Surf Sista Mary

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Player at the bottom of the page.

Learn more about coaching with Maia

"...when I surf I could just sit there, and I know I'm black, and I can tell by some of the stares, people are going, 'Oh, look, a black woman.' But I can just sit there and shut down for a bit. That's nice."
~ Surf Sista Mary

African American woman surfs a blue wave on a longboard.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Mary’s Blog: Black People Don’t Surf

Derrick Adams’ Water Paintings

Swim Beyond: A 501 (c)(3) Non-profit that maintains a scholarship fund to help those who do not have the financial means to participate in swim lessons.

Black Kids Swim: An organization whose priority is “creating and protecting excellence in Black children.” From their website: “Black Kids Swim will share our activities to unify and strengthen the African diaspora through a love of swimming.”

NY TIMES Article about racism and American pools.

Trailer for documentary The Black Line.

Trailer for documentary White Wash about African American surfers

Interview with Neuroscientist Arne Dietrich on Flowstate

Nina Simone Interview

Interview Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Surf Sista Mary: What you don’t understand about being black or being gay or being, you know, Latino or Muslim is you’re always reminded of it. So if you’re white, you can just go through life and be white. But if you’re a different group something is always reminding you. The president says something or there’s something on the news or somebody goes to a mosque and shoots up the place. All those things remind you, oh you’re not like everybody else, even though you are. But when I surf I could just sit there, and I know I’m black, and I can tell by some of the stares, people are going, “Oh, look, a black woman.” But I can just sit there and shut down for a bit. That’s nice.

Maia: In a 1970 interview with the late great Nina Simone, the interviewer asks what freedom is. Simone says, “I’ll tell you what freedom is to me, no fear… like a new way of seeing…”

This interview was recorded in the summer of 2019. A lot has changed since my shared sessions with Surf Sista Mary. The day I am recording this introduction is June 19th, 2020. That was unintentional but welcome coincidence. For anyone who doesn’t know its Juneteenth— a holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 when a Union general announced to the African Americans of Galveston Texas that they were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Lincoln had signed two and a half years earlier. Word spread quickly among Texas’s black population and previously enslaved people released themselves into the promise of freedom. In so many ways that promise was and still is that promise was delayed, and then just outright betrayed, through a combination of many legal and policy decisions, outright terror and violence, and all kinds of cultural currents and habits.
It feels to me like, in just the last couple of weeks, something 7changed. It has begun to feel like there is hope. Like there is reason to believe that the promise of an America of the people, by the people, and for the people might have some life left in it yet. That liberty and justice for all could be, after 400 years, a thing we on this land between two seas move towards together.

In other words, it’s started to feel like we white people are waking up to a world, and to a possibility that has been right here all along.
This episode was initially scheduled to come out in early March of 2020, but I decided to delay this season’s podcast. It didn’t quite seem right to be talking about all of the benefits of surfing at the beginning of a global pandemic that would clearly reduce everyone’s freedom of movement, including access to beaches and the joy they bring to those of us who surf. And then came, Amauhd Arbery, murdered while he was jogging, Breonna Taylor, murdered while she was sleeping, and George Floyd, murdered while he was pleading for air. The Black Lives Matter movement has garnered the attention it deserved all along and we are in a time of what feels like long-overdue national reckoning.

None of this, not pandemics, not police brutality, came up when Surf Sista Mary and I shared some fabulous waves in Southern California. We were, as far as I know, thinking about what surfers think about— waves and rides, rides, and waves. But while thinking of riding the ocean’s energy we knew the feeling we were chasing, and although there’s no good word for it, perhaps one that comes close is freedom.
Unlike early March, this seems like the perfect time to release Mary Mills’ voice into the world. What does surfing have to do with black liberation?

Simone’s eloquence and evocation come close to describing my experience as a surfer. Learning how to ride the waves has been the most liberating, empowering, and transformative practice of my life. Anybody who’s paying attention can’t ignore the fact that African-Americans are massively under-represented in almost all Surf lineups in this country. The history of modern surfing is inextricably intertwined with the history of colonial exploitation, of the subjugation of native people, of the systematic removal of African Americans from recreational access to the water over a period of generations. In other words, when Sista Mary sees surprise in the eyes of those who note that “there’s a black woman”, it’s no surprise that it’s a surprise. So few of my fellow surfers perceive that fact as a problem.
I have long believed that I understand why some of the most violent white and police instigated riots against African Americans during the civil rights movement happened during peaceful attempts to integrate beaches. If you want to keep people from loving one another, from coming to feel deeply tied to one another, from understanding how little separates us and the powerful, intense connections that come through shared, immersive joy, you’d better keep them from playing together in the water.

For my part, I haven’t pushed the issue as much as I could have and, let’s face it, should have. Surfing is the most liberating, instructive, deeply freeing practice I’ve ever experienced. As I’ve said many times in these interviews, it can dissolves artificial barriers in our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our lives.   I didn’t learn to surf until I was 40. Breonna Taylor died when she was 26. It should go without saying but saying is necessary and not nearly enough. Everybody, no matter how much melanin, should be free to live and breathe and learn to surf if she chooses.

It seems so straightforward. But that freedom might require a radical restructuring of lots of unseen forces and assumptions and habits that have allowed me, and others like me, to throw ourselves headlong into this deeply rewarding and creative endeavor without much thought for who’s missing from the line-up.  There’s a contemporary African American painter named Derrick Adams who painted a series of black bodies at play in the water. He notes that it is precisely when black bodies are shown or seen at leisure that white supremacy is most likely to rear its ugliest Hydra heads. Adams believes that the black body, freely engaged in leisure, at play in the water after and in spite of all the collective historical trauma, is a profoundly political, deeply radical portrayal.

In a 1976 live concert recording, Nina Simone sings

I wish I could share all the love that’s in my heart
Wish I could break all the things that bind us apart
Wish you could know what it means to be me
Then you’d see
You’d agree
Everybody should be free
Because if we ain’t then we’re murderous

Welcome to Waves to Wisdom.

Interview

Maia: Okay, ready?

Mary: Ready.

Maia: Awesome! OK, why don’t we start, if you are comfortable with you telling everybody your name, your age, and how long you been surfing.

Mary: I will tell you my surfing name, Surf Sista Mary. I am 56— I just turned 56 last week and I’ve been surfing 17 years.

Maia: Fantastic, okay. And we are parked on the side of a winding road in San Clemente and we can see the Pacific from where we are, the sun is out [gorgeous!] so gorgeous and will you tell anybody who’s listening a little bit about what we just did.

Mary: We just had a really good session at San Onofre. I didn’t think it would be good I was thinking I don’t know if I want to go is supposed to be windy and then it was gray when we got here, it was raining on the way but the waves were pretty darn good [laugh].

Maia: Holy cow it was so fun! You know I’m used to East Coast breaks and we just don’t have waves that go on and on like that. It was, there were such long rides.

Mary: That’s the best surf I’ve had in months.

Maia: And you know one of the things that’s such a treat for me is seeing people like the woman we saw who must’ve been in her late 60s who was just rippin’!

Mary: Which one? The one with the white hair or…

Maia: The one with the white hair I’m thinking but there were a couple out there, weren’t there?

Mary: Yes!

Maia: Fantastic, well you live in Los Angeles [yes] and this was our second session this morning we’d surfed earlier right at one of your usual breaks, El Porto, and I found you because of a blog that you wrote for several years. Your blog is entitled “Black People Don’t Surf” …

Mary: That’s the final name, the name alternated [okay] depending on my mood.

Maia: Fantastic talk a little bit about your moods and your rotating blog names.

Mary: Well, I like William Faulkner so originally it was The Surf and The Fury and then I got bored with that and I think I changed it to a different Faulkner title. I think he had a book called Light in August and I change that to Surf in August. But always people remark about me being black and surfing and, you know, the stereotype is black people don’t surf. So finally at one point I just changed it to that and left it.

Maia: It, uh, it speaks quite eloquently just, just like it is I think [laugh] and you really, eye-opening and you really you chronicled your, your surfing adventures for several years and almost session by session. What was the motivation to start a blog that you kept up for that long?

Mary: Well, I like to write. At the time I remember blogs were just starting and they were featuring them on Surfline and I thought I want to be featured on Surfline so I started a blog. And they did feature it on Surfline. That was part of why I did it because I wanted to be noticed for my writing and I also have such a bad memory that I wanted to be able to look back and see what I did when I was surfing and learning to surf. And when I look at the blog now I think, “I don’t remember that, at all.”

Maia: It’s good that you kept track that way. And something that you talked about earlier today which I find so fascinating is that moment when you first decided to learn to surf and the fact that it coincided with another really important event in your life. Will you tell that story?

Mary: Yeah, [laugh] now I’m laughing. Okay, I used to be a competitive cyclist so part of my route depending on where I was training would be to just ride slowly down the bike path and enjoy the ocean. And one day I passed a table that had a brochure for a women’s surf class and I thought “Huh, I’ve always like surfing I want to learn to surf and I finally know how to swim.” So I stopped and got the brochure but a little voice told me, “You can’t call them. Not yet.” And I took the brochure home and was going to call them the voice could tell me “You, you can’t —you can’t surf yet.” and it turns out I was pregnant.

Maia: Fascinating!

Mary: Yeah so I had to wait until I had the kid in the three months after I had him I started taking classes.

Maia: So let’s just let me just pause for second so you had a three-month-old you had just given birth to your one and I believe only child [correct, one and only] to your son and then you started to, to surf. And was that class a good class? Did you feel like you became proficient as a result of that?

Mary: No, not at all the class was good. I did not become proficient.

Maia: It takes a while, doesn’t it?

Mary: Yeah I think it was mainly to get women in the water it was run by Mary Setterholme and she was a former US surfing champ and I think she was just trying to get women in the water but was not proficient. I was good at popping up— they told me that.

Maia: And did you fall in love with it right away?

Mary: I think I fell in love with it when I was a kid? [You did?] Yeah, I wanted to surf since I was little.

Maia: And talk a little bit about that, where you first see surfing?

Mary: ABC’s Wide World of Sports! I think it was was it in black and white? No I think it was probably in color by that point but I remember having a crush on Shaun Thompson from South Africa.

Maia: He’s a cutie!

Mary: Oh my God. And I met him and he kissed me on the mouth and I almost died.

Maia: Did he really? Wow!

Mary: Yes, he did! But ever since then I kept thinking I want to surf but I’m a black kid with straightened hair and I don’t know how to swim. So I didn’t think it would ever happen. But then I grew up, cut off all my hair, learned how to swim and it was time to learn how to surf.

Maia: It happened.

Mary: Yeah.

Maia: So you saw surfing on Wide World of Sports. Were you tempted to learn then?

Mary: No! I couldn’t swim! And black people surfing? That’s not a thing! I mean I was little— probably like 10. Maybe, so, mm-mh.

Maia: So you saw surfing as a child you really wanted to surf as an adult he finally just happened upon this opportunity yes at that point you had learned how to swim

Mary: Yes at 23 I decided, Okay I need to learn how to swim because I wanted to do triathlons. So I chopped off all my straightened hair. I was never into hair and into all the trappings of what make you stereotypically attractive as a woman.

I’ve always been athletic and obviously I have always been black and black women are acculturated to straighten our hair and then you’re a slave to your hair because you don’t want to get it wet you don’t want to do this. And now women wear weaves but I always just wanted to go outside and play so 23 because I wanted to learn how to swim I chopped off all that straightened hair I just had a short Afro and it’s been on ever since. I have never straightened my hair again and never will.

Maia: You don’t miss it?

Mary: Oh, no! Why would I? I can go do whatever— I don’t even look in the mirror barely. Because I don’t wear makeup and I don’t do anything with my hair. I just get up, shake my dreadlocks and I go.

Maia: And you’re ready…

Mary: Yeah, and my man loves it so what’s the problem?

Maia: Well, it’s pretty fabulous the dreadlocks are pretty fabulous, I have to say…

Mary: And he said that he likes that I don’t wear makeup because of course then you spend all your time going, wait, I have to get ready. If he wants to go do something I’m ready.

Maia: You just go do something…

Mary: Yeah, [more freedom…] if it rains, it rains! just did is we just go more freedom if it rains, it rains.

Maia: Part of, part of what I’m doing with this podcast is trying to share what I believe I’ve come across which is this wisdom that surfers seem to me to accumulate from their embodied practice of immersing themselves in this more than human medium, in this dynamic environment. What did surfing teach you as you were learning?   Mary: As I was learning? I think it taught me some humility. I’ve never been stuck up but I’ve always been a very good athlete so whatever sport I turned to I was good and boy surfing was different. So it teaches you patience. It teaches you humility and it teaches you you’re not in control, the ocean is in control. You can only control you, you can’t control that— I’m pointing at the ocean. You can’t control that. So at some point you have to give yourself over to it and you have to know when you can get in and you also have to know when you can’t and I think a lot of people don’t learn that. If the oceans angry you need to keep your little happy— do we swear? [we can we can beep it] you need to keep your little happy butt on land.

Maia: Yeah, yeah, it’s, it really is— and I don’t know if this is true for you but I tend to be a pretty anxious and controlling person at times and so that as you say giving yourself over to this powerful force, that for me, I have to practice that over and over and over again. It’s never something that I feel, I, I’ve got this now. I’m done. I need reminders all the time and surfing is so good at giving those reminders.

Mary: I don’t have that though and I think it may be because I’m black. I— there’s so little I can control— I can’t make people treat me equally and most people are nice to me so I’m not saying, “Oh I get treated badly because I’m black.” I get treated very well because I’m me. That’s what I’m told because people say you have a good attitude you have good energy. So people are always nice to me but as a black person and as a black woman I feel like I don’t control much of anything. So surfing is just part of me going alright, I can work within the structure I have but I try to control very few things.

There are so many forces at play when you walk out of your door. How can you control any of it? You know, people try to use their money to control it but that’s a good thing about surfing and I’ve said that elsewhere, the ocean doesn’t care you can have all the money in the world you can have all the privilege in the world, you can have all the beauty in the world, if you don’t know how to surf and respect the ocean, you’re not going to do well.

Maia: It doesn’t make any difference does it?

Mary: It doesn’t make a difference.

Maia: No, not one bit— and it is, I don’t know and, in my experience, you know I walk through the world occupying this body and it’s probably different from your experience— I have found that at many breaks once people figure out that you are competent, they treat with a certain measure of respect [they do]. Yeah, and it’s it’s [agreed] interesting because there are— we were discussing last few days I’ve surfed at Malibu and there’s about to be this huge contest there which means there are world-class long borders there, most of whom look like they’re between 20 and 30 and, you know they’re all of course, beautiful and, and showing off for each other, as is their job, that’s what they do, they are pro surfers and for the most part they, they ignore me but they’re also, really when it came to a point where I was in a position where I couldn’t be ignored I was treated with respect every single time and that doesn’t always happen out in the world.

Mary: Right, exactly, it doesn’t always happen at Malibu, so I’m [so I’ve heard] yeah yes so I was shocked!

Maia: I think the pros didn’t have anything to prove to me, that’s for sure.

Mary: One of the aspects of your outlook on life that has really been intriguing to me as we’ve had conversations over the last couple of surf sessions is your orientation towards work and I’ve said elsewhere in the podcast that I spent a lot of time in this little village in Costa Rica. And so I I’ve been lucky enough to befriend to be befriended by several Costa Ricans. And your attitude towards work comes closer to their attitude towards working than just about any American I have come across. [really?] Yes, of our age. Would you talk a little bit about your relationship with work?

Mary: American culture says if you don’t work you’re lazy. Well I have 3 degrees and I’ve had jobs. But sitting in an office typing in front of a computer— for what? I mean really for what? To make money and then to make money for what and for whom?

Maia: That’s a good question.

Mary: You know I’m the job I have now, I don’t get paid much— my boss makes tons of money so really I’m helping him. I mean, I’m paying my bills but it’s really— my attitude is you’re getting the best hours of my day to help you make money and really I’m not getting that much out of it. So I don’t I don’t understand why work is that important. We should be living. I mean yes we live in the United States, we have bills, we want housing so you have to work but you don’t have to have a career. I’ve never had a career. My kiddos my career.

Maia: And what a meaningful career that is!

Mary: Yeah, it’s the best job ever!

Maia: And what are your 3 degrees in, if you don’t mind me asking?

Mary: A BA in English, and an MA in English, and a law degree. And I hate work, that’s what’s so funny but I didn’t know it at the time when I was getting all the degrees. I thought I was setting myself up for a career and then I got in the working world and hated it from day one.

Maia: My Costa Rican friends who I know who, for example, are surf instructors they don’t hate their work at all but they do it in order to support the important parts of their lives where are their children, and their families, their parents— they live close to their parents as do you, you make that choice and there are other people of course you have grimmer jobs who have different attitudes towards them, and we have, you know, there are precious few jobs I think that don’t keep people like you and me hemmed in physically to a point where we’re just miserable [right] especially if you’re a thinking sort of person you get channeled into these jobs that involve sitting in a desk…

Mary: Yes it’s awful— luckily I have a standing desk now and I work in front of a window but if I didn’t have those two I would’ve quit. I’ve been there a year– that’s almost a record for me.

Maia: And you’re writing professionally now, right?

Mary: I guess, is it writing I don’t know, what I do, they call us technical writers [OK] yes so who cares? I mean, really when I meet people I don’t say to them, “What do you do for living?” [right] I don’t care what you do for living [yeah]. It’s not important, so it irks me when people say “And what is your job?” Are you gonna judge me based on my job? Who cares what I do! I go to job to make money to keep food in my kid’s mouth and, you know, pay the electric bill and all that but other than that and it doesn’t define me!

Maia: Yeah, yeah if you were going to answer that question in a way that that felt right to you, what do you do? What would be the first few answers you would give?

Mary: I always tell people, well before I have this job “I’m a mom.” [Absolutely] Yeah, now I say, I okay work for this company and write technical manuals for airline compliance, who cares? And then I always say, “Who cares?” (23:38)

Maia: Who cares— do you ever say you’re a surfer when people ask what you do?

Mary: No, in terms of a job, no.

Maia: It’s interesting because one thing I’ve noticed about surfers, American surfers is that if you asked them what they do many of them will answer with their job. But if you pay any attention to their lives that’s number 2. Unless they have a family, in which case maybe it’s number three. What they do first is sometimes family, sometimes what they do is surf. The job happens, it’s not like we’re not responsible but if that surf forecast is good enough, that job’s gonna wait.

Mary: Right?!? [yeah] That’s why working part-time now because I have an 88-year-old mom, I’m the only child. I have a 17-year-old kid, I’m a single parent, and I work full time I was not surfing, there was no time for surf. I finally decided I can’t do this. I need me time. So now I’m starting to surf again. I don’t have benefits anymore— I don’t care. I should care but my health is basically good so I don’t care and I’m going to get married in a year— I hate to— but you have to think that way I’m an American— I’m gonna get married in the year that I’ll have my husband’s insurance so I can hang on.

Maia: Yes, yes well and it’s interesting, insurance does not keep you healthy.

Mary: No, not at all.

Maia: But having a reasonable lifestyle— that can maybe keep you healthy [yeah]. So what other lessons has the ocean or surfing taught you?

Mary: That’s a good question. I don’t know it’s kind of what you were talking about— how people don’t judge you as much— if you could surf, you’re cool. So I’ve never had any kind of run-in with anyone based on characteristics that I can’t change. So nobody’s ever said, “You stupid woman” or “You stupid black person.” No, I can surf and people are, “Hey how are you?” That’s nice, that’s very nice.

Maia: Is that different from the rest of your life?

Mary: I think with surfing I can turn off my brain and that’s why I like it. That’s different from the rest of my life. One thing I tell people is, “What you don’t understand about being black, or being gay, or being you know Latino, or Muslim is you’re always reminded of it. So if you’re white you can just go through life and be white. But if you’re a different group something is always reminding you— the president said something or there’s something on the news or somebody goes to a Mosque and shoots up the place. All those things remind you you’re not like everybody else even though you are. But when I surf I can just sit there and I know I’m black and I can tell by some of the stares people are going “Oh, look a black woman.” But I can just sit there and shut down for a bit. That’s nice.

Maia: It’s a wonderful state, isn’t it? [Yeah] There’s a neuroscientist named Arne Dietrich who studies the neuroscience of flow? He’s looking into that and he said something really interesting in a podcast interview that I heard him give which is that states of flow and a lot of the states that we call “higher consciousness” are actually reduced consciousness. They’re states in which we can turn off the part of our brain that is always analyzing and always anticipating.

Mary: That makes sense. [Yeah] That makes perfect sense. Because when I first started surfing I would overthink everything— overthinking, overthinking brain going brain going. And as I got better it got more and more quiet. And now I just shut down pretty much and just surf. That doesn’t happen on land. I’m always thinking— overthinking always going.

Maia: It is a— I think at this point in my life and I have, of course, like everybody an evolving sense of what is working and what’s not working and the world that I move through but that tendency that you just described is one of the motivating missions of this podcast— that I think so few American grown-ups have that regular kind of a fully embodied immersive experience and it’s so important if you have access to it and it doesn’t have to be through surfing right but it looks to me like surfers have a pretty good handle literally they can grab a hold of and maybe more easily than some other sorts of athletes or practitioners but it really does feel so important especially now as computers and automation and robotics are taking over more and more of our physical existence to have some sense of connection and relationship and, and worth that comes through who we are as these human animals is just so important.

Mary: As just people! Not connected to your career or your things none of that matters I should be a Buddhist. I’m not but I should be a Buddhist.

Maia: There are aspects of what you say that, that strike me as very Buddhist to the extent I understand what that means.

Mary: I have little attachment to things like when my board got stolen I was mad because I like the board bag you know. I can get another surfboard, it’s gonna cost me something but I really like the board bag. But of course, most people would say the important thing was the surfboard but who cares. Whoever stole it , you better ride it well. I just feel like people are important things are important.

Maia: We were talking our way to San Onofre this morning and you were talking about your— let’s call it an ambivalent relationship with Southern California where it’s— I have to say I have has been here working but completely on my own schedule and able to control when I move around and still the traffic is untenable. So I can understand your impulse to want to move away from here when your life circumstances allow. And you said something on the way to San Onofre this morning which surprised me but, but shouldn’t given your non-attachment orientation which is that when you move away if it’s necessary to give up surfing you would. You would happily do that.

Mary: Oh yeah. I mean I’m trying to teach my son life is about balance and as much as I would love to serve forever I’m also 56. Which means I’m getting older and I’ve been athletic my whole life so my body is now I can start to feel it starting to fall apart. But I’m still in good shape! But I also have met the one. I mean he is the one. I want to go where he wants to go and neither one of us wants to be here. And I just want to be with him and I want to get old with him and die with him to be truthful. So if that means we don’t live near the ocean I give up surfing that’s fine. I’ve surfed! I’ve had a good time but my life is going to move in a different direction especially physically. I’ve have had a knee replacement I have an ankle with three screws and a plate. I’m getting older so I don’t even think I’m going to surf forever. So I’m ready to move on if I have to.

Maia: And I find it fascinating that your surfer journey began as your motherhood journey began and your son is now 17. So, you’ve done a really good job and he’s probably going to move on in the next few years and that these journeys might be paired and

Mary: I didn’t even see that I didn’t think of that until you mentioned it.

Maia: Yeah, maybe letting go of both at the same time even if you keep surfing and keep mothering— they’ll be different than they were.

Mary: Right. Oh yeah! I mean, you love your kids but once they hit this age you’re thinking, “OK you can go do your thing now.” Because you want your freedom and I’ve been a single parent for the last, I don’t know four years, five years, and that’s rough!

Maia: It seems nearly impossible from my perspective.

Mary: Well, he’s a great kid so it hasn’t been that tough but I think he wants his freedom. I want my freedom. We love each other to death but it’s it’s time.

Maia: So if there’s a segment of my audience, which I think there is, that feels like they would love to have some sort of disciplined play practice— cause surfing takes some discipline— but they haven’t, for whatever reason, they’ve they’ve allowed life or life has gotten in the way. What would you say to them?

Mary: It’s time to put yourself first. People don’t do that. They think they are supposed to go get that career, go get that money, go, that’s not putting you first. That’s putting what society tells you is supposed to come first. What do you want to do? Maybe you want to open a woodshop and just work on wood? Why don’t you do that? I mean I think part of it is Americans are fearful, we’re fearful. And there’s something in me, I don’t know what it is that doesn’t have a lot of fear so I’ll jump without a safety net. I’ll quit a job I don’t care. Now mind you I’m never going be homeless because my family has property but I can be moneyless! But I do… we’re not going be here for that long so you have to think about what it is you want out of your life. I don’t have a bucket list. If there’s something I want to do I do it and if I can’t do it then it’s not on the list.

Maia: That’s part of that letting go of control isn’t it? [yeah] So interesting! Yeah, it is fascinating sometimes to watch especially multi-generation families where it looks like everyone is sacrificing for everyone else— the kids are suffering trying to please the parents and the parents are suffering trying to take care of the kids and somehow we’re were missing the whole point of being alive and appreciative and grateful…

Mary: And you know let’s face it that comes with some privilege. Now if you’re an immigrant who was come here to make a better life for your kid or kids and you have to work, work, work and your wife or your spouse or whoever has to work, work, work, then you really don’t have the freedom like I think you do. But maybe you can take a little bit of time for you, you know… I get it. There is privilege. Even though I’m black I know I have privilege. I have middle-class privilege and I don’t deny that. So I can take these leaps of faith and know I’m not going splat on the ground. I’ll survive [absolutely] And I think other people need to know that too— you’re, you’ll survive. [Yeah] You will Believe it.

Maia: Yes. It’s Yeah It’s a really good point. Depending on who you are and what your circumstances there’s sometimes fear is not baseless but.. And many times it is.

That there, there is. And I don’t know if it’s cultivated in us or if we do it to ourselves but we do really have this “It’s Never Enough” orientation I think as a culture…

Mary: I guess, and for me it’s— I always feel like “That’s too much. I don’t want all that. I don’t want all those things. Which is why I want to get in the Class B with my man and drive off. We have this little box with four wheels and we have each other.

Maia: What else do you need?

Mary: Done. Good enough.

Maia: So beautiful! My gosh I hope that happens for you!

Mary: I think it will.

Maia: As I myself have moved out of working for someone else and began working for myself over the last couple of years I definitely have had a little bit of identity panic

Mary: Of course, you’re an American.

Maia: Which has been really interesting to see that in myself. I don’t think of myself— I’ve always been a little underemployed relative to my peers, if not a lot underemployed but it really has been fascinating to watch this and, and to see what I do when I’m not pushed with my time and I definitely rest more. I definitely take better care of myself. I eat better. I cook more but I also have this amazing capacity— and talk about privilege it’s such a gift— to follow an idea down and follow it right down to the ground if that takes a week or a year. And beautiful things are coming from that like finding you and your blog [thank you!]. You know I never would have had this incredible experience of of these days that we spent together and learning from you and, and seeing the way you interact with this environment and navigate all this nasty traffic and, you know, and talk to you about your delightful son whose, you know, whose growing up in a lot of ways is chronicled in that blog. [He is!] He’s not the center of it but he is right there in the center of it, if that makes sense.

Mary: He is— he was a little kid, now he’s grown. 6’1” 120 pounds, string bean, [laugh] hair on his face. He’s a great kid. I’m very proud of him.

Maia: He also writes, is that correct?

Mary: He does. He wants to be a writer and I spend all my money at Barnes & Noble. Either I spend all my money on food, even though he ways 120 pounds or taking him to Barnes & Noble to buy more books and how do you say no? “I want to go to Barnes & Noble and buy some books.” Okay. Alright.

Maia: Stomach food or brain food for that growing man.

Mary: Exactly

Maia: So what else have you learned in your life as a surfer or as your life as a surfer has interwoven with your life as a mother or a daughter? What have you learned from surfing that you could share with the audience?

Mary: What haven’t I learned from surfing? That’s really what I’m thinking! What have I learned? I don’t know, my life changed quite a bit because of surfing, because of the blog. I tend to be, as I’ve told you, a lone wolf. I tend to be a homebody but surfing took me out of my shell and got me some attention that I hadn’t expected. So I don’t know— surfing has changed me. It’s made me a little more open to being out in public, I guess. Yeah.

Maia: Well it’s interesting to some extent you are a little bit of a public figure in the Southern California surfing scene…

Mary: I think, was… I don’t know if I still am but I used to be. Yeah, but now we have a generational shift so young people don’t know who I am They just know oh, there’s that black woman who surfs. Older people know me from the blog or just know me because there weren’t that many other black women surfing. There was me, there was Andrea… That’s about it. But now it’s changing.

Maia: It’s changing for the better?

Mary: For the better. I’m seeing a lot more black people on social media who surf, and people in the water, now I can go to a beach and go “Oh, there’s a person, there’s a person.”

Maia: Do you feel, I may be projecting here but [Okay] do you feel like you might in some way have played a part in that cultural shift?

Mary: No, I don’t.

Maia: It feels to me like you were a leader.

Mary: I don’t think I was, no because there was always a Black Surfing Association and that predated me o, no, I don’t think I had anything to do with it. I think I was the one who was vocal and just said, “Hey! We’re out here.” But I don’t think I caused anything.

Maia: I was walking, uh, I have a dear friend who was down visiting me at my house at the coast in North Carolina and we were walking across the Boardwalk to access the beach and I didn’t notice It but there was apparently this little girl, six or seven years old and my friend said, “She saw that surfboard and she watched you walk 100 yards towards her and then stopped and turned around and watched you walk away.” [Wow] Well, I wonder, you know, if that interaction right there with this older woman carrying a surfboard changed that girl’s life [I bet it did]. Like suddenly she sees a possibility and so I bet that happens all the time with you and you don’t pay any attention to it cause, you, you’re looking at the ocean!

Mary: Right! I know it’s happened a few times where I’ve seen black people just stop and look, “You surf?”
“Yeah, I surf.” Shock. Shock and awe. And maybe (or women?] It inspired some people, women, yeah, but then again here I go if they have straightened hair, they’re not going to go get in the ocean [Right]. So we need to get black women to let go of the hair. I’ve said to people if black women stop worrying about their hair you’re going to see some surfing! You will see black women in the water.

Maia: That’s so interesting.

Mary: It’s all about the hair. Yeah.

Maia: Okay. Well, I think your hair is fabulous!

Mary: Thank you, so do I!

Maia: They are wonderful and we’ll be sure to post a picture of you and your fabulous dreadlocks on the blog. Is there anything else that you would like to say to an audience, I would imagine primarily of non-surfers that you’ve learned in this long delicious chapter of surfing?   Mary: I would say stop taking work so seriously. What are you working for? I mean, I know what you’re working for. To get the house and the cars but what are you doing to feed your soul? It’s not your job. So you need to figure out what it is.
The End. Thank you very much.

Maia: Thank you very much! I really appreciate your time and especially appreciate the shared waves— so much fun!

That was fun. You should have caught that last wave with me though!!

Maia: If you enjoyed this interview, please consider sharing it with a friend and taking just a minute to give us a rating.

Like many people, I’m in a period of intense learning and recalibrating my priorities around new ways of seeing. To some white people I know, this is a little overwhelming. To me Ii’s a relief. It feels like we are finally willing to think together about dissolving the artificial barriers of race that have been reinforced for far too long, especially near the water. Racism and white supremacy, in our hearts and institutions, brutalizes our love and our capacity for connection, even when there are no batons or guns anywhere in sight. Even when we are at play, on a beach, waiting for the next beautiful wave.

To find links to ways to make a contribution of your energy or money to the crucial efforts to address racial disparities in comfort and safety near and on the water, visit wavestowisdom.com/SurfSista.

by Waves to Wisdom

Interview: Dr. Nathalie Arias

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Player at the bottom of the page.

Learn more about coaching with Maia

"If you have the chance to get closer to the ocean that’s gonna be life changing. Maybe you’re not living the life you wanted or always expected to be, I think the ocean might help you a little bit to decide here’s my priorities now and this is what I want to do."
~ Dr. Nathalie Arias

Show Notes and Further Reading

2014 Article Describing Economic Inequality in the Trans-national Surf Communities of Nosara and Samara Costa Rica, from the Center For Responsible Travel

2019 Article from The Lancet Reporting on a SYstematic Review of the Lack of Nutritional Training in Medical Schools

Conocer: A Responsible, Socially Engaged Tour Operator in Nosara, Costa RIca

Green wave breaking, view of light under the water and sun behind the wave's crest.

Costa RIcan woman surfs an open green wave.

Interview Transcript

INTRODUCTION

My name is Maia Dery.

The Waves to Wisdom interviews are the result of an exploration into a world I discovered when I learned to surf at mid-life.

Some of these conversations aren’t necessarily with people who we would instantly recognize as leaders but they are all leading us in a direction I instinctively followed and have benefitted tremendously in the process. Some of them don’t have huge audiences, but they are living very large lives.

To me, these people all seem to have wisdom practices centered in their relationship to the more-than-human world, to what we usually think of as “nature.”

Surfing proved first revelatory, then revolutionary in my life. I thought I was creative, thought I knew and loved water, thought I took care of my body. But when I entered the world of surfing and waves, when I started to ritualistically return to a literal edge, I realized my vision for my life had been hampered by some artificial barriers.

Slowly, with each wave and wipeout, those barriers in my brain, heart, and body began to dissolve.

I began to wonder, what if we all had a nature based practice that cracked us open? Made us more creative? Allowed us to reliably let go with the abandon of play? Of unbridled joy? What if we all practiced vulnerability, risk and failure on a daily basis and they were fun? Wouldn’t it make our lives better? Wouldn’t it lead us to the places it feels like, in this moment of planetary peril, we need to go?

Whether you find full bodied and big hearted connection through waves or walking or digging in the dirt, I hope you find these conversations useful in your own journey of re-inhabiting your life with renewed joy, deep engagement, and increasing wisdom.

Dr. Nathalie: Dr. Nathalie: If you have the chance to get closer to the ocean that’s gonna be life changing. Maybe you’re not living the life you wanted or always expected to be, I think the ocean might help you a little bit to decide here’s my priorities now and this is what I want to do.

Maia: A couple of years ago, I left my full time job as a college instructor, one of the ways I dealt with the existential terror inherent in taking the leap into entrepreneurship and, even more frightening, radical freedom. I knew that, no matter what happened, I would be able to spend more time in the small rural community of Nosara Costa Rica, a place I’d fallen in love with because of its beauty and waves and light but even more, the open heartedness and zest for life of the of the locals and expats who live there.

Dr. Nathalie Arias is a physician, talented longboard surfer, and soon to be nutritionist who lives and practices in Nosara. In the process of facing her own health challenges, her professional journey took a turn when she became inspired to tend to and learn about her eating habits so she could continue to pursue her relationship with the ocean. Her story of a play practice leading to greater and more effective service is precisely the sort of narrative I keep running into as I deepen my own commitment to this pastime and all the embodied wisdom it has to offer to those of us willing to pay attention. I hope you enjoy Dr. Nathalie’s insight as much as I did. Welcome to Waves to Wisdom!

Dr. Nathalie: My name is Nathalie Arias. I’m 31 and I’ve been surfing for 5 years.

Maia: Five years okay excellent and we met in the water right off of Playa Guiones in Costa Rica and you are Costa Rican?

Dr. Nathalie: Yes

Maia: You were born where?

Dr. Nathalie: In San Jose?

Maia: Okay which is the capital city? [Yes] But you have family roots in Nosara?

Dr. Nathalie: My mom is from Nosara.

Maia: Okay

Dr. Nathalie: My whole… mom’s side is from Nosara.

Maia: And how did you wind up back here?

Dr.N: I mean I was always coming when I was little. Back and forth, back and forth for vacation and then I moved in 2014 after getting married.

Maia: So you married somebody who lives here? [Yes] And how is, how is Nosara different from San Jose?

Dr. Nathalie: Oh, everything.

Maia: Everything is different?

Dr. Nathalie: Yeah, I mean San Jose is like a small city, not so pretty, a lot of noise everywhere, uh, traffic, like every other city I guess…and you come to Nosara and it
Is just like a small paradise. Here on the peninsula, at least for me, I grew up there and now here every time I go back there it’s like, “Oh! Take me back to Nosara!” Yeah, it’s just like a different style of life and I’m just so used to be here now and we normally go there, and just like one or two days and then, back to Nosara!

Maia: If you were going to describe to somebody what it’s like to be here relative to in a city, what would you say?

Dr. Nathalie: It is… peaceful. Like, you are gonna see nature around you, birds, monkeys, yeah, it’s just like quiet.

Maia: So quiet. It’s just beautiful, isn’t it? [yes] Middle of the jungle really— it’s very rural here even though there are a lot of people coming through..

Dr. Nathalie: We have a lot of tourists here but we manage to have some quiet places.

Maia: So, did you learn how to surf when you moved back to Nosara?

Dr. Nathalie: My first wave ever was in 2012. [2012] But I didn’t have the chance to surf much or practice. My first green wave, it was amazing!

Maia: Your first green wave was amazing?

Dr. Nathalie: I have pictures of the whole sequence.

Maia: You do?!

Dr. Nathalie: It was a friend who was taking pictures and he took the whole sequence and I’m just like laughing really hard and I couldn’t believe it, I’m like looking behind me, “Whaaat?!?”

Maia: Oh, my goodness!

Dr. Nathalie: So that was like my first time ever, obviously but then after that I came back in 2014. I was not getting any better. I mean, I was really not strong enough because I was going once a week. My arms were like tired all the time. My sessions were like maybe three or four waves and that was like a lot already.

Maia: You were exhausted?

Dr. Nathalie: I was so exhausted and I mean it took me 2014-2015, maybe until 2016? I went like more regular like maybe 3-4 times a week.

Maia: Okay

Dr. Nathalie: So I feel like I started surfing like three years ago.

Maia: Wow! Okay, interesting.

Dr. Nathalie: I noticed what surfing was. It was like so hard for me just once a week and then now you go like, 3-4 times a week and, Oh! I can catch waves now! More than three or four every session. So that was pretty fun, actually.

Maia: But did you love it when you were only catching three or four waves a session? Was it still…

Dr. Nathalie: I did, yeah, no, it was good enough.

Maia: And how come you could only surf once a week when you first came here?

Dr. Nathalie: I was working from Monday through Saturday, like really early so I didn’t have the chance to. So Sundays was my only day.

Maia: And what’s your work?

Dr. Nathalie: I’m a medical doctor here in town. Yeah. Back then I was working in Nosara Town.

Maia: And Nosara Town’s about 6 km inland from [Guiones] the coast where we are now. And you were working, as I understand it, at the clinic?

Dr. Nathalie: Yeah, there was a new clinic there right after when I came and I was like, okay.

Maia: Okay, so that was the first couple of years. And then what happened that allowed you to surf more than just Sundays?

Dr. Nathalie: I moved out of that clinic and opened my own business, another medical office, like closer to the beach and I had my own schedule so I was able to go in the mornings— one, maybe two hours, 3-4 times a week now cause I was my own boss. So that allowed me to surf a little bit more.

Maia: And were you, I know you were learning to surf then, and I just want to say because, hopefully I’ll get to take some pictures of you before I leave to post with this interview, surfing, but you are an exceptionally talented and elegant long boarder [Thank you!] and when I was surfing for four years I think I was just figuring out how to turn the board. Uh, really you have a lot of natural ability and it’s just a pleasure watching you! [Thank you!] So, you were able to surf then three or four times a week, you’re still a medical doctor, you’ve opened your own clinic. What were you learning from surfing at that time in your life?

Dr. Nathalie: I think that I really wanted to surf and for that, I mean for me for me to be able to surf, I was learning also like how to eat healthy because I was not strong enough. My ams were like weak all the time, my back was hurting so I was learning like to stretch out more, to eat more healthy foods, sleep better and because I wanted to be more in the water. And it doesn’t matter, I was working the same, I don’t know, even more, like 10-12 hours a day but if I had like a two or maybe like an hour and 1/2 surfing in the morning, that was fine with me. I didn’t care like if I was working that much but I was being able to surf more during the week.

So I was learning like now I need to be able to work like 10- 12 hours and for this now I need to eat better, sleep better. I was not doing too good on my food because I was so used to the hospital like, like schedule— not eating sometimes, you know? Like during the whole day. So when I came here I was doing pretty much the same but then I was noticing that I was not able to surf good, or paddle, or even, like the waves were a little bit bigger I was like so done. And that that— I was not even in the lineup, it was taking me like 20-30 minutes, I was like, “Oh, there is something wrong with me!” I was just tired, I was not feeling my body, like the right way.

Maia: And surfing was teaching you?

Dr. Nathalie: Surfing was teaching me that it was really important to take care of your body in every aspect. I don’t know, like everything, I think was related to surfing back then and to learn how to handle the stress also from work, the patients and…

Maia: Okay— I find it fascinating that you had been to medical school which, in theory, is all about taking care of the human body

Dr. Nathalie: Except yours!

Maia: Except yours. LAUGH

Dr. Nathalie: Yeah it doesn’t matter you have to do everything for the patient. Yeah, it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to sleep, you don’t have to eat because you have to work to help the other people, right? Like in an emergency room, you have like 50 people and it’s just insane sometimes and then it doesn’t matter about, you have to do your job, that’s it.

Maia: That’s it! Yeah, so you had to go to the school of surf to learn how to take care of Nathalie’s body?

Dr. Nathalie: Yes

Maia: Dr. Arias needed the waves, so interesting. That, that life of owning your own clinic and you owned the pharmacy next door, is that right?

Dr. Nathalie: Mm hm, pharmacy and medical office

Maia: Okay, and that’s no longer the case you decided to make a change?

Dr. Nathalie: Yes.

Maia: How come?

Dr. Nathalie: I think I was I was working to much, well, not that much but um, I was very, being very careful with every client that comes to the pharmacy, I was treating them as a patient and that was a lot for me because they were not my patients. I wanted to be able to help them— okay, why is the headache? Have you being hydrating good? Sleeping good? Or maybe some type of food you ate? I was trying to find the root of the problem instead of just selling the pill. So I was treating every patient as a client, I mean every client as a patient, sorry, and that became a lot also. A lot of stress because I was worried about, you know like the one patient who came to buy just like Tylenol, “Oh, what if the headache is high blood pressure?” But then they didn’t have the money to pay for the consultation so I was like, you know, I think I was almost working, like double. So I decided to close the pharmacy and just get my practice

Maia: And so now you just have a medical practice.

Dr. Nathalie: Just have a medical practice.

Maia: And only house calls, right?

Dr. Nathalie:Yeah, only housecalls.

Maia: And is the lifestyle healthier now that you’ve made that change?

Dr. Nathalie: It is, for sure. Yeah I have more time for… to study, to work out, to surf. Now I just see the patient that really needs me you know, they call me, they make an appointment and I go to them so it allows me to have more free time to do more stuff. And you surf more? You do surf more?

Dr. Nathalie: I do surf more now.

Maia: Okay, so you learned to surf as an adult, as I did, you were certainly much younger than I was. Really, the motivation for this whole project and all of these interviews is the pattern that I think that I have recognized . Which is that for some surfers, it helps them, as it has you, as you’ve already articulated, it helps them be better humans. It helps them figure out how to take care of themselves both in an immediate sense, in the waves, and in a larger sense, because they want to be able, be healthy to get out into the waves [yeah]. Are there other lessons or aspects of being a wise that you think you’ve learned from the ocean and its waves?

Dr. Nathalie: Yes, big time. I think one of the biggest lessons I have learned is how to handle pressure because I can see it with my practice and I see it in the ocean when the sets are really big, the waves are like, not as nice as you want, or like when there are a lot of people and want to get a wave and there’s always somebody in front of you. I mean, that, that lesson from there, I use it a lot of, in my life, like pressure, how to handle pressure, like in every aspect like with my patient, like emergencies that just show up at my house because they know where I live. Um, I think that’s one lesson I’ve learned from the ocean.

And, being patient also. You have to be patient waiting for a nice wave. Maybe you don’t want that one and wait for the other one and somebody ’s gonna be in front of you again or behind you and then you have to wait again. So being patient also is one of the lessons I have learned from surfing and the same, I use it in my everyday life. With everything, pretty much.

Maia: Do you think there are ways in which surfing has helped you be a better medical doctor?

Dr. Nathalie: Yeah I think so like I use it with my patients. Sometimes you want the patient to do, to follow your recommendations and they don’t because the neighbor always has better advice and then you have to be patient. So I think patience is one of the biggest lessons and I think it makes me a better person or doctor because you have to be, you’ve got to understand what the person is going through, or telling you and why he decided not to follow the treatment or, yeah, I think it that helps a lot.

Maia: It’s pretty powerful if surfing can help a doctor be a better doctor.

Dr. Nathalie: It’s a little bit of everything, like being patient, you have challenges in front of you like the same way you are in the ocean, like you go expecting the waves are going to be nice and smooth and not so big and then, all of a sudden they’re like, oh, the swell is showing up and now you have these big waves and that’s a challenge already and then in the medical practice, we are so far away from everything that everything becomes like a challenge. Cause you don’t have the equipment or you don’t have like the tools sometimes and you have to figure it out and and if not send ‘em to a bigger facility. So that’s one big lesson for me also.

Maia: You have to be adaptable when you’re surfing, you have to know your limits and it sounds like you’ve had to do that in this rural practice.

Dr. Nathalie: Sometimes you try to help the patient and you realize okay, this is not my specialty but the patient doesn’t want to go to Nicoya because it’s too far and then you have to take a bus and it’s like two hours and a half but then you have to set the limits like you just said it, this is not my work and now I need you to go to a bigger facility and I have to learn also to let go of that part because sometimes I get like really attached and I really wish I could do more but then, no, I have to send the person or the patient somewhere else to get whatever the studies, you know, ultrasound, blood tests and all that that we don’t have here.

Maia: We don’t have any of that. So, we had a fascinating conversation the other day in the water about the difficulty of some of the local people to take time off of work to pay for care. Is that something that you ran into frequently when you were at the clinic— that people’s employers would not give them time off?

Dr. Nathalie: Yes, sometimes they’ve got good employers and they take the morning off and they go to the public clinic but it takes a while for you to be seen by the doctor. If not they to a private office so they choose where to go but sometimes it’s hard for them. If you don’t have the money you have to go through the public system and then you waste pretty much your whole day which is like a day of work and that’s one ways pretty much already hard for people because salaries here are not great and if you miss like a whole day it’s gonna, and the end of the week or two weeks for sure you’re gonna be short that money. And if you have a little bit of extra money you can go and pay private but still, once you get the medicine it’s really expensive. Also, cause medicine here is really expensive, so it’s a little bit of everything and if you don’t have the money and you don’t have the time and if your employer doesn’t give you the time either you’re just gonna hold the pain or whatever you’re having until it’s really, really bad, you might go and then it’s gonna be late.

Maia: Then it’s late, yes, maybe too late to do something. Yeah, it’s really, it’s a difficult thing, there’s so much inequality here, things are very expensive in part because there are a lot of people who can afford to pay high prices. But then the minimum wage is two or three dollars an hour and food here is exorbitant and I don’t know if medical care is exorbitant because, knock on wood, I haven’t had to…

Dr. Nathalie: It can be.

Maia: Yes…So were you a an ocean swimmer before you learned to surf?

Dr. Nathalie:No actually that’s embarrassing.

Maia: It’s embarrassing? What’s embarrassing?

Dr.N: Cause I was like 25-26 when I learned how to surf and I realized I didn’t know how to swim either. I was not a very good swimmer so when my leash broke that was like my first experience, it was like, “Oh! Now I have to swim but I don’t know how to swim.”

Maia: My goodness! So you’re the ocean [I’m in the ocean], your leash broke?

Dr. Nathalie: And I’m like freaking out, like about to cry and I’m looking for somebody that I know, for like help, you know I need help, cause I don’t know what to do. I know I can float but I don’t know for how long and I was getting tired and then my husband came and said, “Just stand up! You’re like right there on the sand.” [LAUGH] it was like, oh okay! So that was very embarrassing and after that I think I figured it out— I realized that I needed to know how to swim for me to be able to go and get bigger waves so I did some, not lessons, but with myself I out a snorkel and a mask and I would just swim in the swimming pool— one you put on a mask you can figure it out a little bit. [Interesting!] Yeah, and then I did a free diving course. And I think in that, it was like a 2-day course and those 2 days, once I did that, to learn the technique, how to breathe, and the safety techniques if you’re in the water and somebody’s blacking out or something like that I think after that I became, not a better swimmer but I was very confident surfing after that.

Maia: Interesting, so you didn’t know how to swim and then you learned how to swim a little bit and then you took a free diving course? [Yes] For anybody who doesn’t know explain to them what free diving is.

Dr. Nathalie: Free diving is, so they put you in a swimming pool and they teach you how to hold your breath, sort of like a static breath hold, and you have to be able to reach three minutes with that breath hold. And after that they take you to open water, like to the ocean, and you have to go down the line. The first level goes down the line 60 feet. So you have to be able to go back and forth with one breath, so I did it.

Maia: Let me just repeat this— you went from not being able to swim to holding your breath and going 60 feet down a line in the ocean? Okay, interesting— an ambitious woman!

Dr. Nathalie: Yeah and then after that, I’m good, I can surf now.

Maia: You’re not scared?

Dr. Nathalie: Bigger waves, I can hold the sets, and yeah…

Maia: No problem? It took care of that fear? [Yeah] So powerful, just to walk right into it and not not accept the not knowing. [Yes]Decide I’m gonna know!

Nathalie: Yes, I knew I really wanted to better in the water like because I was always surfing but if the wave was big I was not gonna take it because I didn’t know how the end was gonna be, like the wipe-out and all that stuff. And what if my leash breaks again and “Oh, no I have to figure it out now.” And after that, after the free diving course I was like, “Oh I can take bigger waves now and go down the line and whatever happens down there doesn’t matter.“

Maia: It’s gonna be just fine. [LAUGH].

Dr. Nathalie: Just be careful not to hit anybody and not hit yourself.

Maia: Stay away from that hard board. So interesting and this, at least in my mind, one of the things I’ve discovered about you that is related, at least in my mind is this capacity you have to realize you want to know something that you don’t know and just run right into it is that you have decided to continue your education. [Yes] Even though you’re already a medical doctor— what are you studying now?

Dr. Nathalie: Right now I’m doing a Master’s in nutrition and Public Health.

Maia: So, did you learn much about nutrition in medical school?

Dr. Nathalie: Not a single hour of nutrition. They don’t teach you anything about nutrition. They teach you, I mean they don’t teach you how to treat people with the diet, which is like pretty important. I realized from working here, if I had a patient and I was explaining him like the foods that she or he was able to eat, that I was not getting there. So, I… you know, I saw that as a challenge. I need to be able to explain this better or to teach them better or to help them. Also, you know because the same thing, we go through the same thing. If you have money to afford the medical consultation you won’t have money to go to a nutritionist or something like that, to help you with whatever plan for you to treat your diabetes or any other disease. So, I saw that happening a lot with my patients and I decided to do it for me also and to help my patients in that way a little bit more.

Maia: So exciting— and are you learning a lot that’s useful?

Dr. Nathalie: Yes, a lot.

Maia: It’s really interesting. I find it fascinating and disturbing that the professionals who are tasked with our health don’t learn about nutrition which seems foundational.

Dr. Nathalie: Now I’m doing it, I think it’s, yeah, the foundation of pretty much everything. You can avoid, you can treat, and you can reverse sometimes diseases with just the right diet and that’s all in nutrition. If you don’t have any of that knowledge it’s kinda hard, you’re just gonna prescribe medicines all the time and that’s it pretty much, you know? [Fascinating!] But the idea, my idea is to help people a little bit more in that area.

Maia: And, I am making this link in my mind but I don’t know if this is a link that has any integrity to it, but I heard you say earlier that I wasn’t taking care of myself nutritionally, surfing taught me that I needed to eat better and now you want to pass on to your patients. [Yes] Is it fair to to give surfing some of credit for the fact that you’re now to

Dr. Nathalie: Yes, all the credits actually

Maia: All the credit, you think?

Dr. Nathalie: Because once I realized I needed to be healthy and it was easy, actually. I was sick all the time and as you can see, I am like, not a very heavy person, but I was way skinnier before, I was always under weight. I’m like 5’8 and I was like 49-48 kilos, [way too light] my whole life. Way too much, because I was not sleeping good, I was not eating right… Maybe not eating right, but not eating what my body needed back then? And I was always with so much pain, I was sleeping 3 or 4 hours, you know like, the food, I realized after, I was very sensitive to a lot of food but I didn’t know until I decided to invest more time in nutrition and once I changed my whole diet and realized what foods are good for my body everything changed, you know? Like, I’m a happier person, I’m sleeping better, I put a lot of weight also, well, not a lot but now I’m like my normal, you know like, body index mass or whatever…

Maia: Yes, you look great you don’t look alarmingly thin. [LAUGH]

Dr. Nathalie: But I was like, it’s just everything, if you’re not eating right your whole body’s like not working right. Once I learned that, maybe from surfing, now I was this, now I wanted to teach it to, or pass it at least to my patients.

Maia: And the not sleeping, well was that, do you think related to nutrition, stress, all of it?

Dr. Nathalie: A little bit of everything. Nutrition, stress from work, then I was working too much and then I was too tired to surf and then I was not sleeping good, obviously, like 3-4 hours and then I was in a very bad mood the next day, “I’m not going to surf today, because I’m too tired.” So it was becoming like a cycle also and one day I decided like, I’m not going to eat meat this month

And I was feeling good but not 100% there yet.

I decided to stop eating chicken, the next month pork, and the next month dairy, and the next month eggs until I finally felt my body was… this is how I was supposed to feel! I never felt that way before. LAUGH Until I got to the point I knew what my body likes and needed. Yeah, and then I put a little bit more weight I was able to paddle more, surf more, I was catching more waves and was like, this is great!

Maia: So good!

Dr. N. : It was so amazing and then I never went back pretty much. It’s been like 3 years. Like, once I realized there’s like a group for pretty much every health problem and you, I mean you’re able to fix things. So I was thinking having this really bad insomnia, now I have to take pills and they were like strong pills but I still was not sleeping great. Once I changed my diet everything just disappeared. I was sleeping way better.

Maia; Is there anything else about surfing and the lifestyle that you’ve crafted for your self? It’s very ocean-centered, surfing as a priority in turn affects on your other priorities in ways that obviously deepen the ways that you’re able to serve this community. Is there anything that you would want people who don’t have this lifestyle, they don’t have the opportunity to just prioritized developing some kind of love of physical activity out in the natural world. What could you say to them? Is there anything you could tell them that you’ve learned from this king of lifestyle?

Dr. Nathalie: I think, it doesn’t matter the sport, you like or practice but I think that’s like the key, you know? Once you have a like a passion for everything, jujitsu, or surfing, or running, you’re gonna be focused on that and you want to be better in that and then you want to be healthy to keep doing that you want to eat right, you’re gonna stretch, I mean you want to do everything to make that sport right and you know it’s gonna make you feel. You know, whatever the sport you do, if you’re healthy, you’re happy, pretty much! That would be my advice.

Maia; Choose to be happy, choose to be healthy?

Dr. Nathalie: Yeah! You want to do all the right things for your body. To be able to realize whatever the activity you like that’s equal to happiness pretty much in my case. Once I surf in the morning I’m good for the rest of the day. That’s it!

Maia: I wonder you know I get to come here some portion of the year, and every day is so magical. The waves the spray, the rainbows of the spindrift, and the monkeys, iguanas, it’s just incredible. Are you still able to feel that this place is magical? [Um] Or does it just seem like, meh, another day in paradise.

Dr. Nathalie: No, no, yeah I mean we live in a small paradise, actually and I find myself very thankful to decide to move here. I was not very excited at the beginning but after it was like, yes, this is where I want to be and every day is the same there’s nothing besides surfing, you know, Pilates, yoga, there’s some activities but if you are not interested in any of those it can be like very boring for you but just walking on the beach can be very nice. It’s gonna help you to relax a little bit, doesn’t matter if you don’t surf, just like walking and seeing all the nature cross in front of you all the time the sunsets, the sunrises, everything’s do special. And every day’s so different, every sunset and sunrise and wave conditions every day is so different so that’s what makes this place so special.

Maia: OK, is there anything else you’d like to say about this life?

Dr. N. I think if you have the chance to get closer to the ocean that’s gonna be life changing. Maybe you’re not living the life you wanted or always expected to be, I think the ocean might help a little bit to decide here’s my priorities now and this is what I want to do. Which is what happened to me. I had some other plans before moving here and once I realized, Oh I think I like this better, I do my best to be in the ocean almost every day now. Maybe it’s not surfing, maybe it’s like fishing, spear fishing, maybe it’s just like swimming just like walking, whatever I think the ocean is like a very powerful force that is gonna help you to set down a little bit and help you decide what’s important in your life. I think that’s a good chance if you have it I think you can take a lot of advantage from it.

Maia: Wonderful!

I wish I had this opportunity to get closer to the ocean when I was little, I was like 25-26 but that’s still good.

Maia: It’s good.

Dr. Nathalie: I don’t regret it.

Maia: No well I didn’t learn until I was 40 and I do wish I had learned earlier but I’m so grateful that I did.

Dr. Nathalie:Yeah, me too. I wish sometimes the same and then I was 25-26, like Oh! tThat’s perfect! It doesn’t matter, I was just on time.

Maia: Right, well you’re such a beautiful, elegant surfer and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.

Dr. Nathalie: Oh, thank you for having me here.

Maia: Yeah, certainly, so fun! Thank you so much Dr. Nathalie.

Dr. Nathalie: You’re welcome, con mucho gusto!

Maia: To set up a free discovery call with Maia to talk about how she might benefit you, your group or organization, visit aavestowisdom.com.

by Waves to Wisdom

A boy plays on the sand during a spectacular, red sunset.

Interview: Kevin Carillo

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Player at the bottom of the page.

Learn more about coaching with Maia

"As a Tico Nosareño and surfer, I love this place. It’s so good. This place is magical. A lot of things that you can learn. The waves, surfing is so good. Just like taking off like just get up on the wave, it’s gonna feel like something magical inside of you, like butterflies on your belly, something like that, it’s gonna like, feels like, this is like heaven."

~Kevin Pipin Carillo

young Tico surf instructor looks at the camera

Show Notes

The ATV tour service, Pippin Rentals, Kevin and his family operate in Nosara.

The surf school where Kevin teaches, Safari Surf.

National Geographic Article on Blue Zones (where people routinely live longer than average)

Peer reviewed article about how research into Blue Zones led to this conclucion: “putting the responsibility of curating a healthy environment on an individual does not work, but through policy and environmental changes the Blue Zones Project Communities have been able to increase life expectancy, reduce obesity and make the healthy choice the easy choice for millions of Americans.”

Who to contact to book tortilla lesson when you’re visiting Nosara (Conocer)

Wikipedia Entry on Catalan

Interview Transcript

Intro Part 1

My name is Maia Dery.

The Waves to Wisdom interviews are the result of an exploration into a world I discovered when I learned to surf at mid-life.

To me, these people all seem to have wisdom practices centered on their relationship to the more-than-human world, to what we usually think of as “nature.”

Slowly, with each wave and wipeout, those barriers in my brain, heart, and body began to dissolve.

Intro Part 2

Maia: Kevin Carillo is a young surf instructor from Nosara, Costa Rica, a small jungle community dominated by American and European expatriate surfers and yogis. Over the last five years This place and the people who grew up there have,, become a strong current in my own heart, pulling me back over and over. Each time I return I learn more about the Pura Vida culture of the locals and, in turn my own culture’s predispositions leading us to define ourselves by accomplishment over relationship or work over love. The interview is with Kevin, a human but we recorded this conversation near the end of Nosara’s dry season, just a couple of days after the first rain. Along with that rain comes a gathering wave of new life, including, as you’ll hear loud and clear, crickets. It seemed fitting that, in a place where the waves, trees, hills, and wildlife are abundant, the jungle would make it’s voice heard.

Kevin’s ability to describe, in his second language, no less, the ways that the lessons he’s learned from the waves have helped him overcome stress and temptation, sort out his priorities, and grow up to be a strong, happy teacher, partner, and expectant father reminded me that wisdom is not always a result of age. Sometimes a disciplined play practice in the more than human world, something like surfing, can help us figure our lives out in what seems to me to be very brief time. Welcome to Waves to Wisdom.

Kevin: Hello Maia

Maia: Hello Kevin, will you, let’s start by telling everybody your name, your age and how long you been surfing.

Kevin: My name is Kevin Carillo. I am from Nosara, a local surfer here and I am 24 years old and I’ve been surfing for 10 years.

Maia: and did you learn from someone in your family or friends? (0:46)

Kevin: I had a friend, a classmate and he surfed, said, “Hey, you should surf!” He’s from Garza. His name is Steven. And I start surfing but just by myself. I tried by myself.

Maia: And and was it reasonably easy to learn by yourself?

Kevin: It was hard. I just remembered I just wipeout a lot on the sand.

Maia:[Laugh] But you must’ve liked it enough to continue despite the frustration.

Kevin: I know because that was the thing that you as I kid like something that you want to learn, it’s like okay I need to get this I need to get it. I need to try, doesn’t matter how hard it is, I need to get it.

Maia: And clearly you got it.

Kevin: And I got it

Maia: You got it— okay how long did it take you?

Kevin: I remember like took me like two weeks just to get up on that big board.

Maia: I’m pretty sure it took me about two years so— not too bad but I was 40 not 14 when I started. Excellent and then how long did it take you to fall in love with it?

Kevin: Since the first day.

Maia The first day even though it was frustrating [yes} you loved it right away?

Kevin: Yes, since the first day. [OK] Because I kept on going [yes] kept on going.

Maia: and and you already had a relationship with the ocean? You knew how to swim?

Kevin: I know how to swim. [okay] Yeah I knew how to swim cause here in Nosara we learn how to swim since we are like four years old. Like, little little little kids. Cause we are being on the rivers, jumping from the bridge, getting on, we call that “possas”– when the river has a little deep water, maybe a tree next to the river and we just go on the tree and jump.

Maia: And the kids love it? [yes] okay fantastic okay so you work for school, a surf school. And who do you mostly teach lessons to here in Nosara?

Kevin: Mostly beginners. A lot of beginners— just first day, trying in the whitewater and it’s like, it’s really good. I love it.

Maia: What do you love about it?

Kevin: I love the smile on their face yeah. Cause when they got that wave, when they get up, cause first they tell you, like, “I’m not good at this. I never tried this, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to not do this, since it’s the first day. “ So they have a perspective like maybe I get it but really long. You know? And when they get it since the first wave, cause sometimes they get up on the first wave, its’ like, “I got up!”

Maia: And what what sort of people, like what ages and where they from mostly?

Kevin: Mostly from the United States, there’s a lot of people from United States. There’s like an age that mostly come here to surf that is like 30 to 50. There is like a lot of people that age that want to surf.

Maia: I’ve noticed that too and I have noticed that this is a place where a lot of single women travelers seem to come to learn to surf and even older women [yes] lots of women older than I am if you can imagine that.

Kevin: Yes, it’s so good. I love that.

Maia: It’s really good, isn’t it? What do you love about it?

Kevin : That you can see that there’s no time, there’s no age but you can practice a sport, even though it’s hard, you could see like 10 feet waves and you still see old lady surfing. Or it’s small and she’s enjoying the wave you can see it doesn’t matter the age.

Maia: It doesn’t matter does it? And this beach that you teach on is a particularly good beach to learn, isn’t it?

Kevin: Yes, it’s because it’s a beach break [yes] no rocks and the wave is like small, soft, really good to learn.

Maia: So fun! The long rides here are just so fun. Do you think the fact that you were surfing as as a young boy, as a young man, did that change the way your life went in high school and afterwards?

Kevin: Of course, yes.

Maia: And it obviously, since you’re now a professional in the surf industry, it changed in that way. Did it change it any other ways, maybe earlier or affect how you made decisions or what decisions you made?

Kevin: I remember in college, like, high school I was in the last grade, just graduating to go to the University and here in Costa Rica you gotta do a final test, like five tests, like math, biology, science, English and it’s like a hard test because you don’t know what you see on the test it’s just like go and do the tests and I already surfed on the time and I remember I was so stressed out, like studying a lot. And I was like, no, I need to relax, I need to go surf, I need to be the water, take my time, see some waves, see like how it’s going to make me calm down and it helped me to win the test and I got the test and I got graduated.

Maia: It was fine. So you felt stress which you were pretty sure was gonna impede your performance, you weren’t going to do as well as you could have if you weren’t stressed. You knew by that point— you’d been surfing for four years then? Three or four years [yes, yes] and and you knew that if you went surfing that you would be able to handle that test without stress. [yeah] and so you already had that coping mechanism?

Kevin: Yes

Maia: That that sounds like wisdom right there. Good what. what other ways as a young person did surfing affect your life?

Kevin: Um Well taking decisions to be more responsible. So if you go to surf and if you don’t take the right wave you gonna wipe out, you gonna fall off.

Maia: So you learned when you were surfing that you didn’t go for every wave? [no] You had to pick the right wave for you [yes] and that translated to your life on shore. You metaphorically saw that there’s a path in life that, if you take it [yes] you’re gonna wipe out.

Kevin: Yes, you’re gonna wipe out.

Maia: No bueno. [laugh]

Kevin: No bueno. And yeah as a kid as a kid it is hard because those are things that, for a kid is really hard to take you know and like the surfing industry is like many things that you’re gonna see like drugs or alcohol, those things. So you gotta take it easy. Do the right things, go study, be responsible even though you surf still like you have other the things to do.

So, bad things you gonna see, not good friends not good friends. Friends that are going to tell you to do something, supposed to be friends right? And they going to say okay this is the surfing life. The surfing life is like, go surf, get out of the water, get changed and then go party, drink, do drugs, and maybe get a girl and then go back and wake up the next day just feeling empty and do it again. But that’s not not surfing.

Maia: That’s not surfing?

Kevin: That’s not surfing.

Maia: No. It really is for, for people who have not been here to Nosara the surf instructors are sort of alphas.Do you know that phrase? [yes] they’re in some ways they’re the people on the beach with the most status—the surf instructors. You’re all very good surfers most of you are young [yes] most of you are strong and handsome or beautiful and and there are endless waves of incoming tourists many of whom are beautiful and young and in search of a good time for the week or two that they are here.

I can imagine how for a teenage boy, or a very young man, that situation would be full of temptations—all of these people coming in with money and a desire to party. [yes] and and somehow you’ve managed to navigate all of that [yes] without, as you say, going a bad way. And you think that surfing helped you with that?

Kevin: Surfing helps, yes. It’s like if you feel like those things are going together, those bad things like what you say, like girls coming here to get party, alcohol, drugs, friends. But surfing helps like okay, relax calm down. This is not what you need to do. You need to clear your mind. Surfing like helps like clear your a lot.

Maia: So not just if you have a stressful situation like a specific test. But it sounds like if you have a larger stressful situation like figuring out how to live a life in a situation where that the bad path is easily accessible. Surfing it sounds like helped you navigate that.

Kevin: Yeah cause like you have goals right here. Surfing is like you set up goals first you’re like okay “I’m gonna get up on the board, I’m gonna turn to the side, I’m gonna cutback, I’m gonna paddle to the outside.” You’re thinking about your goals. You go little by little, doing something. It is like life, okay you need to do this thing first, it’s not like like, I’m gonna get a board, paddle out, it is not how you do it, you go little by little, take your time, set up like the right things that you need to first, and and start getting to do with those goals right? And then you’re gonna be surfing really good or you’re gonna be having a good life.

Maia: And speaking of good life, will you tell everybody your very exciting news?

Kevin: Well I’m,I’m having a baby. I’m so excited for that! Having a little boy. His name is Andreu. And I hope and I hope he gets like a good surfer. I hope he surfs. Yeah and I’m so happy to surf with him. And teach him how to surf and teach him how to live the life really good. Enjoy the life.

Maia: And when you said enjoy the life what is what is a good life to you? What is, what do you notice is a good life?

Kevin: Wake up smiling. Smiling because you are, you have a good partner on your side, a good person, with good karma, good soul and pull you up, right? With happiness. That’s a good life and go to the water, go surf at least like one hour, go surf, clear your mind, feel the sun on your face burning, especially this month, March. And enjoy the water and then like maybe go to a job, meet people, have friends, that’s a good life.

Maia That’s a good life.

Kevin: Learn some culture and eat a lot.

Maia: Eat a lot! That’s a good life!

Kevin: Yes.

Maia: There’s a concept or an expression or a way of being here that you all call Pura Vida. Could you tell anybody is listening what is Pura Vida from your perspective?

Kevin: Pura Vida is like living life in a good way. You need to live the life healthy, happy, be friendly with others, that’s Pure Vida, even though you don’t know that person, giving a smile because you don’t know what he is living. That’s Pure Vida. Like be interested in his happiness. Like like, hey hello how are you? Have a good day. That make you be a Pure Vida person and that’s the Pure Vida life here. Like we live healthy, we live happy, we love our place, we love our culture, and we take care of these little piece of land. And love the people that are here. And we help help a lot, like if if you go on the road and someone is stuck with the car that is not working broken, you stop and help him.

Maia: That’s Pure Vida.

Kevin: That’s Pure Vida.

Maia: Just so that people understand it you see a lot of people coming here from other places that don’t live in a Pure Vida way [yes] they don’t. What does that look like? What is Pura Vida the opposite of?

Kevin: People who are too stressed out, people who wants to hurt other people, they just come here, destroy this piece of land and destroy the happiness that other people are living. He’s like too stressed out, needs to relax calm down breathe.

Maia: Yeah. So you were young man and you it sounds like you you had a moment where you were probably tempted to do these bad things, to live this party lifestyle. In that moment how do you think you were able to make a good decision for yourself?

Kevin: Cause I start when I was young, in high school, so there are like friends and there are like a lot of temptation like, let’s go out, party. And I did, I went to parties and I get crazy and it was not good, I was not feeling good. I was feeling empty every single day. And like you start thinking that’s the way you need to live because everybody does that. And you think that you are doing the right things, that you’re living a good way because you have money and you are paying for going out, and you’re paying for everything that you need, but it’s not, it’s not healthy but then I realize that I need to live in a different way.

Maybe from my family? I see my family like living really good, I have a good family, especially my brother. So it’s like, graduated, work, get your house because you need a house to live and then you can get the rest. Because my mom said, this is what my mom told me all the time since I was young, like, “Get a job— study, get a job, get a house and then you can do whatever you want.”

Maia: it’s very interesting to hear that that your mother and surfing reinforced each other. Your mother said, “Take these steps in this order.” and you learn from surfing you don’t just go right out in the big waves, you have to take these steps in this order and then you don’t get hurt and that’s, that’s pretty wonderful.

So you went to college and what did you study?

Kevin: I studied to be so first I went to public university [okay] and I studied just to know English, just just to know. For two years was like from Monday to Friday. And it was like from 8 in the morning to 9 p.m. A long time just studying. Not too much for surfing, just on the weekends. So I need to get up really early on Friday or Saturday come to the beach, surf, and then late Sunday go back to study again. And then I finished that. I got a job to be a surf instructor. And the company that I’m working right now they help me a lot to get money and then pay for another career. And I studied to be a English teacher for elementary school and it’s so good.

Maia: It’s so good. So you got your degree in elementary English education? [Yes] And why is it so good? Tell me what’s so good about that?

Kevin: Because you are because your education keep your teaching kids you are teaching things that you know so you better do it good and feel good for it because that’s gonna be the future of this world.

Maia: Okay so so your little boy, Andreu, he will speak English and Spanish?

Kevin: He will speak English, Spanish, Catalan, from Barcelona, and Italian.

Maia: And Italian— so he will he will have four languages? [I know] My goodness.

Kevin: He’s gonna be a good guy, he’s gonna be a int… guy, he’s going to be really interesting.

Maia: He’s gonna be really interesting.

Kevin: Yeah all the ladies gonna be looking at him.

Maia: Yes he is going to be very attractive to whoever he wants to attract I am sure, yes so good! Okay, good so you have because you are a professional surf instructor, [yes] and by choice you could be a teacher, obviously, you are qualified to be a teacher of English but you are the teacher of surfing instead. You’ve watched a lot of people go from not being able to surf at all to be able to surf a little bit or maybe even a lot. Because one of the things I’ve noticed about your clientele your customers is that they come back. They’re so happy after coming here for one week and working with one of you, you are all such wonderful, warmhearted pure vida instructors. People, you know, by the last day sometimes they’re in tears. They don’t want to go home. [No] They’re in love with you and this place and the waves. They come back and they get better! [Yes] Even if they don’t live near waves themselves.

What have you noticed that learning to surf either through your own life or watching so many people of all ages learn to do it— what have you noticed that that does for people?

Kevin: So when they come here, some of them, well like mainly, maybe all of them? They come here, a new place, they don’t know anything about here. They just know okay, I need a place to learn how to surf and a place that help mostly for kids, right? And they come here for some surfing and they get this life here, the way that we treat them, cause we like to treat them really good. We try to give them the pura vida that we have. So they come here and it’s not only like surfing.

Maia: Okay, so in what ways do you think that these people coming to surf, how can you see it change them as they get into the water, begin this process of working with the ocean, making mistakes?

Kevin: Yeah they they come here and they get related to the ocean and they start feeling like okay it’s a good sport to try, it’s not hard, it’s easy it’s really easy, surfing, is easy if you set your goals, “Okay I’m gonna do this.” and then just do the right things, like getting up, back foot, front foot and surf the wave and they start learning little by little new things. They get interested in the surfing life. And they want to learn more. The same like me. Like, you start learning new things every single day and then not only surfing, maybe like, living here in Nosara, like living with us, with instructors, We treat them, we are like a family here. We host them like brothers, like this is my younger brother or my old brother, my sister, or sometimes like there come old ladies and we call them “Okay, Mama!” Cause you are like my mom. We are gonna treat you like you are my mom and we are happy to have you and be like a family and surf and eat and laugh.

Maia: I can attest to that because, in a lot of places that are dominated by surf culture what that winds up looking like is that those places and that culture are dominated by young men who are good at surfing, that sometimes happens, and there sometimes isn’t a place for people like me, you know a middle-aged women and that is not the case here is it is so beautiful it is like I’m your mother or your aunt or somebody su tía, su mamá, somebody important to you all. And really the pure vida is palpable, it’s a wonderful welcoming vibe all the time no matter who you are or how good or bad, technically speaking, you are at surfing. [Yes] What did surfing teach you is there anything that we haven’t talked about that surfing taught you in terms of a life lesson.

Kevin: Um, yeah, like surfing, like sometimes if you feel like you’re gonna take bad decisions surfing might help you a lot, like clear your mind, feel the ocean, feel the wind that’s going to make you calm down and think clear, think what’s better for you (3:28). And if you just do whatever seems faster, something seems faster and you just want to take it maybe it’s not the right thing. So for living, it’s like taking good decisions taking good decisions like the same wave like if you see a wave and it looks good, sometime you see a wave and it looks good it looks like a perfect wave but it’s not, it’s too short. Let’s wait for the second one or the third one. That’s the one that you need, it’s not the first one, you don’t need that one, even though it looks good but it’s not the one that will fill you up so for living you’re gonna see you like bad decisions coming up like did you take this and maybe it’s not right for you.

So that’s what happened to me like okay I need to study, I need to get a job, and then once you get that you need to get the second step and then you need a good partner with you, you need a good partner that help you that make you like grow up right? That don’t make you get stuck right there. That’s really important too. So it’s not a girl that you’re gonna find at the party and then just go out just one night And that’s the girl, no.You need to know the lady, to know the girl, surf together, yeah? surf together, know pretty well and then you do the decision. So it helped me a lot.

Maia: And tell us something about your partner

Kevin: She’s, she’s a good surfer. But I love surfing with her. I love that. And we start talking, we started exploring all the area right here in Nosara cause I’m still, I live here, but still there’s many things that you can see, like the first time. And we did some ATV tours, we went to some waterfalls and we did some trips to surf and we started talking (6:45) to know each other and then I realize that she’s a nice person cause so inspire, like, something really good that you can see through her eyes that she’s she’s so nice and, yeah, I love her a lot.

Maia: She is beautiful in every way a person can be.
Maia: and I understand your father also has an intimate relationship with the ocean.

Kevin: He’s a fisherman. He loves fishing and he taught me how to understand the ocean lot cause he knows really well the ocean because he knows really good the moon. Yeah. I don’t know but he understand the moon really, really good and if you asked I can ask him right now like what moon do we have right now he will tell you right away and he will say okay this is, the moon is right here, is like this so the tide is low so when you have this moon, this tide, the we can catch fish.

Maia: So your family, I’m lucky and I am lucky enough to have been to your house, and your family owns a beautiful piece of land I don’t know how much but a lot of land you as far as you can see really from your house there are Carillos. And how far back does your family go in Nosara?

Kevin: It was like a long time ago my, my mom, well, my grandpa and my grandma they were from Nicoya, they were living in Nicoya and then my grandpa sold that land and moved to here Guiones or Nosara and then he got that land for like 25 colones.

Maia: 25 Colones?

Kevin: Which is just like

Maia: 50 cents?

Kevin: Something like that.

Maia: And he got this land and start living here with my mom my aunts all my family open, and now he’s old, now he’s really old, he’s 97 [my goodness] Yeah, he’s 97 and we still have this land and I’m living one piece of that cause my mom got gave me and it’s a nice place because it’s all family right there.

Maia: So beautiful! And you live right next door to your 97-year-old grandfather don’t you?

Kevin: I live next to him and I see him every single day [every single day] and he is still walking by

he’s walking by himself he wave at me when he saw me and we made jokes, he loves jokes.

Maia: Well, it’s interesting because he grew up in Nicoya and this whole area around Nicoya is a blue zone [it’s a blue zone]. Zona azul, sí? What is a blue zone?

Kevin: It’s where the people live because longer we have people here who live a long, long, long time. I know people who get more than hundred years.

Maia: Wow [because he’s happy] he’s happy do you, I mean you’re not a scientist and I’m not a scientist and I and I don’t know that there have been scientific studies trying to figure out why people in Blue Zones live so long but you have any opinions about why?

Kevin: I hear what I’ve been realizing that the corn [the corn?]. The corn— so the corn so what happened here I know like for my family you say when you go to eat you always have to get a tortilla on your plate.

We don’t we don’t get Coca-Cola, we don’t get Fanta, that’s what they were drinking before. We get chicheme. Chicheme is a drink based on corn based on corn, is a corn that is purple and the it could something different to get the drink all the grandma and grandpa’s how do they know I double with the were drinking and eating really healthy things.

Maia: Interesting

Kevin: And we grow up fruits right here, fruits vegetables [so many] a lot of sandias

Maia: Sandias! Watermelons…

Kevin: The watermelons are so good.

Maia: People just throw the watermelon meat right in the blender and blend it up and drink it. It’s delicious!

Kevin: That’s why we get longer.

Maia: That’s why you live longer. I suspect pure vida has something to do with it too, the just openhearted, accepting, loving, generous attitude people have towards one another, not everyone but, but culturally.

Kevin: Yeah I told you like, being healthy if you are healthy people if you are healthy, person if you’re eating good and living this life, you gonna be a nice person, you’re gonna be smiling the whole time, you won’t be angry, you’re not gonna be mad at mad at anything

Maia: From my perspective one of the problems I see with this place is that a lot of Americans and Europeans come to Guiones and many of them miss out on pura vida because they only talk to other Americans or Europeans. And in groups that I have have brought your students and and also retreat groups it’s inevitably the one thing that they remember most, now they have a great time I mean there’s there’s world-class yoga here in these beautiful yoga studios, the surfing is so exciting, the beach is spectacular it looks like the cover of a fancy magazine every single day, it’s so beautiful. But every single trip where I’ve brought people the thing that they remember most is when we go to the home of a local and they learn how to make tortillas the local way. [yes] That’s always the thing that moves them the most.

Kevin: Here like everybody know how to make a tortilla.

Maia: Yes and and just the authentic experience of interacting with the people and so many… it’s interesting I see a lot of Americans come here and they they keep separate from the people and maybe talk to a Tico surf instructor but they they don’t get out of this little village and they don’t get out to some of the places that you take them, Pippin Rentals, and it’s such a shame because when they do get out, as you say, it fills you up so much more the experience it when you really, even just for half a day, when you really feel the culture and in the way of living here. It makes the whole trip, even if it’s only a week long, it makes it so much more meaningful and the love that you feel for this place is so much deeper because it’s not just about what can I get how good a time can I have here it becomes about this exchange were you’re talking to people and they’re talking to you and and it isn’t so unequal. Because one of the problems here and in many places in the developing world where wealthy Americans come to vacation is inequality. There are people who make very little money and then Americans building two million-dollar homes and the prices get very expensive for food and housing and and these are challenges, the gentrification. These are challenges that the that this place faces but those challenges seem less insurmountable when you watch the wealthy visitors interact with the locals as humans, human to human it really, in my experience, at least, it makes a big difference.

Kevin: Yeah that’s really important interactions with the local person right here is really good just like we do surf lessons is not only like the whole time just talking about surfing they talk to you about like how you living, what do you do, what else do you do besides surfing, and you get a conversation with them so people who come here they, they love chatting, like they love talking.

It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be really good chatting with the local person so know about the life here. How’s the life in Nosara? How’s the pure vida? So like they gonna show like yeah we eat healthy we eat tortilla, we made it like this. How to make chichi my or how to make tamarindo. so many things that you can learn from a local person. So many things and they… you gonna feel so good to learn those things from a new culture, from a new place it’s not only likes to surf or somebody just yoga, yoga, yoga with a person that you, that doesn’t even know the place many people come here, start living here and they are from United States or they’re from Europe and they are living here for ten years maybe, they are living here for 10 years and they think they are becoming local person, local people so that’s the one that like sometimes I like not getting into the pure vida life. You know?

Maia: Absolutely

Kevin: And yeah this place is getting bigger. Many people are investing this place and the prices are going like in the clouds. It’s really, really high prices, really big prices and we as a Costa Rican people, as a local people, we pay the same, we pay the same but we don’t get paid when we get the job we don’t get paid at the same to afford those prices.

Maia: It’s, three dollars an hour is very standard isn’t it?

Kevin: Yes. So yeah that’s what happen it’s getting really big this place.

Maia: Ok, Would you say that all Costa Ricans or most Costa Ricans live la pura vida?

Kevin: No, not really. So, Costa Rica’s not that big but there’s many places the capital city, the center of Costa Rica we cal the Central Valley, that part, there’s more violence right there, cause like there’s more buildings, there’s more cars, more people the life right there is like a little more faster. Maybe like, like a big city in the United States. Not that big but for us seems to be like really fast.

Maia: And are people in the in the big cities here stressed-out?

Kevin: Yes, stressed out because of traffic, because they live in the way that is just like, wake up, go on the road, on the street, be like an hour, hour and a half in the traffic, go to work, stress out with their boss, and then go back to the street again. Then go home at night, eat something fast and wake and go to sleep and wake up again in the same way, every single day. And they have long period of working maybe and then maybe at the end they have a little vacations, but it’s still like stress out [and it’s not] maybe they don’t surf.

Maia: And maybe they don’t surf, which makes a big difference [yes]. Because you, it would be easy for somebody listening to this to think that you don’t you that you don’t work like that. But in fact, especially during the high season, during the busy season here, I’ve watched you now for weeks in a row start with lessons at 7:30 in the morning

Kevin: Or start sometimes like 6!

Maia: Sometimes at 6 and teach right until the sun goes down you at at 5:45 at night and it’s hard physical labor, pushing people into waves.

Kevin: So you must be in shape, you must have like muscles and be in shape, and be eating healthy and drink a lot of water, because like, we been working a lot, the whole day in the water, I don’t even change my clothes, I just be wet the whole time. Just start us the lesson at 7, do hour and 1/2, go back, get the next one, just drink a little water, sometime a little time for a little breakfast, then get to lunch, get in the water again, until 6. until the sunset . And it’s, good is, a good life. And now I have a little more time off and I’m spending that time surfing which is I am still getting tired but my mind is like out of the stress I’m not stressful because I’m surfing. All my stress is on the water, it’s gone, the ocean took that stress and I feel so good. Mostly when I was surfing with Maia

Maia: We have had some really fun times, haven’t we? [yes] Yes, yes. And you’re, you’re so generous. Sometimes the waves here get quite big and and occasionally they’re, they’re fast. It’s a pretty slow break in general but occasionally they’re fast and you’re always very good about telling me whether or not you think I’m ready to take off on a particularly challenging wave. It’s nice to have that reassurance.

Yeah I noticed, I mean it really is remarkable, because your job is very intense, I mean people, it’s the ocean, things can happen out there. Just the other day we were surfing in the morning and you paddled up and it was so cute you said, “Are you gonna stay out here for a while?” and I said “Well, yes.” and and you said, “Well, there’s a 4 or 5 foot shark over there.” [laugh] [yes] It was like oh, okay well maybe I’m not gonna stay out here for awhile. But even at the end of the day after five lessons or six lessons, you’re so good to people and so patient with them, and take such good care.

You, just this morning, the waves were so good and you told me, I asked if you got any of them when they were good and you said no I couldn’t take off because I was with a mother and children who…

Kevin: Two little girls [with two little girls] like 14 years old.

Maia: Okay and and they, you couldn’t leave them to take a wave, that you needed to stay with them.

Kevin: I need to stay with them and there were good wave, so good, [so good] I still remember that wave coming, there were like five of them, and I was like. “Okay no I need to let this wave go.” [yes] because those waves were not good for them because it was a little steep [yes] and I love steep waves [yes] because I can make some tricks [yes- laugh] in they were no good for them so that I told them this is not good for you we’re gonna wait for another one who would fit you better.

Maia: Which is just wonderful and, and I, there are many surf schools here, there must be almost 20 surf schools in this tiny village now,

Kevin: I think more than that.

Maia: Even more than 20… and I have watched many instructors from other surf schools leave [yes] clients so that they could take a wave and it’s one of the reasons that I have formed such a close relationship with you all over these year’s is that you you really do put your clients’, not just safety but, but comfort first.

Kevin: Yes. Because it’s a place, it’s a new world outside, like on the break, that part is like a new world. There are many things, there’s gonna be people, there’s gonna be waves ,there’s gonna be, sometimes, animals, so it’s a new world. So and they’re not gonna be used to that.

Maia: Is there anything else about your life as a surfer, your relationship with the ocean, you as a as a Nosareño, is there anything that you would like to say to anybody listening?

Kevin: As a Tico Nosareño and surfer, I love this place. It’s so good. This place is magical. A lot of things that you can learn. The waves, surfing is so good. Just like taking off like just get up on the wave, it’s gonna feel like something magical inside of you, like butterflies on your belly, something like that, it’s gonna like, feels like, this is like heaven— how the nature made that and you can use that power of nature and you can surf that. Because it’s not like you make it right? It’s just like okay, it’s coming by themself because God made that wave because the nature of the current is a wave, the wind made this kinda wave perfect, just for you. And just surf it, get it, and it’s like the life. Like this is your life, enjoy it, on the way they’re going to be bad things just move it around, skip it, like when you’re surfing you skip some people and move to the side, go to the other side, don’t look what you don’t need to look and chosen joy.

Maia: It’s good good life advice, just enjoy it.

Kevin: Just enjoy it. Just enjoy what you having in the moment. Don’t think about like way too far. Just think about right now, the present. And live the present right now.

Maia: It is something that that people here seem to be very good at is enjoying the moment, taking time to be with their families. So many people just go out and watch the sunset together, play soccer with their kids on the beach. They don’t work, you now, all the time, if they don’t absolutely have to and it’s it’s a beautiful thing to see. And there certainly are, they’re are a lot of of owners of businesses as as we’ve discussed who sometimes demand longer hours than is healthy for the employees but when people have a choice they really do seem to put love, to put being with their families and being with their friends, it’s a very high priority.

Well thank you so much Kevin [you’re welcome]. This has been just wonderful I feel like I learned a ton and I know everybody listening will too.

Kevin: I hope they learn a lot from this, and yeah you’re welcome.

Maia: I hope you enjoyed Kevin’s wonderful perspective on life, love, and waves. To set up a time for an exploratory conversation about coaching, a custom Waves to Wisdom retreat in Nosara or the US, or an inspiring, energizing event for your organization or group visit wavestowisdom.com.

by Waves to Wisdom

A man holds a surf board with his family on a beach

Interview: Michael Coleman

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Player at the bottom of the page.

Learn more about transformational coaching with Maia

"... with ALS when you lose muscle that includes tongue and throat and so swallowing can be a challenge and aspiration, choking can be a danger. So he does aspirate and choke a little bit sometimes... he feels like he’s able to get through that because of skills he learned from surfing when you get pounded and knocked under and your rolling around having to hold your breath underwater and stay calm and you know find your way through it and find your way up."

~Ruth Coleman for Michael

Show Notes

Website of the brilliant author, polymath, and public intellectual Rebecca Solnit

What is ALS?

NOAA Weather Radio

Donate to ALS Research

Article Encouraging Thoughtfulness Among International Travelers from the Developed World

Michael and Ruth COleman sit together holding hands

Interview Transcript

Introductory note about this show: I know from soliciting feedback from subscribers that many of you all are reading the transcripts rather than listening to the recording. In this case, I hope you will listen to at least some of it. As I note in the interview, Waves to Wisdom is on a fundamental level, a multidisciplinary exploration of how we can deepen and enhance relationship. Listening to the exchange between Michael and Ruth’s voices is, to my heart and ear, more powerful than the content itself.

All of these interviews are edited (the initial conversations can extend over hours) and I do not, as a matter of course, ask interviewees how they feel about the edited conversation. Rather, I ask for their trust up front. But Michael was hesitant about whether he wanted his voice out in the world and I wanted to make doubly sure he was happy with the result. He didn’t love the sound of his voice but, as he astutely noted, who does?

Transcript

Intro: My name is Maia Dery. This episode is part of a series called the Waves to Wisdom Interviews. The project is a simple one. I seek out people I admire, surfers who seem to me to have ocean centered wisdom practices.

Usually, I ask them to share a surf session or two and, after we’ve ridden some waves together, talk to me about their oceanic habits, about surfing, work, meaning, anything that comes up. All of the episodes so far have spoken to the benefits and beauty of a long, intimate relationship between two bodies, the surfer and the ocean. This one’s a little different. Michael Coleman has been a surfer for more than 40 years. Just 8 years ago, he was diagnosed with a debilitating illness meant he had to face letting go of riding waves and, eventually, getting in the water at all.

But the waves continue to infuse his life with wisdom, both practical and profound. He and his wife Ruth Coleman were generous enough to share some of Michael’s story and, although we couldn’t be in the ocean in the same place and time, both Colemans left me so deeply inspired I’ve carried them with me into almost every wave I’ve ridden since our time together.

Oceanic wisdom comes in many forms. In her book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit wrote about the way hermit crabs look for shells that weren’t really made for them and then mold their soft bodies to fit the shape of them. A set of internal claws clings to the shell while the external claws do their work in the world. She goes on,

“Many love stories are like the shells of hermit crabs, though others are more like chambered nautiluses, whose architecture grows with the inhabitant and whose abandoned smaller chambers are lighter than water and let them float in the sea.”

My time with the Colemans told two love stories, their own and Michael’s long passion for living life to the utmost. Welcome to Waves to Wisdom.

Maia: If you are comfortable with it would you tell us your name, your age, and how long you’ve been surfing?

Michael: My name is Michael Coleman I’m 60 years old I’ve been surfing since 1975

Maia: Fantastic — and where did you first learn to surf?

Michael then Ruth:
Ogonquit Beach [Ogonquit Beach] Maine [Maine] okay and so you, you were a young man at that point?

Michael: I think my junior or senior year in high school.

Ruth: His junior or senior year in high school as a summer job he was a lifeguard. So I think you were probably 17? 16, 17, when he first started.

Maia: Okay. And this, as I was just telling the two of you all, this is an unusual interview because usually there two of us. Do you want to tell us why there are three of us?

Michael: Well, I can’t speak very well because I have ALS.

Ruth: So he said as you can probably hear I can’t speak very well because I have ALS so Ruthy is speaking for me, or can understand me pretty well. So I’m Ruth, Michael’s wife, we’ve known each other since before he was 17 [laugh] [Wow, I didn’t know that part of the story] so you can do the math! and that that’s why I’m good at understanding him.

Maia: Probably in lots of ways. Not just this one…

Ruth: Yeah.

Maia: And so, I believe I recall you saying you surfed until about five years ago? [yes] Yes, until about five years ago? OK, and did, I mean starting to surf at 16 or 17 you know, one is not fully formed, certainly, at that age, do you feel like surfing impacted the adult that you grew into?

Michael: Yes.
I think that surfing was the impetus to travel.

Ruth: It was the, gave him the impetus to travel. Made him want to travel, to go other places for surfing…. Learning about other cultures. So surfing gave you the desire to travel and then traveling gave you the desire to learn more about other cultures. [mmm hm] (5:04) You like to go to places where surfing is available but it’s not like the only thing the place is known for. It doesn’t overwhelm the location, what was already there. Yeah.

Maia:
So we’re in your living room of your beautiful new house, this is your downsizing house in Rockport Maine. Rockport’s not known for surfing either.

Ruth: [Laugh] No

Maia: How did you wind up choosing Rockport?

Ruth: Michael took a motorcycle trip. Barry had given him um just some little ad for a piece of land or something that was randomly in Rockport. I had never really been here other than driving through. And Michael took a motorcycle ride and came up and looked at it and put some money down [Oh my goodness, really?] on the property and we were married then and we were thinking about building or buying a house but we hadn’t really been thinking about that and we were thinking about moving out of Southern Maine because it was just going through a lot of changes at that time that explosion of condos and we just felt, I dunno, it didn’t feel right to us. But so yeah that was kind of random so he put a down payment on that land and continued paying for it for about a year and then the year after we got married we, I applied for jobs and we came up here and built our first house.

Maia: Wow. So you had to travel to surf? Did you get to do that often?

Michael: … It felt like it

Ruth: It felt like it. At that time you were working for yourself so he had flexibility.

Maia: And how often do you think you went down to surf?

Michael: …

Ruth: Whenever there was… when the waves were good… that’s the whole thing about the WeatherBand. That’s why we were always listening to the NOAA WeatherBand.
https://www.weather.gov/ama/nwr

Maia: Will you tell that story?

Ruth: LAUGH Just that, before the Internet, the way that you’d know about surf coming in Maine would be to listen to the NOAA weather and it would… surfers would be thinking ahead because certain conditions that NOAA would tell you about would indicate whether a swell and then waves were coming so Michael would just listen to that all the time. He’d fall asleep listening to it. [Michael muffled]

Ruth: Oh it was an automated voice.

Michael: On a loop.

Ruth: On a loop, yeah so it was annoying to everybody else but Michael loved listening to that LAUGH.

Maia: So did you go on some surf related adventures in your 20s before your kids came along?

Ruth: We started with international trips actually when we had kids.

Maia: For surfing?

Ruth: Yeah. Well, Dad, Michael… (laugh) all of our traveling were to locations where there were beaches LAUGH.

Maia: There were no family trips that didn’t involve at least some surf?

Michael: Why would there be?

Ruth: Why would there be? [LAUGH] Also, it just kind of made sense because living in Maine when you want to go away in the winter so where you want to go is someplace that’s warm that worked and in the summer we didn’t want to go away from Maine because that’s when Maine’s great.

Michael: Muffled

Ruth: Yeah, there were— we saw many other things as a result of surf trips, absolutely.

Maia: It was a force for good.

Ruth: Yeah, he would get up early and go surfing and there were still lots of family adventures.

Maia: One of the premises of this project is my untested theory that for some people who have this regular practice of surfing, of interacting with the ocean in this completely immersive, expansive way— that it helps them figure their life out. That it can make them better people or put them in touch with something bigger than themselves. Do you think, am I onto something? Is there any part of that that seems valid to you?

Michael: …Yes.

Ruth: Can I just say something while you’re thinking. It has struck me now in retrospect— I didn’t really get it at the time, but Michael used to talk about surfing as just being really pure and clean and he would feel really clean and his mind would feel really clean and it… In retrospect I realize it was like, before the trendiness of mindfulness and “ in the moment” that was exactly how you would describe things, is that you liked it because you were only focused on that because you have to you have to be paying attention to the, you know, the waves and the sets and what’s happening with the weather and all of that. And so, like I didn’t— that didn’t register to me at the time because it was before all that talk about mindfulness and being in the moment. But now in retrospect I look back and I think that’s how you always talked about it. That’s what you liked about it that you would be out there, you know, not necessarily alone because there’s other people surfing but you would be so intensely focused that sort of like wiped your mind clear.

Maia : Is there any other way in which it had practical or impractical benefits?

Ruth: Let me just make sure I got it so you’re saying in surfing is the last failure, you fall and you fall and you fall you fall again, and you have to get back up. Nobody is telling you you have to get back up but you just, you do it. And so the feeling of, then when you do get back up after all those falls and then you have success, that’s a really powerful feeling, that resilience.

Michael: muffled

Ruth: It changes you? [Michael muffled] It teaches you all those things like patience and to keep trying, getting up again. And those apply outside that’s what you said at the end there. That that resilience, that keep trying even when you’ve been knocked down that that… somehow you internalize that you feel like you applied it in other places.

Michael: … even today [even today] I think that in my current situation…

Ruth: In your current health situation. That resilience and ability to adapt.

Michael: Has helped me

Ruth: Has helped you with ALS

Maia: How long’s it been since you’ve been able to surf?

Ruth: 5 or 6 years and he was diagnosed with ALS more than 8 years ago. So you still surfed for a couple of years after you had ALS but you weren’t as greatly affected by it as you are now. As the progression continued it got harder.

Michael: I remember…

Ruth: He remembers a time in Costa Rica after he had ALS when his legs weren’t affected that badly but one of his arms in particular was and he felt like he was paddling in circles because one arm was weak one arm was strong. And how did that feel?
[LAUGH] He said at that time he was more focused on getting out to the waves before Carl, one of his buddies, so that bothered you? For that reason? Ok.

Maia: Are there any other ways, let’s think before ALS that you think this surfing might have had a positive influence on your life?

Ruth: Can I say one while you’re thinking? I think that you you just always had tremendous energy I think it was an outlet for your energy. I think I don’t know if you you feel that way about it but… and then looking back at thinking about how you said it that’s just what you like about it how it just kind of wiped your mind clean and I think it was that that you know that it takes a lot of physical effort to surf but it also had that meditative quality and that you— I just remember you being almost like driven to get there and then you would just feel like cleansed, or something after you, after you did it. And you always did a lot of sports remember? So and I think then when you had less opportunity for sports, team sports kind of in your life that surfing, fulfilled that need for that physical activity but it also was having that other mindfulness, meditative effect on you. When you could first see the waves

Michael: Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God…

Ruth: You couldn’t wait.

Michael: muffled…

Ruth: You could get out of your truck and be in the water in minutes.

Michael: muffled…

Ruth: Someone would say. “What do you think Mike?” Looking at the surf and he’d already be moving and saying “I’m not going to think about it I’m just getting in the water.”

Maia: So earlier you got out a copy of Surfer Magazine from 1990, was it? [uh hm] and there in the pages of Surfer Magazine is a picture of Michael Coleman on a huge, looks like about to be barreling left, what’s the story of that?

Michael: I will let Ruth tell it.

Ruth: I don’t really know the story just that you were out there and someone was taking pictures because it was pretty epic surf for Maine and that the picture that got into Surfer Magazine the caption that went with it was something like, “Mike Coleman biting it Maine style” because it looks like he’s about to about to just, what’s the term do a face plant or something, get pitched off the board. But it’s a pretty awesome…

Micheal:… At the that break normally you go right

Ruth: So at the break usually it’s a right but occasionally there’s a left and that’s good for you because you’re a goofy foot.

Michael: Muffled

Ruth: Right so there are rocks too on this beach at certain tides and so when you went left, getting carried on that really beautiful wave suddenly there’s the rocks right there so you were bailing with a purpose, not getting ditched by the wave.

Michael:… muffled

Ruth: Yeah, that year all of his friends were razzing him about that, giving him a hard time.

Maia: I’m sure they were. How could they resist [Laugh]

Ruth: So only recently and the person who took the photo was posting old retro photos that one came up and she put the story of what really happened corroborating Michael’s perspective [laugh].

Maia: You were actually narrowly avoiding certain doom.

Michael: I remember… muffled

Maia: What did he just say?

Ruth: He said he remembers talking to someone when he came out of the water and they were saying, “What the BLEEP were you thinking?”

Maia: Going left on that wave? [LAUGH] Yeah, if you look at the picture you can tell there’s a rock revealing itself at the bottom.

The photograph of Michael that appeared in Surfer Magazine. Photo credit: Maureen McNamara

Maia: Alright so we were talking, Ruth was not here but we were talking about the time around your diagnosis and how you handled work and your insights about… Would you be willing to share any of that?

Ruth: So, you were diagnosed, you went in for some other reason you thought maybe pinched shoulder nerve that was affecting your snowboarding yeah and so you were diagnosed pretty quickly with ALS but you didn’t feel certain yet that that was a correct diagnosis so you didn’t want to tell anyone including me. But you definitely didn’t want to tell anyone at work. You wanted to just keep going until that was confirmed.

Michael:…

Ruth: Work is a big part of a man’s ego. You were afraid to give up the thing that you felt like…you were successful at. Right it took you a while to come to terms with the thought of not working so you continued working for two years without telling anyone at that work that you had ALS. In hindsight that’s the only thing you regret around that time is not not letting go of work sooner because you are you were working for the wrong reasons.

Michael: When I gave my notice we went right to Costa Rica.

Ruth: When you gave your notice. We went right to Costa Rica after that. {and you never went back]. And you never went back to work, you gave notice, yeah it’s a small town you saw people afterward and, yeah that was very… people were great, people were really supportive and that’s all good but I think that was probably a good way for you to do it rather than give notice and stay there and have to go through a lot of emotional goodbyes. It was easier to, you know, make that break, go away on a nice surf vacation and then come back and deal with the aftermath, yeah in a better place.

That was the trip after you left work though that’s true when you couldn’t surf just standing in the waves, the waves are so big that they were knocking you over. That was super hard, yeah.

Maia: Yeah, I mentioned to you when we were talking earlier is that out I’ve had to certain mysterious one of the reasons is as I told you before I told Michael undiagnosed situation, health challenge that I’ve been dealing with the last two years which has at times affected my ability to surf and I have been unable to surf really in the way that I have developed a taste for. And it’s, it’s been a really interesting transition of acceptance and embracing the mystery of it and not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring in and realizing that at some tomorrow every surfer will be done surfing. This is the nature of life and surfing is the best part of life and it really, it has been, well it’s been maddening and very sad at points for me to think about not being able to surf for you know a week or a month or however long it’s been. I’ve also found it really helpful to have had those, the lessons that surfing has taught me. Has that been true for you since not being able to surf?

Ruth: Surfing’s all about adapting to the situation. So being able to adapt and keep going forward. I mean, that’s what ALS is all about too. I mean, it’s all about adapting, and adapting.

Michael: muffled…

Ruth: [Laugh] I say that I can remember you saying early on that when you couldn’t surf any more was when you would be ready to let go and you don’t remember saying that and clearly, that hasn’t come to pass. But there were a lot of conversations, you know, soon after an ALS diagnosis about you know, you’re going to be going through this all of this, all of these, these losses, losses of abilities and losses of things that you used to enjoy so much.

And so we saw this film “Consider the Conversation” and it really is about end of life choices and there was this really just moving part about this person who had this notion of a list of 100 things, you write 100 things, you think of 100 things that you love and that you enjoy and as you age or have a debilitating disease you lose the ability to have or do those things and for each person the point at which your life is no longer meaningful, the number will be different, you know, like for somebody it might be if they can’t do 20 things on that list the rest of them aren’t enough to make life worthwhile, or that’s what you think at that point but for somebody else if they still have 1 thing on that list that they can still do they might want to stay alive. And so we were having those kind of conversations about what would the things on anybody list be? Which things would be at the top of the list? When would you really feel like life is no longer worth living? Is it when you can’t walk? When you can’t talk? When you can’t sing? When you cant eat by yourself? When you can’t surf, and I think that’s what I remember it was around the time the conversation about that movie and you were like, “Ugh, if I couldn’t surf, like I don’t know, I don’t know if I want to live and now we’re 5 or 6 years out from that and you no longer surf but you certainly, you’re living.

So you found that your list does have a lot of things on it besides surfing that you still want to live for. Cause I wonder if back at the time like before you lost the ability to surf you may have been imagining that, “Well, when I can’t surf, I can’t do this, I can’t do this, like I won’t be able to do so many things but it wasn’t that way. Surfing is a highly skilled endeavor, right, so when you lost the ability to surf you really could still do a lot of other things I mean you really started getting into the motorcycle after that. So but back then when you were thinking, “Oh, if I can’t surf I might not want to live.” you weren’t really envisioning all the other things that you still could do and also just the whole life of life with other people.

Michael:…

Ruth: That is a good point. Thank you honey?

Maia: What did he say?

Ruth: He told me that is a good point. Laugh

Michael:…

Ruth: Yeah, so you realized you had a passion for surfing but really surfing’s just part of your life and you’re realizing that you actually had a passion for life, surfing was just a part of that passion for life. And you still have that.

Michael: I still consider myself a surfer.

Ruth: You still consider yourself a surfer. Even though he’s not surfing he feels like he’s still a surfer because you’re still so in tune with the surf and the conditions. And many other things that surfing teaches are still a part of your life today.

Michael: Relevant

Ruth: Relevant to your life today as we are talking about before the patience, resilience bravery…

Ruth: He just had this interesting little observation the other day that I had never considered, he was saying that so, um with ALS when you lose muscle that includes tongue and throat and so swallowing can be a challenge and aspiration, choking can be a danger. So he does aspirate and choke a little bit sometimes and this is just such a strange connection he said that he feels like he’s able to get through that because of skills he learned from surfing when you get pounded and knocked under and your rolling around having to hold your breath underwater and stay calm and you know find your way through it and find your way up. That that skillset is what he uses to stay calm when he needs to clear his throat and he’s literally not breathing for a little bit because there’s an obstruction but he is able to maintain calm and not freak out because he learned that from doing it surfing.

Michael: muffled …

Ruth: Hold on, don’t panic.
Don’t hurry the moment

Ruth: Don’t hurry the moment it will pass.
Keep your calm so you’ll be there when it passes.

Michael: muffled …

Ruth: Keep your bearings. So, persistence, persistence obviously is a part of surfing you’re saying now with ALS and how it’s affected you, you have to be persistent just in your walking, just staying on your feet you have to be persistent and aware.

Michael: Determined

Ruth: Determined

Ruth: In surfing you have to be determined to get out through the waves.

Michael: Now… muffled … not let ALS rule my life.

Ruth: So now it’s the determination to not let ALS rule your life.

Michael: Right.

Ruth: I think balance too. I mean this isn’t a lesson like a cognitive lesson but it’a a body lesson that all the time spent on the surfboard, it’s so much about balance and the same with snowboarding, right? The balance and I wonder if, all of that time doing those sports where you’re getting off balance but you recover your balance— that’s what it’s all about because the medical people are amazed that you’re still on your feet. So I think it gave you some really great balance.

Maia: You were a pretty good surfer?

Michael: I think so

Ruth: He thinks so. In his own humble opinion. [LAUGH]

Maia: Very interesting. And Ruth you never wanted to surf? Did you try it?

Ruth: I never really tried much I mean I paddled around on a board and I didn’t have the persistence for it in Maine. I swim in the water in Maine but to be in the cold water in Maine also doing something really hard, I just, it didn’t call to me.

Maia: It didn’t sound fun.

Maia: As Micheal said earlier, motorcycling was his adaptation— the way he found to nurture his passion for life by setting out on adventures that challenge and inspire him. I asked Michael and Ruth to tell me a little more about Michael’s motivation for taking long trips on his bike to remote places like Novia Scotia and Hudson Bay where there’s no one would be around to help if he ran into trouble.

Ruth: He always wanted to do this motorcycle trip because you have to be independent and self sufficient, these backroads, you have to have fuel with you you have to have all your gear and your out in the middle of friggin nowhere all by yourself laugh. You wanted, he wanted to do it before he could not, I mean time is ticking, you know, with your physical abilities so…

Back then you were thinking that you might be dying in the hospital within a year or so, so you wanted to really get out there and challenge yourself physically before you did. Yeah So that’s why, was that you question about why he took that adventure?

Maia: Absolutely. Did that happen after you’d stopped surfing?

Michael: muffled …

Ruth: So he did, I think 3 really long, big, remote ones like that and then which might have overlapped with the time that you had to get done surfing because you took some falls on the motorcycle. So when he began falling on the motorcycle because he didn’t have the strength in his legs— when you come to a stop you gotta put your leg down— then he decided he wanted to continue motorcycling so his adaptation was to get a side car. And he still has, so when you got the motorcycle with sidecar you took trips with that too and one notable one when you got your BMW you went from here all the way across country by yourself to Arizona and back.

Maia: Wow!

Ruth: LAUGH Yeah, motorcycling was a passion for him too. And that continues so his motorcycle with sidecar is in a barn just down the road and he’s hoping to get it out any day now and see whether that’s still going to be a possibility this summer.

Maia: So I want to back up just a minute to when you were talking about how you still consider yourself a surfer. It sounded like what you were saying is you can be at the water and look at the waves and you still have a surfer’s relationship with them. You can still engage with them in that same way. And this is one of the ideas that has emerged over time as I’ve been doing these interviews and thinking more about Waves to Wisdom, is that on some level it is fundamentally a question about relationship and the practices that enhance certain kinds of relationships. And I think most of us, not just in this culture, but as humans we, in all relationships we really tend to get a little clingy and desperate and scared all the time. And I think that that in some ways, at least in this moment for me, one of the most inspiring parts of your story is that this fundamental part of your identity endures beyond anything that you can or can’t do with your body because it’s about your relationship with this thing, the ocean and all the things that it’s taught you. Is that a fair characterization?

Michael:… Absolutely

Ruth: Absolutely

Maia: Is here anything that you can think of that you’d like to add to that that I might have missed.

Ruth: To him it doesn’t feel like it’s been 5 years since he surfed. It’s in his mind, it’s in his heart, he still has a deep relationship with the ocean.
Intellectually you know that you cannot surf…

Michael: In my bones I feel like I’m still surfing.

Ruth: But in your bones you feel like you’re still surfing. That you don’t have to still be surfing to have a relationship and a connection to the ocean? Yeah. It’s like a lot of things that you have. For any body, for any human as you get older there are things that you did or you had that you can no longer do or have but they’re not erased entirely from your being. It’s still there, it’s still part of you, whether it’s the memories of it, the physical memory of it, or the things that you learned and took from it.

Maia: How long did it take you to get good? How long did it take until you felt you were good, I should ask?

Ruth: He probably felt like he was good right away. That’s his personality [laugh].

Maia: Is there anything else you would like to tell people about surfing, life, waves, anything?

Michael: I had a good partner.

Ruth: You had a good partner. Yeah, I think anybody in a good relationship with someone else, when that person has a passion, you support that passion.

Maia: Probably came back in a better mood than he left?

Ruth: Yeah! Definitely. And we all got to go on a lot of great beach trips.

Maia: Thank you both so much.

A lot of great beach trips could sound like a bunch of vacations, fun but fleeting. But Michael’s story seems to me a powerful demonstration of the theme I’ve found in my own life of outdoor pursuits and, more recently this dedication to an ocean-centered practice. Ours is a culture that values wellness and scientific research that supports it, sometimes to our peril. Everyone my age will remember the low fat orthodoxy of our youth and the processed, packaged fat-free foods that stocked the shelves of many of our pantries. There is plenty of new scientific research showing the benefits of activities in natural settings and I’ll post about some of that in the coming weeks. But Michael’s story is more persuasive to me that any research.

A passion for life that takes the form of devotion to a kind of fluid, fully embodied activity like surfing offers so many potential gifts of joy and wisdom, none of which are necessarily dependent on that ultimately undependable life circumstance, physical health.

For more information about coaching, our ocean-centered retreats, or to inquire about sponsoring this podcast, visit wavestowisdom.com

by Waves to Wisdom

Interview: Elsa Rivera

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Player at the bottom of the page.

Learn more about our next retreat to Nosara, Costa Rica.

"... my whole neurological being, body, mind, and spirit, is enhanced when I get in the water. And when I come out my perception, my storytelling about any particular "problem" is, it's just redefined.

I don't sweat the small stuff."

~Elsa Rivera

Show Notes

GI Josie Website

Britannica Entry About Yemonja

Blue Mind Book

Outside Magazine Article about Blue Mind and J Wallace Nichols “How Water Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Successful”

Trailer for Documentary about Women Veterans Suffering from Military Sexual Trauma

Article About Military Sexual Trauma

Sunrise over rocky shore with distant waves

Interview Transcript

Intro

Maia: My name is Maia Dery. This episode impart of a series called the Waves to Wisdom Interviews. The project is a simple one. I seek out people I admire, surfers with what look to me to be ocean centered wisdom practices. I ask them if they’d be willing to share a surf session or two and then, after we’ve ridden some waves together, talk to me about their oceanic habits: about surfing, work, meaning, anything that comes up.

Elsa: Seeing these grown women who can connect with that joy inside themselves even with, when they’re on land, even on the dry sand telling, sharing stories about why that it’s possibly not for them, or it’s too fearful because they have circumstances at home that has have oppressed them, suppressed their joy somehow. They have access to that by getting in.

Maia: Elsa Rivera is a devoted surfer, committed community servant, immigrant, and successful business manager. Our conversation took place overlooking the Pacific on California’s incomparable Central Coast. We’d ridden the chilly waves of a spectacular stretch of shore where graceful arms of kelp and barking, splashing marine mammals can make you feel, for a moment, like you’re a part of a vast ecosystem, a thriving planet abundant with life.

Elsa’s clarity of priority and purpose, and the role her relationship with the ocean plays in that clarity, add delicious nuance to this ongoing story of the power and plain utility of cultivating and stewarding a relationship to the ocean. Welcome to Waves to Wisdom.

Maia: If you are comfortable with it would you tell us your name and age and where you live?

Elsa: Elsa Rivera, I’m 55 years old and I live in Monterey California

Maia: Excellent and did you grow up in Monterey?

Elsa: I’m originally from Columbia. I grew up in Columbia until I was nine and then till 1981 I grew up in Santa Monica.

Maia: This morning we surfed together for the first time

Elsa: We sure did

Maia: We did. We surfed at Asilomar. It’s a place that I have watched people surf before and it’s always been remarkably intimidating to me it seems, well it is very rocky and it also seems prone to wind, and changes… conditions change out there rapidly but it was fun we had a great morning!

Elsa: Definitely! Ah, it’s gorgeous, gorgeous out there.

Maia: And I took off on some waves that scared the heck out of me and that was good.

Elsa: Looked graceful doing it.

Maia: Thank you very much, you’re kind. Let’s see, we were paddling out maybe after a wave or just after having met, changing locations and we both spotted a harbor seal in the top of a wave…

Elsa: My boyfriend…

Maia: Your boyfriend, tell us about your boyfriend.

Elsa: My boyfriend, the same harbor seal, I’m convinced, shows up wherever I surf. I watch him signal to me to move away from rip currents and, kind of, spots to catch good waves.

Maia: That is fantastic! I think I need a boyfriend just like that.

Elsa: You have one actually.

Maia: OK, good! Thank you!

Elsa: He’s out there.

Maia: And we’re, we’re at the beach right now. Can you tell us a little bit about where we are talking to each other?

Elsa: Yeah, this is Del Monte, this is a part of Del Monte Beach and it’s a long, it’s one of the longest stretches of beaches in Monterey.

Maia: And how long have you been surfing?

Elsa: About a year and a half. I’d uh body boarded most of my early teenage life and so I was, I considered myself somewhat of a waterwoman because I never drowned in the ocean.

Maia: You tried and you clearly must of liked it because now you look completely proficient I couldn’t believe it when you said you’d only been surfing for a year and a half.

Elsa: Thanks a lot. For that. Oh yes, absolutely, I loved it from day one and I would just pound my way through whitewater just to get that feeling over and over again and just felt like I could do anything if I could surf.

Maia: I think that many of us feel that way and it seems to be mostly true.

So you have a relationship with the ocean that predates your surfing experience and you were body boarding from childhood, can you talk a little bit more about the role the ocean played in your life as a child?

Elsa: I grew up in Santa Monica, as I said and didn’t know for a long time just because of life, family circumstances that I was so close to the beach and right before junior high I realized that I could just walk to the beach and it was less than three blocks away, long blocks because there were a few hills, and I went to the water for solace. I felt like that was my safe place that could wash away some of the darkness I felt as a very young girl in my family life and at home and in my mind the ocean, being at the beach, and being submerged, even tossed around and tumbled in the in the water was my heart home for me.

(5:41) Maia: So it made you feel better even, even as a youngster [yeah] to get in the ocean?

Elsa: Yeah, I felt embraced and felt enveloped with this almost universal love that my heart was needing and hungry for. And that was my first feel of being embraced.

Maia: Wow, that is a powerful memory and you’ve maintained a relationship clearly and in and continue to enhance and develop your interactions with it and you said to me earlier when we were in the water and again talking just a bit before we began to record that it is a profoundly spiritual relationship for you, from your point of view. Can you talk little bit about your spiritual background and then how the ocean came to play into that?

Elsa: Yes, so I grew up in a very traditional Latin Catholic family and expectation of being, um an awareness of God being a very much Catholic, church-defined, is the best I can say it. But I was drawn to the feminine energy of Mary, the Virgin Mary. I didn’t really think she was a virgin but, so Mary, Mary was just a feminine symbolism in the Catholic Church that I, that I was more drawn to than the male God that was described to me and, over time I went to different churches and at, hidden from my mother, just to try to articulate what I was feeling about believing in a, maybe a greater force or greater spirit of life, without this other definition and I didn’t really find it in churches. But I, I felt at a very young age that I had spiritualism in me rather than Catholic faith and over the years the ocean has become more of the spiritual connection to a life force for me and some of that is defined with my recognition of an ocean deity who I know as Yemanjá and in many Latin and Afro religions. She is the deity of the ocean, she is the mother of life force and so I connect with the idea, the concept of the ocean being a feminine energy, a life source energy, emotional, spiritual, giving. And I, I learn a lot that way.

Maia: How did you learn of this ocean deity and, and, and did it resonate with you immediately?

Elsa: Absolutely immediately. I had come to know about her through, um, the Yemanjá Festival in Santa Cruz and I began to read about her and she became more and more pronounced in my life when I spent 18 months in Brazil. Yemanjá is very much revered in Brazil. There’re rituals, instead of just celebrating New Year’s, the month of January is dedicated to ceremony and rituals in honor of Yemanjá.

And then recently going to Cuba I was part of a casa paticular which is just a place in a person’s home that you rent, where during the week they were doing rituals to, for chosen people who be.. who would become saints in Yoruba religion and they spoke a lot about Yemanjá and her mother Oshun. So in Cuba and in Brazil there are many ocean deities and whoever you resonate with is your deity, like, only you know.

Maia: Interesting, you have a lot of control over who you choose to honor.

Elsa: Yeah, um, well she chooses you, she reminds you that in by way by demonstrating how inspired you are, how motivated you are to learn about her, to know that she’s, she’s your deity.

Maia: Daughter of Earth and Sky, Yemonja is a diety from the Yoruban tradition, which originated in present day Nigeria but took root through the Caribbean as the Atlantic slave trade spread Yorubans far from their homes. Britannica says “Yemonja has been likened to amniotic fluid, because she too protects her children against a predatory world.” Her name is derived from words that roughly translate to “Mother whose children are fishes” and she’s the protector of those on and in the water.

Maia: So since learning about Yemanjá… Now you have this focus, a way to think about, read about, learn about this relationship. Can you talk about maybe the ways that your relationship with the water in your opinion has played out in your life story?

Elsa: I feel that to this very day the ocean has taught me about the, the varying tides of emotions and experiences and the lack of permanency in our lives. To be very present-moment because once you’re in the ocean you, there’s very little you can actually process, think about, the mind chatter stops because your survival sometimes is based on your ability to stay aware of the sites, sounds, smells, ocean currents, what’s happening with other people and that becomes a very present moment existence and again just be happy about, whether you have small waves or big waves, if there’re waves at all, that there is an ocean at all to be the life force, that, that that moment is, the joy of that moment is not defined by the size of the wave but the ability to have the freedom to even be in the water.

Maia: And then getting out of the water in what ways does that practice, in what ways do those experiences manifest, do you think?

Elsa: It’s almost instant application. That– I subscribe to that Blue Mind experience. It says that my whole neurological being, body, mind, and spirit is enhanced and changes when I get in the water and when I come out my perception, my storytelling about any particular, “problem” is, it’s just redefined. I don’t sweat the small stuff. [Laugh] and that, like waves, emotions, especially high peak or low emotions, can just be watched and experienced without any sense of control, leaning into ‘em, like kind of how you lean into a wave to catch it. Just being able to be gentle with yourself and not push any extremes.

Maia: You told me a story. This is a terrifying story, about going surfing at night. [oh, yeah] Could you tell that story?

Elsa: Yes. So I challenged two other mermaids to go to Asilomar, your now favorite break, during a super moon. It was a beautiful, beautiful night. The moon was very, very bright on the beach, it was about 11:30 and we wanted to get in by midnight but the ocean was very, very black and tumultuous lot of seaweed too that day and high tide so I thought it was really smart and following a friend’s advice by making sure we all wore white T-shirts or white shirts so we can see each other in the darkness and I happened to choose one that was really too big for me. It was a men’s size medium or something that I got given to me in Brazil I thought this is good to be a good one I don’t ride, I don’t bike ride so this where I’ll be able to to use it. So we paddled out and we had to really punch through the whitewater quite a bit and the other two women had gone further before my, my board just jumped up against the, the lip of the wave and it tossed me backwards and tossed my shirt over my head and I began to essentially suffocate myself with my shirt and much like what she has taught me in the past, in other experiences about trust and submission, I just really let it, let myself go. I knew I could float to the top. There was something that I knew in that trust, that I could also just let, allow not breathing so hard and suffocating myself with my shirt, that would allow the shirt to float as well and that’s how I got air back in my lungs. I surfaced and tied the T-shirt back up pretty tightly so I could go right back in and not be afraid.

(15:29) Maia: What was it like surfing at night when you couldn’t see the waves?

Elsa: It was terrifying and beautiful, and mystical all at the same time because all your other senses wake up. You’re, you’re feeling the current in a different way. I, I was trying to explain to partners that were there that I could smell the seaweed exposed to air when the wave was forming or curling over us because I couldn’t see it at all and each of us had different experiences about how our senses woke up differently.

Maia: What an amazing memory [yeah] really just calling that up even through your memory I am amazed that you had the courage to go out there and do it and that you discovered these things about the way your senses interacted with the darkness, that sounds profoundly instructive the rest of the time when you can see.

[Exactly] We are missing so much because so visually dominated [yes].

Elsa: I’ve never seen the ocean so black, which was just gorgeous. And I’d do it again.

Maia: And you’d do it again? Then you probably will. [LAUGH] Good, and what, what is your profession, your professional background and has your relationship with the ocean do you think played out in that part of your life at all?

Elsa: Oh, yes. I’ll say that I was inspired as a very young girl to become a nurse practitioner, I wanted to be a midwife actually. And so that propelled me into actually becoming a direct patient care nurse and when I moved to Monterey I got my Associates Degree and continued with patient care and in-home care and decided that this is an avenue of nursing that was very much interesting to me in that it was a holistic approach to taking care of patients at home. So ultimately I ended up transferring my skills to healthcare administration and I ran a local home care agency for about 25 years.

Probably into my 24th year I realized that I had overstepped that caregiver to caretaker, part of myself that couldn’t say “no” when I was on call for a year 24-7, just really overdid it on the whole caring part. And I just reevaluated the fact that I could, I could really give, be of service in different ways and translated some of the stuff that is familiar or similar in all industries and administration and offered to help run a business of my friend’s for 18 months in Brazil with a completely different kind of industry, laser technology. So it was no longer direct patient care, didn’t involve patients, but ultimately resulted in a purposeful time there, helping this person understand the differences in, about the Latin culture and imposing corporate, Americanized ways of doing business in a country that was refusing to accept them.

Maia: Fascinating.

Elsa: And so that’s what I’m still doing, I’m doing business management, I outsource myself when people are short a CEO, an administrator in healthcare, a business manager, and other industries and I limit and I choose wisely and very specifically the type of clients that I, that I have because I feel influenced by what I’ve learned about the ocean and wanting to be in it all the time, that the quality of my life is not about what I do in my work, work is a means to an end just for the survival that’s important to all of us. But my life sustenance, my joy is really about two things, and that’s giving in my community to the service projects and continuing this, ever expanding lifelong relationship with surfing and the ocean.

(20:05) Maia: Another topic that you broached which I find fascinating and I work with young people and most of them, although many of them are going six figures into debt, most of them don’t have any idea about how important money is in their life and you, you talked a little bit about that in the surf session but would you talk a little bit about it, and the relationship with money which you already sort of brushed up against in terms of career but how important healthy relationship with money is to the kind of life you’re describing?

Elsa: Yeah, that’s actually another water symbol for me because I really do believe that that money is currency. I feel like I have a healthy friendship with the concept of money. I’ve made a lot of money in my life and, and I was comfortable with all my little, little creature comforts and stuff but really I define having money as a form of movement and freedom, which is a current, that I can have current in my life. So I worked really hard and very intentionally to remove all debt in my life and it, it allows for me to have a relationship with money where I don’t have a neediness to make money but I can choose to make money for exactly what I need for a plan or for the immediate moment and have more of my freedom than enslavement to the concept of making money.

Maia: And you are the mother of two children [I am] Your son, you tell me, is a big wave surfer?

Elsa: Yes, he is, he started, surfing was his deal so that’s why I didn’t surf for a long time, that was his sport. I was a surf taxi mom for most of his teenage years. He actively competed and he is still mostly just a big wave surfer.

Maia: And you, you clearly are fine with that, and trust him to not hurt himself.

Elsa: Yeah, I do. I was thinking that what I used to joke around with him when he, he went to Mavericks when he was 17 years old but didn’t tell me that he was going until afterwards and I said, “What was that like?” and he said, “Well it’s like falling off the 65 story building and then having it come on top of you afterwards.” So I sent him, “Ever think of taking up, you know, an indoor sport like chess?” but I never meant that I never meant it.

He was a boogie border and I went to Asilomar one day he was boogie boarding and I just got inspired and we have this thing now in life that whenever there’s something that we need to have a rite of passage about very close we’ll just say, “It’s time.” and so I went to Sunshine surf store over here and bought a board, I didn’t know what I was buying and I showed up at Asilomar, he’d been boogie boarding in the I was a standing on the beach with the surfboard and he said, “What, what are you doing, Mom? What’s that? And I just said, “It’s time.” and I gave him a surfboard [Wow] so I figure he said he said it best, he said people say, “Aren’t you afraid of sharks or getting hurt out in those big waves?” And he said, “Have you seem what’s on the street lately?” Even at a really young age he knew that the ocean was his safety spot too.

Maia: So smart! [Yes] and clearly you both share that love of the excitement and the ocean, all that it has to offer. OK, is there anything else about your relationship with the ocean or the way that surfing or being near or in or on the ocean has impacted your life that you’d like to share?

Elsa: I think it just goes directly to my experience teaching young girls to surf and through that vehicle empowering their, conquering fears and having a stronger self-esteem. Where I’m drawn to expand that, and I feel that I’ve been really successful at it and not successful like in the competition, competitive way but more like watching the same effects with older women or grown women, is taking women into, into the water for the first time. One story I’ll share is that one of the moms had been on the beach for a while. They came all the way from Greenfield and all the way I’m talking less than 45 minutes away but they’d never been to the beach, they’d never seen the water, and she kept talking about, “One day I’m going to try that. I’ve only been in the water up to my knees in the swimming pool.” and I, I didn’t even focus on , “Hay, I’ll teach you how to surf, or any conquer, help you conquer the fear of water, I just said, “Ever put on wetsuit?” She said. “No.” and, um, “I said, “That’s half the battle right there, want to try it?” So, then she was in a wetsuit and she talked about, while she was putting her wetsuit on she talked about her body being too big, she really needed to work out more, she was out of shape, all these body image things that are pronounced in women everywhere that we’re trying to change, in a wetsuit especially, that’s one of the reasons I love surfing in this area because we all look like seals and there’s, there’s not an immediate, competitive body image thing going on. So, so I tell her,

“Well, I’m a professional round person and I love my body and I like looking like a seal and, and seals like the water so we can just go try it.”

And so she was really tentative but I said you’ve already gone as far as your knees, you want to try that?” We started there. I said, “You know, one of my favorite things when I was a little kid is jumping waves, want to to jump waves?”

“Oh, okay maybe, I don’t know.”

So we started to jump waves. And the same delight in this 48-year-old woman’s face that we see in the six-year-old faces began to take over her and then she wanted to jump more waves. And then we thought maybe we could jump a wave and then go under a wave.

And it was just this progressive thing but really it was allowing someone to be in their kid again to play in the water and then she wanted to get down to business. “What about his board thing?” And before we knew it we spent quite a bit of time just having her now jump waves on the board and feel just that floatation and she just kept saying,

“This feels so good. I’ve never felt anything like this, I feel free!”

And that just continued throughout her whole experience and when she got out of the water, um, she said, “What can I do to practice my pop-up?” and I told her draw a surfboard on her on the floor with tape and all her kids and her can do pop-ups and all this other stuff. This woman just had so much joy that resonated through the entire time she was on the beach and every time I see her that same look in her face and she thanks me and it’s not even about that but she just comes to me with this feeling of like, “ I remember that joyful moment” whether she does it again or has the opportunity because of whatever obstacle she had before to continue, she’ll always have that experience that, that will relive itself and that’s very powerful.

Maia: Joy in and of itself is so powerful. It’s fleeting in its way but just to know that you have the capacity for that. [Yeah] especially as an adult [Yes] you may have had life circumstances that for one reason or another have separated you from that feeling [yes]. It really is a powerful force and it can do profound work in the world, when you get in touch with that.

Elsa: I believe that! I believe that. Seeing these grown women who can connect with that joy inside themselves even with, when they’re on land, even on the dry sand telling, sharing stories about why that it’s possibly not for them, or it’s too fearful because they have circumstances at home that has have oppressed them, suppressed their joy somehow. They have access to that by getting in.

Maia: After Elsa and I had this conversation her relationship with the ocean and desire to include others in its benefits lead her to an organization called GI Josie.

GI Josie’s mission is to provide single women veterans with an environment and opportunities that eradicate the suffering and suicides arising from the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Military Sexual Trauma that these vets often suffer with as a result of their service in the U.S. Military.

Elsa is profoundly influenced by the work of J. Wallace Nichols, a marine biologist whose most influential work popularizes research showing the mental and physical health benefits of being on, near, or under water.

Elsa launched GI Josie’s Bluewater project which gets these women on the water, sometimes to learn to surf, sometimes just playing in the waves or learning about the ecology in a local wetland. Many of these women Elsa is able to serve in the program face significant challenges. One veteran who had been bound then sexually assaulted was upset by the similar feeling of the tight wetsuit on her wrist. Ultimately she rolled up her sleeves and got in the water. Hers is just one of many similar stories of service-related trauma, too many of which don’t have happy endings.

To help the women overcome their initial fear, Elsa tells them about Yemanjá and asks her to protect each of them by name. GI Josie is actively fundraising to build a residential ranch to allow these women and their children to transition back to healthy, productive civilian lives. I’ll post information on the website so you can learn more and, if you’re able, make a donation.

Maia: Okay, so you also related to me earlier this, this just intriguing and artful interpretation, tell me that the ocean deity’s name again [Yemanjá] this interpretation of what is Yemanjá’s storied vanity.

Elsa: So Yemanjá of all the deities is considered a very vain deity and I dance Samba, so there are several songs dedicated to Yemanjá and uh we use mirrors and use our hands very much like hula to tell the story of her adorning herself at all times and wanting to be adored and wanting adornments and in the world and in religion people have taken that to an extreme by getting actual offerings to Yemanjá in different parts of the world. In Cuba, people offer animals, slaughtered animals, and toss them in the ocean as as an offering to Yemanjá. In Brazil people build small boats and they put jewelry and coins, and food and lipstick and all these things, which break my heart in a way because they’ve taken a materialistic approach to the concept of her vanity. But in my widening and aware need for, to be a part of conservation of the ocean and beaches, I see that as just a very, very simple, powerful request from her to keep her beautiful. To let, let those things that already naturally adorn her, the animals, the kelp, the shells, those things that belong to her, preserve them so that she can just continue to be beautiful.

Maia: One of the reasons that struck me is that it sometimes seems to me in my optimistic moments that we are in the process of and I work with young people and it feels like we’re the process of turning some kind of a corner in which maybe out of necessity because they know that their material lives are not going to be what their parents’ and grandparents’ were, that young people are turning towards experiences as markers of success and a life well lived in a way that causes them to turn away from material possessions but that, that kind of value and it’s, it’s absolutely understandable why in a world where struggling for material well-being at the most fundamental levels, you would give, give up things which were so hard won on to the deity that was most meaningful to you and it, I can’t wait for other people to hear your interpretation because it’s not just the interpretation itself that is powerful but your willingness to, to understand, to see what this story has to offer you not in the way of dogma but as a way of connecting with the needs that are all around you as you move through this, with this world.

Elsa: Yes, yes, she’s not really wanting for people to give her more stuff but to see their own duty in approaching her, preserving her so that they themselves can get her life force in her and her life sustenance in return, so less is more. She already has everything she needs.

Maia: Yemanjá has every thing she needs but clearly our oceans are in trouble. Elsa’s story and her work with GI Josie is not rare but could be much more common. Many of us know from our own experience the healing power of water. The Blue Mind concept I mentioned earlier, along with the book that bears the same name is a great place to start if you’d like to learn more about research explaining the effects of water on our brain. In the coming weeks, I’ll post about some of the research that tells the story of what happens our water-loving experiences through a scientific lens and the work that’s underway to show that surf therapy can be more effective than other forms of treatment.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, we’d be most grateful if you’d post a review on iTunes. Our next retreat is scheduled for March of 2019. If you’re interested in learning more or if you know of someone who works with a business who might be interested in sponsoring this podcast and reaching our growing audience, please drop us a line at info@wavestowisdom.com.

by Waves to Wisdom

Interview: Joanna Frye

To listen to the interview scroll to the media player at the bottom of the page.

Learn More About Our Next Retreat in Nosara, Costa Rica

Nude woman painting in acrylic in warm tones

SHOW NOTES

Links also available in transcript.

Joanna Frye’s Website

180 South Trailer on Vimeo

Kyle Thiermann 2018 Interview with Filmmaker Chris Malloy

Conservación Patagonica

Tompkins Conservation

Bob Ross (yes, Bob Ross!) documentary

Information about painter Egon Schiele

Interview Transcript

Maia: My name is Maia Dery. This episode is part of a series called the Waves to Wisdom Interviews. The project is a simple one. I seek out people I admire— surfers, with what look to me to be ocean centered wisdom practices. I ask them if they’d be willing to share a surf session or two and then, after we’ve ridden some waves together, talk to me about their oceanic habits: about surfing, work, meaning, anything that comes up.

Joanna: Christians tend to isolate their spirituality from everything else. It happens on Sundays or in the early morning or some such and surfing, being in the ocean specifically, is like experience… experiencing God everywhere, all over, not just in my brain.

Joanna Frye is a visual artist and surfer who a few years ago decided to make a bold move. One of my favorite authors, Annie Dillard, once wrote

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”

Joanna wasn’t entirely happy with the shape of her hours so she left her day job to try to earn a living by selling her paintings and found object assemblages. She’s a devout Christian who loves to paint the female nude and now a dear friend from whom I’ve learned a great deal. Maybe, most important for me, I’ve gotten a long needed understanding of how much my fear has gotten in the way of my connecting with others who don’t think like I do.

Joanna played a crucial role in my own gradual, halting process of gradually overcoming a nearly lifelong fear of Christians, spurred on by the rhetoric of the the religious right combined with the fact that my own life turned out to be not so heterosexual.

If our interview gives you just a sliver of all I’ve learned from this courageous, talented, and creative woman, you’ll leave this interview with an abundant gift. Welcome to Waves to Wisdom.

Maia: If you are comfortable with it, tell us your name, age and how long you’ve been surfing.

Joanna: Okay. I’m Joanna Frye and 37. I’m not quite sure of the next answer— probably 12 years 10 years 12 years.

Maia: Ok, so you were grown up when you learned how to surf [I was a grown up]. Tell that story how did you decide you needed to learn that?

Joanna: I moved to California and had lived there for a year and was watching people surf and thought it was really cool and was sitting there and just thought why aren’t you doing it if you think it’s so cool? And I had friends that were in the surf industry working for Surfline and so they kind of, on a trip to Mexico to camp and they threw me on a longboard and pushed me into waves and that was that.

Maia: Did you love it from the very first time?

Joanna: From the very first time.

Maia: Did you catch a wave that first day?

Joanna: I did. I don’t know I if I stood up I don’t really have a memory except for being freezing. I had no wetsuit I was in a bathing suit in, near Ensenada freezing. I got hit in the head with the board, I remember that [Laugh].

Maia: OK, and then you came back to California and what happened next in your surfer story?

Joanna: Next, I spent, I had $155 in my bank account and I spent $150 on a 6’6” little thruster, cause I didn’t know better and that’s how it all began.

Maia: Wow. And how long did it take you to surf that thruster?

Joanna: Woo… that was a humbling experience but you know I didn’t know that. I just thought, I would stand beside it, I couldn’t sit on it, I would fall off. So I would stand beside it, wait for a wave to come, turn around get on and paddle. But I had a cohort, Marie, and so, and we were obsessed. And so we just went every day. I bought an 80s neon orange and black wetsuit from the thrift store that said, I don’t remember what, something across my rear, just ridiculous and had holes all in it but we went every day. And then I eventually was standing and I couldn’t think of anything better. Ah

Maia: And where were you living in California at that time?

Joanna: San Clemente

Maia: And you are from North Carolina, [yes] tell a little bit about that. Where are you are from and how did you get to California.

Maia: I’m from Kernersville, K Vegas , Kernersville, North Carolina, it’s a small sweet little town grew up classically with lovely parents and a sister and, you know, tended the garden and went to sports practices and eventually went to school at East Carolina and then after that did AmeriCorps so made my way to Texas and then Colorado and eventually California.

Maia: And had there been anything prior to surfing that was similar?

Joanna: No.

Maia: No? Surfing was unprecedented for you? [Yes] OK, it felt different?

Joanna: Um… yeah, it’s the only thing that I’ve ever had that I actively wanted to do all the time and checked in on to see if I could, constantly.

Maia: OK, you have any idea why that is?

Joanna: Because it’s the best thing in the world [Laugh].

Maia: We concur in that assessment! And I want to say that right now we are sitting on this long couch with a long boxer in between us, named Rosie who is very comfortable and she is in your beautiful living room, in this old farmhouse in Wilmington, North Carolina. And this, you are the first interviewee who I know already we are friends now for, how long have we been friends?

Joanna: Three years, three and a half years—

Maia: I can’t believe there was a time before I knew you.

Joanna: Me neither, it seems like we have just always been [LAUGH]

Maia: LAUGH it seems that way to me too so lets’s talk a little bit about how we met, what is your memory of how we met?

Joanna: I met you, I was working for the WB Surfcamp, and you were working for Guilford College and I was an instructor for the kids you brought down, I guess that was August, or something. And you were the most exuberant person I had ever met. But really what I remember is that, I mean I was teaching a group of kids, I remember one of them being more challenging than some others, but not really much more than that about that. And then you came up to me afterwards and said something along the lines of, in the parking lot, “You were meant to do this! You’re so…” I forget what you said but you were so appreciative of me and automatically complementary and I was just, “Oh! Okay” And I just remember going home feeling like a champ, you know?

Maia: You were a champ! And I remember that individual who was particularly challenging, and I think a challenged in that moment [right, right!] she was far outside of her, anything close to a comfort zone, and you were so patient and kind, and reassuring. I think she stayed in that water much longer she would have in the company of any other human being I can imagine.

Joanna: I don’t even really remember any of that but, but then I didn’t see you again for what, I don’t know, a year or two years after that and I spotted you… mind you, I hide from people, for whatever reason, generally, but I spotted you at the farmers market where I was working and yelled out, “Maia?” So out of character for me for me!

Maia : And so pleasant for me!

Joanna: Yeah, and there were and then we were friends.

Maia: I have a very intense memory of that day at the farmers market where you were working, we’ll get to your work in a minute but you were working and I was in, just in the absolute nadir of dealing with a recently broken heart and it was so encouraging to have somebody excited to see me who I hadn’t seen and to ask to surf it was so fun and healing just in that very moment even if we had never surfed together it was so good so I’m am forever grateful he called out that day.

Okay so so we went surfing that day and we instantly bonded over a million surf movies and books [oh yeah, that’s right] do you remember you’d actually gotten out of the water and then came back out…

Joanna: To tell you about 180 South.

Maia: Right, exactly.

Maia: 180 South is a documentary by Chris Malloy that starts as a pretty standard adventure story. A young white American man is inspired by his heroes— two men who are, in my opinion, heroic, the late Doug Tompkins and Yvon Chouinard. These two are best known as the founders of, respectively, The North Face and Patagonia but are celebrated in the context of the film alongside Kris Tompkins and many, many locals of the Patagonia region of South America, for their work on behalf of conservation. The Tompkins, especially used their own significant financial resources to create the largest conservation area in, Chile and Argentina, over 2 million protected acres of mountains, valleys and coastlines in the Patagonia region.

Neither Joanna nor I are accomplishing anything on this scale but, still, her choices have served as an inspiration to me as I embraced what I knew was the necessary but nerve-wracking step away from formal education and its regular paycheck to more directly pursue my own right livelihood.

Maia: Okay so we’ve been surfing together regularly and in some ways you have been a primary inspiration for me over the last couple of years in some unprecedented ways because I’ve been contemplating making a big change in my life and watching you and the way that you have courageously pursued your right livelihood in this moment I think has really allowed me to get my head and heart and eyeballs wrapped around an alternative to what I’ve been doing for the last 17 years which is teaching at a small college, which has been wonderful and it was probably time for a change.

Maia: Can you tell little bit about what you do in the world?

Joanna: Okay well, I’m an artist, it feels really good to say that. I paint. I love to paint. I do other things as well because paying bills is important but mostly I love to paint and do prints and block prints and things like that and I go to farmers markets or art festivals and I do wholesaling and whatever I can do at this point to kind of support the lifestyle that I love and get to work at home with my dogs and sit on the porch and surf when I want and work in a way that makes we not wait for the weekend and feel like my day is real every day. I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know what day it is. I just know that it’s the day I wake up and I make art and I surf somehow there’s enough cereal and, you know, and there’s usually salad [LAUGH] it’s good.

Maia: Fantastic, okay and how long has it been since you quit your day job to become a full time artist?

Joanna: I feel like this is year three, maybe I’m going into year four of, no I think three, of being just an artist, solely an artist. Um, yeah, wow, it’s working.

Maia: Did you. It’s working. You seem fairly well-fed.

Joanna: I am well fed.

Maia: Did you, were you always an artist as a child?

Joanna: Oh yes, I mean Bob Ross was my best, best friend [Laugh] every Saturday at 11, I could not wait. Yeah I mean I was always… I remember sitting out on the picnic table in the yard with the Q-tips and those little watercolor things and making, my mom was a French teacher and so there was and she’s artistic in her own way and she’s very interested in culture and arts and so we, in class, she was also my French teacher, cause I went to a small private school where she taught for a moment and we would do the Impressionist painters. And so I would sit outside at home also and just make these little Impressionist paintings and drawings and I loved it. I would draw in the sandbox instead of build things, you know.

Maia: And you studied art in school?

Joanna: I did I got my BFA in painting and drawing at East Carolina University.

Maia: How was that? Being an art student?

Joanna: It was great. The instructors were incredible, the facility itself, the studios they provided us with, our personal space, but also working with other students all together, music, fun, it was great. I didn’t really feel like I measured up to what I thought an artist was.

There seemed to be more angst and just trying, people wanting to get something out on canvas. And I just like the act of painting and I love beauty and so I didn’t ever felt like I quite fit in that way but overall it was wonderful. I’m so thankful that I chose art by default as my major cause I had to pick something, you know.

Maia: Can you talk a little bit about the process of making art and the way that you think it was different for you from your peers who in turn led you to feel like you might not be a real artist.

Joanna: I think it there were sort of two categories of people, people went into graphics or they stayed in the fine arts and I didn’t want to do graphic art. Is Rosie snoring going to mess this up?

Maia: It’s perfect, Rosie snoring is perfect, what could be better?

Joanna: But I didn’t feel like things were falling on canvas and it wasn’t I wasn’t edgy and it wasn’t you know I like classic figure painting and I liked light and line and the physical act of painting and specific intersections of line, it was a different thing. So there was a moment though, the painting hanging behind your head. Right there is the first painting that kind of fell out of me ever and it’s probably the reason I still own it. And that was a moment where I felt like my art, my spiritual life, it all intersected and came out physically and so maybe I got a glimpse of what they were doing all the time or maybe they were just making it up all the time I don’t know but it took me a while to get there but a lot of the times I’m not there but I still enjoy painting and then something I am and it falls out. I don’t think it’s anything wrong with either way but I did used to think there was something wrong when it was more technical… technical’s not a good word because it sounds like drudgery… but I love, I love that aspect of it. I like the technical part of it. So there was just two different ways for it to come out.

Maia: This is one of the profound lessons that that my students, my successful students have to learn is that if your work in the world to be an artist, your work is to make art whether you’re inspired to make art or not.

Joanna: Right.

Maia: In the same way that a banker does not have to be inspired. We need the banker to be a good banker [right] and you have to show up and hopefully the banker is inspired at times [yeah] but the practice has to unfold regardless.

Joanna. Right, and I find that when I’m forcing the unfolding I eventually am inspired by what fell out. You know, and it’s not because I was inspired and it came out, it’s because it came out and it inspired me and I was excited because of it.

Maia: This insight Joanna offered is, in my experience, invaluable. It’s not always easy to summon the courage to maintain discipline and effort , or even to justify continuing to expend resources on any creative or design process, especially when the outcome is unknowable. This can be true whether it’s an art project or a redesign of some aspect of your life or an innovation at work you’re working on, But Joanna’s right, continued creation does, eventually, lead the struggling creator to be inspired by something they come up with or notice, just enough fuel to help them plow ahead with energy and momentum and faith in that unknowable outcome.

Of course, it never hurts to have some help and encouragement along the way. Soon after she began catching waves regularly, Joanna met and older fellow named Dennis who she now refers to as her surf dad. Dennis took her under his wing, showed her some local breaks and began introducing her to other surfing friends.

Maia: So, you moved back to North Carolina when?

Joanna: Seven years ago, I think seven.

Maia: And did you actively start making art again before you moved back or after?

Joanna: Before. I did have an art show in California near the end. I did a big painting for Dennis of of Middles from a photograph that he loved.

Maia: What’s Middles?

Joanna: Middles is the break just above Lowers which is a famous surf break in San Clemente, it’s on the World Tour, it’s a beautiful, a beautiful break. So I’d done this painting for him and then I kind of, you know, it got me going a little bit and so I did some pieces and had a small show in a hair salon there but I also his best friend’s wife was making these shell bottle things that I do now and so I worked with her some just for extra money but I’ve always loved bottles and antique bottles and such, and the ocean and he thought we would be good pair and we were. So worked with her for a couple years and learned how to use a soldering iron and just kind of, I really love making those, it’s fun because they don’t represent anything about me it’s two beautiful things coming together, they don’t make me nervous, I’m not scared to show them to people. I enjoy that kind of art, or craft. So that kind of got it going and that was kind of, thank God, because that was sort of my segue into the art world cause it’s the way I make money, most of my money here. Now it might be half-and-half with paintings but it was the way I got to shift over.

Maia: OK, I’m very curious in part for selfish reasons because I’m in the middle of my own shift. Was that scary, to decide, “I’m just gonna be an artist, I’m gonna find a way to make this work?”

Joanna: Yes, but I think that every move I’ve made I haven’t known what I was gonna do, I moved to Denver without a job, I don’t, but I do a lot of praying about stuff and then when I feel, I mean in a real way and I know what peace is and when I feel that I just go and it’s fine. But it was scary. I mean, yeah of course there was, there were some elements where I just thought, well… but I felt like that I still have no idea what happens next and I still go, “Well, I’ll probably eat.” You know, it’s fine.

Maia: It’s truly amazing to me to watch you do that. Yeah, it’s quite something.

Joanna: I’m sure it’s terrifying to my family but… LAUGH.

Maia: Not only are you eating but the dogs, the two dogs that are taking up the that the better part of your heart [yes], I think, most of the time also…

Joanna: That’s so funny that you say that I yet they eat and I I go back and read my journal sometimes and I did this morning, from… maybe it was February and I had literally written down, “I’m so grateful that Rosie and Ruby have food today.” because, you know, sometimes it’s dicey.

Maia: Aww, yeah yeah…

Joanna: But they did.

Maia: So you mentioned your faith, praying a couple of times. I have several questions about that but I want to start selfishly again, which is to say that you are one of the people and one of the, and being with you this is one of the set of experiences that have allowed me to, I think for the most part, overcome what had been a lifelong fear, prejudice against, fear of people who identify as Christian. And I think I came by this very honestly. My mother was raised Catholic and then became active in the Women’s Movement a little later than many of her peers, but in the 70s and she was pissed off about Catholicism and a lot of the lessons…

Joanna: I can imagine.

Maia: Yes. And in retrospect, she raised us quite Catholic, it was secular Catholic but the world view and the way that we look at good works and all of that [right] really very, very similar, analogous even. But the college where I’ve taught for the last 17 years is a Quaker college and Quakers can certainly help one, some Quakers at least, somebody who’s been raised like me in this classic academic brat, left-leaning liberal, what’s-so-funny-about-peace-love-and-understanding mindset, Quakers can help you get rid of that silly demarcation line between the scary Christians who, who judge you and are mad at you for being deviant in any way and people who are safe but really, I think our friendship has gotten me to the point where now, when people say something like “I prayed on it,” or “I prayed about it…” and, you know, “My faith…”, fill in the blank, no matter what that faith is, I don’t have an automatic tense…

Joanna: right “Must flee, must flee…”

Maia: I better watch what I’m saying and not tell them too much about myself and

I guess my question is do you have any response to that?

Joanna: I’m just so grateful that that has been the shift. I mean I understand why people are afraid of Christians and I know you can’t see my fingers but there are air quotes like, it’s awful, it’s awful and every group of people has some extreme people that are bad to other people but it seems that Christianity has a huge group of people that are bad to other people and it, it’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking and it hurts people terribly and I don’t want to be a part… I’m not that, you know. And it’s good to have gotten a chance to kind of talk it out with you and it’s helped me be able to figure out what I, how people of my faith are affecting other people because I’ve, I’ve seen your trepidation about it and to be able to relate that to other people that are Christians that I now and say. “Hey, hear what you just said? Here’s how it sounds to people. It’s been a good learning experience for me too and it hasn’t… I just think it’s so important that. I want to start this part over… I just kills me this whole topic is kills me, breaks my heart about all of the stupid Christians.

Maia: Well, you know I can imagine I think, I can imagine how difficult that would be, you know to have something that’s such a defining part of how you view the world, and your role in it, and how to move through it in ways that are meaningful and positive… you know, how difficult it would be have people use your stories, your way of defining truth, to do the opposite of everything that feels fundamental about that tradition to you.

Joanna: Right, well they’re just using my, the label of what is true and good in my world and putting it on something else that they’re doing. And it’s so destructive.

Maia: So one one of the, I think, the reason that it’s been so powerful to me to be close to you and wrestle with this fear of people who label themselves Christians, or talk about Jesus, or talk about praying is that we’re both frequently immersed together in this literal higher power that I don’t have any trouble getting my head around, being the boss of me. And and just the palpable similarity or overlap in the ways that we draw joy and meaning and, and priority and purpose from that interaction with the water. It’s really given me a way to talk about ultimate things with you and even develop the language to ask questions without any fear. What is, if any, the relationship between your practice as a Christian and your practice as a surfer?

Joanna: I think for me surfing is an expression, oh my gosh, I’ll get a little bit teary. It makes me, it’s so, it’s like a gift. It’s… so I sit here in the morning and I read my Bible, and I journal, and I listen to music, and I pray and try to listen, try to quiet down enough to listen but when I go to the ocean, I’ll go, if there’s something really big, I’ll try to go alone and be alone, and usually hopefully there are no waves so no ones’ out but, in those moments. But for me it’s just gratitude it’s just like this beautiful thing that he’s made and also, in Christianity, you know, God is in everything and all of creation worships him, including the trees, including the ocean, including any, everything he created it, it’s his and it worships him and to be a part of it and be immersed in it and to feel, it’s kind of like mutual worship, me in the wave, me in the sea, me in that the whole thing is this beautiful present of joy from him to all of us and it’s more, it’s that. It’s not a spiritual practice it’s like a Thanksgiving almost.

Maia: Wow. That is wonderful. Okay, so interesting. So in that way surfing is really different for you than it is for me and because instead of having an I and Thou relationship with the ocean it’s almost like you have a “We” and Thou relationship. Oh my gosh that is so interesting. OK, good. So what about your art practice? How does that fit in to this? Cause these are, you are one of the people I know who is disciplined in this regular participation in these activities, really almost daily your participating in each of these activities that the overlap of those is fascinating to me. So what about art and your faith and your practice as a surfer.

Joanna: There’s so much hard happening in the world and to find the meaning and purpose in doing art and how’s that important and how to… so it’s taken me a minute to get there but I feel like I have and I feel like I’m created this way. This is who I am. And if I am meant to be, you know they always talk about the church as a body, it’s something that’s in the Bible a lot, about how we’re all important, that ear, the fingernail, the brain, the whatever. I’m the artist and so if I continue on doing the things that aren’t the artist I’m a, not serving my purpose and b, not being as helpful as I can be. So if I just get it together, calm down and go paint, I can actually serve the purpose that I’m created for. And um I think that anything that feels so, so much an outpouring or an overflow of who I am— anything that feels like it just naturally comes out, like painting, or surfing should happen because when I’m doing those things and in my spiritual practice consistently I feel like I can give to people instead of need from them.

Maia: There’s a kind of abundance, there’s even extra to give as opposed to a deficit [right] with this feeling of scarcity. So, in a way I mean this reminds me of, of what I’ve heard from a lot of Buddhists who essentially say you should not, you should not worry about generosity until you’ve figured out what is yours to give. You have to tend to yourself and quiet yourself and take some steps along on spiritual path…

Joanna: Right, cause otherwise it’s giving out of duty, instead of giving out of love.

Maia: And maybe potentially giving something that’s not such a gift after all.

Joanna: Right exactly [yeah] yeah your intentions matter.

Maia: Okay, fantastic so can you talk a little bit about painting. I know you love to paint, especially and I know something about the various kinds of paintings you make, and we’ll put some up with the interview on the blog. Can you talk about the various things you paint and how you feel about them?

Joanna: LAUGH- Yes, so all through school I was, I did figure painting my senior show, figure paintings, the whole thing. I did, when I started working here as an artist I did a lot of figure painting and it was well-received some times and sometimes I got dirty looks from women that would hurry their husbands along or I got lewd comments from men, “Is that you sweetheart?” you know, just disgusting people. And I also got asked to take them down at a Kure Beach market, so that was cool.

So I definitely shifted I didn’t want to carry them around. I didn’t want to be nervous every time someone came up to where I was working, it just wasn’t worth it to me and didn’t feel worth it, nobody— quit looking at my stuff like I just didn’t want to show anybody. I didn’t it’s hard for me already to put my work out there I don’t want anybody to look at me or my things but that’s not what artists do so… so that kind of ruined that for a little bit. And so I did a little bit of figure painting style but I kind of shifted into some work painting the ocean which I wasn’t really trying to do actually, now that I think about it. I had one hanging in the back of my tent, just for background noise, selling bottles and a shop owner, Airlie Moon, where I sell a lot of bottles, a beautiful store, asked me if she could have it in the store. And I said sure and it sold that week. So and that started that. I really enjoy painting the ocean. I really love painting the sky also, a lot, the clouds… It’s just a different thing for me than… figure painting is more, I don’t know where it comes from, I just want to do it.

It doesn’t make sense in the way I grew up. I’m sure my family was a little bit on edge, they’re a very conservative Christian family you know. But it’s just what wants to come out it’s what I want to paint, it’s the beauty of the line and it’s always women and they’re just beautiful. And you know in my belief system God created women last and finally as the crowning glory of creation, as the beauty, not only the beauty, and it’s just true. I mean it’s just true. When you look around I think women are stunning, they’re curvy and or not curvy but they’re not angular like men and and I just love the lines. So that’s what I do.

When I paint the sea it’s just a different thing. I enjoy it. I live here. I like to see how people get excited about it when they see it on canvas.

Maia: As I’ve watched other people interact with your paintings of this place and I have my own, you would say, spiritual orientation, has a lot to do with the way we interact with the more than human world and our relationship with place, including my own, is so bereft. It’s… we’re all so disconnected and I work very hard to roll in the mud, and splash in the waves, and I’m an aspiring animist, I really want to feel like I am continuous with the planet and all of of life and not-life and just the whole place. So, one of the one of the great joys for me of watching people interact with your landscapes and seascapes is to see them get excited about the place or to almost sometimes feel reverent about the place in a way that art allows them to do. Because they don’t cultivate this connection in the same way that dirt rollers and wave splashers do.

Joanna: Well and I forget that it’s not regular to them.

Maia: Right

Joanna: And that it’s special and maybe they don’t live here when they come and see my work may want to take them home and maybe it’s just a different experience for them.

Maia: Right. Interesting so you’ve got, there’s a small painting that you made that’s hanging in my living room, I am one lucky duck, that is a little bit of an abstract seascape and a little bit of a figure painting. Do you, what your feelings about that? That intersection because that’s rare for you to do something like that.

Joanna: Yeah didn’t I know that, I just in my head that’s a figure painting. [OK] That was the first painting, I’d been so scared of money not being abundant that I had been painting so much to try to sell and then I finally after many conversations with you, decided screw this, paint a painting and don’t think about it.

That was the first painting where I broke out of being a fear-based painter and just painted. And it came out beautifully, honestly, because and I didn’t mean to but I remember just focusing on instead of letting myself look at the whole painting, looking at each you know 2 square inches that I was working on only. Saying, do you like this? Do you like this? Do you personally, you like this? And then eventually stepping back and it was done. So it was just a new way to start and I still use that I’m working on a big 36 x 48 up there and I still get in tight in those little spaces and make sure I like the little space I don’t care if it’s a knee or an elbow or a cheek it, I have to like that space and it’s been an important thing to to carry through for me.

Maia: You love the figures the most? These are really what are in your heart to paint. Can you characterize your approach, your technical approach, your expressive approach, is there a particular art historical tradition that you feel like you’re riffing off of? Talk to me about those.

Joanna: Mainly for me it starts as a drawing with paint. Mostly it’s about line work and figuring out the proportions because I usually just make it up on the canvas. I just start drawing a lady but…

Maia: So you do not work from photographs or models?

Joanna: I do not. I’m not opposed to it, I like model, I like live figure painting and drawing. It costs money and I tend to work, I want to work alone. There are classes here but I just prefer to do it in my studio so I make it up as I go and then, but I have, I do look at a lot of Egon Schiele, I love his work. Some of it’s too erotic for me but I think he’s a brilliant drawer, brilliant. And so sometimes I look at his, the poses of his fingers before I start, because they’re so angular and so odd and I like things that are a bit off. And then I, I just start to sort of fill in and move things around as it happens, but it starts as a drawing.

Maia: So do you have a vision of what you want it to look like or does it…

Joanna: Sometimes I do— it never ends up being that but it always gives me a jumping point. I usually end up needing to mess the canvas up because the big white blank so’s scary that I just stand there frozen and do nothing. But if I can get something wrong on there, I can fix it and then I move on from there.

Maia: I would love it if you would say something about the character of the paint on the canvas because your work is representational but it’s also a little bit expressionistic, it’s not, I wouldn’t call it chunky, but you’re, you’re a brushy sort of painter…

Joanna: Yes, part of what I was saying about enjoying the physical act of painting is how the paint feels. So I work hard to get a texture that feels a little bit gloppy and easy to glide around. I like the way it feels coming off of particular brushes I think I use maybe three brushes out of the 60 I have for the most part. I want the lines to have different weight to them in different areas and then I want to come around those lines with some glops of paint and mush it around make a new line. Yeah, the paint matters to me.

Maia: Is there is there a way in which paint and water are at all analogous in your practices of surfing and painting? Do you ever feel that way as surfer when you’re making, because you’re really quite adept… when you’re making lines as you draw on the wave with your board, is there any overlap or are they just completely different practices?

Joanna: It feels totally different to me, it may be intrinsically I mean…

Maia: How is it different?

Joanna: Because in painting I’m using my brain so much. My eyes are analyzing and I’m, I’m feeling the paint through the brush but I’m, I’m watching it mostly and a lot of the time it’s me leaving something that happens, like recognizing something good instead of painting over it. Most of it’s editing and not… most of it’s editing or editing out or leaving in something that happened and maybe I didn’t have anything to do with it just kind of woops! look how that, you know, that mushed down the middle the brush and went over here, thank God that happened and then moving on. Surfing is just pure glee and it’s… the lines happen, well, they also happen by themselves, but they don’t feel the same way— painting is more frenzied, I think, than surfing is, in that moment when I’m really in sort of a flow, I just have to keep going, sometimes I forget I’ll think of a new color and forget to put it on my brush and just keep painting with the other color by accident and I have to make myself switch out whereas surfing is just expressive and more of a release.

Maia: I wonder about this because this is true for me, that the difference between making, for me it’s photography, and being in a state of flow when you’re making art, or being a state of flow in your surfing is that when you’re the creative force you’re the momentum you, you feel a kind of pressure, a kind of responsibility that you don’t feel when you’re surfing [right] you’re riding this other momentum…

Joanna: Right! It’s like I’m being painted instead of being the painter.

Maia: Okay so, the premise behind Waves to Wisdom is that there are some people in the world who have an ocean-centered practice and especially surfers whose regular involvement with the ocean makes them better people, allows them to figure out how they relate to the big picture or what they should do in their life. Is that a fair characterization of the role surfing place in your life?

Joanna: I think that surfing reminds me how small I am and reminds me that I’m not just a mind, I’m also a body and that it’s important to connect them. And so for me it’s less that surfing in particular shows me who I am or how I relate but that it, it just keeps me in balance, keeps me in check. It reminds me of the truth of that what you were saying about your life, I am a part of all of it and that that’s the waves and me both worshiping, we are all doing that we are a we and it’s good to not isolate. Christians tend to isolate their spirituality from everything else. It happens on Sundays or in the early morning or some such and surfing, being in the ocean specifically, is like experience… experiencing God everywhere, all over, not just in my brain.

Maia: The necessity of attention in surfing does not allow you to get too far into your head.

Joanna: Right you have to be present.

Maia: You have to be present. It’s for me, it’s a practice that allows me to connect in ways, with other humans, with the more than human world, it’s a practice that’s not rivaled by anything else that I’ve ever tried and there are plenty of things that I also love: I love hiking the mountains love swimming in streams, I like paddling boats and plenty of other activities that make me feel close to what is big, and large, and powerful but nothing like surfing where it feels like it’s part art, part spiritual practice, all fun.

Joanna: I’ve never had anything bring me so much joy, so much joy.

Maia: And we got to experience some joy this morning, didn’t we? How was that?

Joanna: It was so fun, so fun! Tiny, lovely little longboard waves, sunshine, water’s warming up, all of it. It was the beginning of summer.

Maia: Okay is there anything that you would like to say that we haven’t talked about? About surfing, art, life ?

Joanna: I would like to say that in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible the second verse says that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. It’s my favorite of all time because he was the original, he loves the water, he was just hanging out on the water.

Maia: That is so good. thank you very much. I really appreciate all of this and all of you, and I’m so excited to share your story and your art.

Joanna: Well thank you, this has been lovely.

To see Joanna’s work, learn about coaching with Maia, Waves to Wisdom retreats, or Conservación Patagonica park in Patagonia, visit wavestowisdom.com.

by Waves to Wisdom

I-Ocean: Part 1

I-Ocean: Ideas for a good life from Ethan and Martin

Part 1

In the years I’ve been acquainted with Ethan Crouch, he’s always struck me as a person whose life has exceptional integrity. His broad, bearded smile is quick and welcoming, as optimistic as the the ancient Ford Bronco that waits open-windowed and unlocked while he surfs. He clearly loves riding waves but his habit doesn’t have the smell of escape. He seems just as motivated and fulfilled in the work life that takes up most of his days, and in being a leader in Surfrider, an activist network that occupies another substantial chunk of his time. So many of us believe our lives are built of discreet, even disparate spheres we have to work to balance or, worse, juggle. Not Ethan. It’s one of the reasons I was thrilled he agreed to a Waves to Wisdom interview.

Near the end of our conversation, he cited Martin Buber’s work I and Thou as one of the crucial philosophical influences on his life, not just as an undergraduate studying philosophy, but in his current manifestations as an open hearted but determined activist, a successful business owner, and utterly stoked surfer. Listening to our interview, you know Ethan Crouch works hard. You hear the joy he derives from what he calls his foundational practice of finding connection through surfing. Ethan has spent his adult life building on that practice and, in the process, found integrated connection with his community, his values, and his life path.

From my perspective, a crucial part of the Waves to Wisdom project is learning from the nimble, creative, open-minded acceptance that surfing demands. Building on those wave-born habits when I’m dry and landlocked, I look for ways to offer to others what I glean from these hard won lessons. That means staying open to any wisdom that surfaces from the waves and this last interview left me feeling like Martin Buber was, clearly, calling.

Part of the clarity arose from the familiarity of Buber’s name. Martin Buber has been a favorite of some of the most brilliant, passionate, and loving members of the community of Quaker-influenced educators and students I worked among for 17 years. It was among this group that it first occurred to me that perhaps I needn’t be afraid of Christians, a prejudice I feel mostly freed from. To be clear, Buber was Jewish but his work is perpetually popular among a subset of Protestants, including many Quakers.

My own spiritual orientation is somewhere in the neighborhood of aspiring animism although, like almost every single other person I know, or have ever known, I’m culturally, hopelessly monotheistic — forever looking for the one true source or method or path toward truth. It took me a long time to really feel the wisdom of what I believe Ethan means when he says that truth is like water, when you try to hold it in your hands it just squeezes out.

I knew Buber might be a challenge for me but I hoped I’d be open enough to learn what Ethan found so powerful and, perhaps, find something I could keep and then share. Some enduring practice or pattern in his ideas about the sacred and how to cultivate it in our workaday lives. After all, that sort of habit, of nurturing the capacity for powerful connection to perspective and purpose is precisely the point of Waves to Wisdom.

Plus there was Ethan. His business’s LinkedIn page reports that they have a “passion for scheduling.” In my mind, passion and scheduling go together like hot fudge and scaffolding… huh? I had things to learn. This fellow student of salt spray clearly has some priorities figured out and if Buber helped him get there, I wanted in on it.

I took a deep dive into this difficult little book, I and Thou, and will post something more substantial about in a couple of days. In the meantime, I can recommend it to anyone who’s interested in being challenged by ideas and language that is perplexing, beautiful, and occasionally revelatory. I was grateful for my own late life capacity to accept that Buber’s explicitly religious language might offer something of relevance to my own ocean-centered existence and passion for providing inspiration and guidance to others.

According to Buber’s translator, Walter Kaufmann, one of Buber’s accomplishments is endowing the social sphere with a sacred dimension. It doesn’t take much mental steam to see that our social sphere could use a lot more of that dimension right now. A great book is a great teacher and, as is that case with all the great teachers, the subject of the lesson is life.

Kaufmann writes:

“A good book or essay or poem is not primarily an object to be put to use, or an object of experience, it is the voice of You speaking to me, requiring a response.” (p.39)

This “You” is sacred and, in some sense, divine. Some might even say it’s God. I wouldn’t, and it was a bit of a struggle for me when Buber did. Kaufmann acknowledges that it might be better not to use religious terms “because they are always misunderstood,” and then issues an assignment.

“We need a new language, and new poets to create it, and new ears to listen to it. Meanwhile, if we shut our ears to the old prophets who still speak more or less in old tongues…we shall have very little music… Let him that has new ears listen to it in a new way.” (p.31)

More than any other force in my life, the ocean has offered me new ears.

I’m listening.

by Maia Dery

Interview: Ethan Crouch

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Media Player at the bottom of this page.

To live life by the minimum standard and to build all my projects by the minimum standard, one isn’t going be very fulfilling for me as a person but two I don’t think it’s going to create a very beautiful world and that’s something that I want, that I want to live in, that’s something I want to pass on to future generations. So, yeah, I think we need codes and I think we need standards. I think they’re valuable but to live your life by checking that box and checking that box alone isn’t going to be adequate for us as a species to survive on this planet and isn’t going to be adequate for us as an individual to find fulfillment, much less connection with each other and all the other beautiful things that can occur on the planet if we do things right.
~Ethan Crouch

Interview Transcript

Introduction

Ethan: To live life by the minimum standard and to build all my projects by the minimum standard, one isn’t going be very fulfilling for me as a person but two I don’t think it’s going to create a very beautiful world and that’s something that I want, that I want to live in, that’s something I want to pass on to future generations. So, yeah, I think we need codes and I think we need standards. I think they’re valuable but to live your life by checking that box and checking that box alone isn’t going to be adequate for us as a species to survive on this planet and isn’t going to be adequate for us as an individual to find fulfillment, much less connection with each other and all the other beautiful things that can occur on the planet if we do things right.

Maia: I first came across Ethan through his work with Surfrider Foundation— he’s one of the people working hard to make sure the beaches I an so many others enjoy are still healthy, accessible places. A business owner, consultant, passionately committed surfer and board shaper , and he’s been generous enough to speak to several groups of my students in the past. His ability to articulate the ways in which his undergraduate training in philosophy prepared him for his financially and emotionally abundant work in the construction industry inspired more than a few of those students to think more broadly about the possibilities for their own learning.

In our conversations for this interview, Ethan cited the ideas of two 20th Century philosophers, Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas as powerful currents in his own life. Both of these philosophers wrote about ethics based on deep connection. I loved Ethan’s story of connection with the ocean and out shared community and his commitment to leave a more beautiful world in the wake of his life.

***

Maia: OK, if you are comfortable with it could you tell me your name, age, and how long you been surfing?

Ethan: Okay, my name is Ethan Crouch. I’m 36 years old and I’ve been surfing for, I, I guess pretty consistently for 17 years, 15 I don’t know [okay] 10-12 to 15 years?

Maia: So, it sounds as if you came to surfing in college?

Ethan: Yeah that’s when I really got committed to surfing is in college. And um upon graduation you know what I determined I wanted to live by the coast so that’s when I got, I’d say full time into the surfing so that was 2005 so10 years full-time I’d say, easily.

Maia: OK, and did you go to school near the coast?

Ethan: I did. I was fortunate enough to go to a school called Christopher Newport University in Southeastern Virginia, outside of Virginia Beach in the Hampton Roads Area.

Maia: What did you study in college?

Ethan: I studied Philosophy. The department there is a Philosophy and Religious Studies Department—my major ended up being, you know an ethics philosophy major.

Maia: At that point in your life did there seem to be any overlap between your surfing habits and what you were studying in your philosophy and religious studies classes?

Ethan: Hmmm. I’d say so. I was, you know, at that point I was still really learning to surf and you don’t just grab a board and paddle out your first day and then you know you’ve learned to surf. As you know Maia, learning to surf is an ongoing practice so you know initially you know that, my surfing experiences were you know I think more of an escape from the philosophical chaos that I was going through as an undergraduate student. You know cause I was kind of really trying to really learn a lot about myself too as an undergraduate 18,19 20-year-old kid. And so Philosophy was really helpful in that journey but but a difficult one.

But as I’ve kind of gotten older and gotten more comfortable and more understanding of who I was and, you know, was able to weave all the different philosophies that I was learning about into my own kind of, you know, concept of reality and as I got more more comfortable surfing it, it definitely changed, my relationship with the ocean and surfing. And um then it was more about connection. My experience with the ocean is a quiet time, a time of harmony and peace for me except when it gets real big [LAUGH] then it, then it’s a whole different thing whereas philosophy for me was, was an experience of seeking. Trying to, trying to get truth and trying to understand it and put my hands around it truth like so many things you know it’s like trying to hold onto water, it kinda keeps squeezing out of your hands. But surfing was was actually experiencing it, whereas you know in philosophy you’re trying to write it down, and trying to put it into words. And so that, that in and of itself I think is what really attracted me to the ocean and and why I can’t ever see myself going far from it because it’s become such a foundation in my life and a way to experience the world and not have to overanalyze it which is, is a tendency of mine as a person.

Maia: It would certainly explain your attraction to Philosophy as a major when you were an undergraduate when you were just a teenaged boy going into college did you know this is what you wanted to study? Or did you take a class and just discover it?

Ethan: Yeah, I had no idea. You know as a kid growing up I was very you know, sports focused. When I picked my courseload you know one night at the kitchen table at 18 years old, you know I had to sign up for a minimum of 12 credits and so I needed however many classes, you know four classes, however many classes to to fill the, the semester and came across Philosophy. And I said, “Oh, that sounds interesting, I’ll go for it.” And lo and behold I think my first day in philosophy after he passed out the syllabus and taken roll my professor ??? started to talk about the bicameral mind and the duality of our existence and all of a sudden my eyes just popped open and I was just like, “Hold on, what?” [LAUGH] And from there I just kind of got hooked and you know, I didn’t really know that world existed but I knew when I went to college I wanted to to study, I wanted to get into knowledge and I wanted to learn. Whereas in high school I got decent grades and enjoyed learning but it was more secondary to all the other things that it is growing up as a teenager, and a high school quarterback and all that stuff is kind of secondary. So I wanted to get away from that and and I wanted to learn in my undergraduate and and I quickly realized you know Philosophy is the study of knowledge itself. You know, that whole dialogue of Truth and Beauty and Love and all these things is what really sparked my attention and grabbed me and you know that’s what I came to school for so I went for It and I’ll figure out what jobs and all that stuff, you know means afterward. Right now I’m here to explore and search and find out who I was and find out who the world was.

Maia: I have been for for some time and still am an Instructor at a small liberal arts college similar to Christopher Newport, although farther from the coast, tragically but, but it strikes me that that freedom that you allowed yourself to just explore the world and young Ethan is rare in my experience among young people and has gotten increasingly so in part because at some point they seem to have internalized a message about practicality and that you need to be practical and go into a field even as an 18-year-old that will earn you a job and a decent paycheck and that and, we’re doing this interview right now in your beautiful home on (Carolina Beach, and you don’t seem to be somebody who has struggled at to employ himself with a philosophy major can you speak to young people about majoring in something that they’re not going to, and I hear this all the time, this is a direct quote, that they’re not going to “use?”

Ethan: Yeah that’s, that’s funny. But you know I see that, cause you know I’m I’m a consider myself a pretty practical person as well. But gosh you know one thing I’m, like I said, 36 years old now and I’ve been in the in the working world professionally for 10-15 years and what I’ve learned about the business world and economies this day and age with the international way economies work is there’s so many jobs out there that you have no idea even exist, especially as a 17-18, 20-22 year old kid.

For example and I’m a I own my own consulting firm now in the construction industry doing a very specialized niche of work and I had, I didn’t even know this job existed. I didn’t even know the skills that I use on a daily basis, existed. So you know when you’re 18-19 you think okay I can be a doctor, I can be a lawyer I can be a fireman, or teacher you know or the 5-10 jobs that you learn about. But the reality of the economy is that there Is bazillions of jobs and titles and positions that employ who knows, skills that you don’t even know about.

For me and in choosing a Philosophy degree um I unwittingly gained some amazing skills that I feel catapulted me in my career in the construction industry. You know, believe it or not. Philosophy as well as that search for truth and searching for meaning and understanding and all that, I also learned how to critically think. I learned how to read. I learned how to write. I learned how to express complicated emotions and complicated logical theorums, both orally and written. And so I developed I think a really Interesting and valuable set of skills through that pursuit of knowledge.

And lo and behold I get out of my undergraduate and, you know the way I paid for my undergraduate was, was swinging a hammer as a carpenter. And so when I went, I finished school and I was like you know, I guess I’ll figure out what I’m going to do in life but in the meantime I’ll keep paying the bills as a construction guy. But then all of a sudden I realized amongst my cohort In the industry that you know I could communicate with customers really well. I could communicate with the boss really well. I could write reports really well. I could look at a complex set of problems and analyze them and figure out the best solution and prioritize what we had to do for the day and you know all of a sudden all these things and I learned in philosophy literally catapulted me in my construction career and before I knew it I was the manager. And I was the boss of a, you know, a company that was flying me all over the world, meeting with diplomats and all sorts of things that without my philosophy skills I wouldn’t be able to even communicate with these people that were much my much more my senior at this point too.

Maia: How old were you at his point?

Ethan: Well I guess I really got an international work at 26 years old. By the time I was 28-29 I was the General Manager of a $30 Million construction company that we’re doing you know international construction projects all over the world. I still have found that the critical thinking and analytical skills, I think it’s really the analytical skills that have really enabled me to be a success. Especially now I’m hired to come in as a third-party consultant and analyze huge swaths of information in, you know projects that have been running for many many years and create you know a con, concise narrative as to causation of delays and damages that you know, my clients have incurred and to be able to put that into a concise report. That is, you know almost ironically verbatim like what I learned as an undergraduate Philosophy student.

You know Masters degrees I think can be much more specific. So for me for example I went back and got my Masters degree in construction management after I decided okay I was at this point, I think I was 24-25 when I went back to grad school, I worked full time during my grad school cause I had to pay for, you know I had to I still had to pay my bills. But at that time I’d worked in the field, you know I’d had a job for a couple years and started to realize I felt comfortable working in construction and felt passionate about construction I love building things. So I decided okay, this is what I want to do, I feel right here but at 18-19 years old to decide what you’re gonna be or want to do and then try to build your undergraduate degree around that I think is completely impractical and unrealistic.

Maia: So at this point you are still in an active surfer, can you talk a little bit about how your life as a surfer fits in with this busy life as a construction consultant?

Ethan: Yeah surfing is is my foundation. Surfing is about connecting with a wave and that wave’s connected to the ocean and the ocean covers two thirds of the world and is one of most powerful forces on the earth and it helps me stay grounded. Nothing will humble you more than getting pummeled by a wave especially If the wave’s, especially if the wave’s 2 feet tall.

Maia: It’s still an ocean. Even with little waves.

Ethan: So it’s so humbling you know and that’s something that I found great value in. You know, sometimes I get out the water or I get out in life and think, “You know, I’m doing great” and “I’m killing this surf session and catching all these waves!” And then all of a sudden you know you get flipped over on your head and fall and you know everybody’s laughing at you and you’re laughing at yourself and you just realize how silly the whole thing is anyway.

So that’s why I think It’s been so helpful for me to again, kind of act as a foundation in life, it’s that humility It’s that connection to the to the world to the planet and to the forces beyond for sure. And also get physical exercise. I think that’s something that’s really really important and I think something as a society we’re we’re failing on especially as people get older in life. I’m 36 and I plan to surf till I’m dead [me too] and and physically the reward that that’s yielded me you know I feel like I’m in shape and it makes my arms strong and you know my core strong and um which helps back pain issues that are often caused by sitting in a desk all day and typing away at the keyboard. So yeah surfing is is a huge foundation for me and a way to unplug and a way to plug-in at the same time.

Maia: And you are active and have been for some time with an organization called Surfrider? For for anybody who’s listening tell them a little bit about Surfrider as an organization and your role in it why you’re drawn to work with them?

Ethan: Yeah, absolutely. Surfrider Foundation’s a really really unique nonprofit. It’s a really truly grassroots organization that has 80 some chapters across the US and I think 15-16 different countries across the world now. It’s been in operation for over 30 years, started in and Southern California with the mission of the dedication to the protection and enjoyment of our oceans, waves and beaches through a powerful activist network. So, essentially Surfrider is all about trying to protect our coasts and encourage what we like to call non-consumptive recreation. You know there’s other ways to have fun besides going to the mall and going shopping. So Surfrider that’s the “enjoyment” component to the mission in that we’re all about encouraging folks to get out and experience those coastal resources, spend time on the beach, spend time in the ocean, you know, sure surfing but you know beach combing and and just spending the day with your family experiencing the ocean and then therefore protecting those resources.

Maia: One thing I’ve noticed last couple of decades and even more in the last couple of years is how many of us seem to want to engage meaningfully with some kind of social or political or environmental process but we get overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. I really wanted to know about the steps Ethan had taken that got him from being a college kid falling in love with the ocean who just had some initial impulses to protect it to who he is today which is, an effective and powerful change agent in our local community.

Ethan: I got involved with Surfrider real casually as an undergraduate student you know I was quickly falling more and more in love with the ocean and I think as a somewhat conscientious person I also kinda of quickly realized, or, wanted to conserve that resource you know for myself and maybe for my kids one day and for posterity in general. I know how much enjoyment and pleasure and happiness that the ocean has brought me. It just seemed to then make pretty easy sense to want to protect it. And so I started out again real casually participating in beach sweeps, you know one of the most common things our chapters across the country do is organize beach sweeps— just getting people together to go out and and walk the beach and collect trash and you know that which will subsequently reduce marine debris that that ends up you know being eaten by fish and then injected in our entire you know food streams.

And so as I got more into surfing and more slowly more involved into wanting to do more to protect the ocean, I got more involved in Surfrider. After moving to Carolina Beach in 2009. We, the local chapter started to do some efforts around Wilmington and New Hanover County to reduce the amount of single use plastics that we were using and so I was like as a member Surfrider doing more more research about what that was and quickly started to learn about you know some of the travesties that we as humans are doing to our oceans with the tons and tons of you know marine debris that we’re creating you know, every year and so I got more and more passionate about getting involved in the organization and became a board member, executive board member, and after two tears as an executive board member, became the chair for the local chapter and acted as the chair for the local chapter for 4-4 and half years and currently I’m on the executive board as a board member at large.

And again with Surfrider, I mentioned that it’s a grassroots organization it really is and that was what was inspiring to me are chapter you know we saw things locally that were impacting our beaches and Surfrider empowered us to tackle those issues and and gave us resources and knowledge and experience on how to tackle those local issues that were affecting our beach.

Maia: Many of you might have heard about the growing problem of plastic in our waterways and oceans, leading to plastic in our food. If you haven’t check out the wavestowisdom website for resources. As Ethan describes it the cigarette butt problem is an annoyance, and it is but research indicates that it’s are much worse than that.

Most of these butts are composed of cellulose acetate, in other words, plastic. Once the cigarette has been smoked the butt contains toxins that have been shown to be lethal to aquatic life in concentrations as low as 1 butt per 2 gallons of water.

The UNDP reports that

“Each year, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered worldwide, by far the most littered item, with a significant percentage finding their way into our oceans and onto our shores.”

For whatever reason, it seems people who wouldn’t otherwise litter don’t have the same compunction about throwing them on the ground or beach. As honorable as beach sweeps are, they clearly weren’t going to solve the problem, even on a hyper-local level.

Ethan: For example at Wrightsville Beach, just a barrier or two island up north, we were in our periodic beach sweeps one the biggest things we are finding his cigarette butts every time we go out and one a number one items we’d collect at every beach sweep at our beach was cigarette butts and we’re kind of getting sick of it to be honest and so we said well, well let’s see if we can do something about curbing the litter practice and and we quickly learned that it was very difficult to enforce litter for cigarettes because they’re so small they blend into the sand and we didn’t want to burden lifeguards and or police with trying to monitor every smoker on the beach and so through the Surfrider network did research what are other beach communites doing?

And, you know the other 80 some chapters around the country said, “Hey well we actually were able, had the same issues that you’re facing and were able to pass a smoking ban to prevent smoking on the beach strand and we found it was really effective in subsequently reducing the litter we found, of cigarette butts.” We said, “Oh that sounds like a great idea. How did you do that?” And so they are able to share those resources with us as well as you are our national organization providing legal background and legal review of the town’s bylaws in the state constitution and the state ordinances that that would enable legislation to be passed or not be passed and so we were able to, use that experience and leverage it locally to pass a smoking ban at Wrightsville Beach. And you know it took many years and many effort, lots of effort to get it done but we did it. You know and without Surfrider and that support and that legal support and that experience, you know, a group of surfers probably wouldn’t have been successful at doing something like that.

Maia: So many people I know tend to struggle a little bit with being overwhelmed at the scale of problems, but that kind of local-global partnership seems like a very good approach to empower people locally, as you say, and also keep that global perspective and network.

Ethan: Exactly, exactly I think it’s really unique in that way and then there was all these tertiary benefits that it happened, you know, it starts to build a community and I think our chapter now is just that you know it’s this strong community of people that are fishermen, moms, hard-core surfer-dudes, beachcombers retirees, high school students that are all passionate about the ocean. Surfrider’s brought us together and I’ve developed these amazing relationships with people that, that you really bond with when you’re working towards common goals. And it’s tremendously helped me in my career as well, you know, Surfrider, empowered me to go speak at town council meetings, and you, know, when you can speak to a packed house of 200 people that you mobilized to come to a town council meeting to fight offshore drilling and can speak authoritatively on the issue and convincing to your council members, you know, that’s a really good skills to get, to learn that, that’s helped me in all variety of situations in life.

Maia: That shared passion thing is such an important and effective agent to combat some of the loneliness that I see a lot of my students face when they go out in the world and they have trouble with the loss of that community. Activism and companionship through activism certainly is a powerful force.

Ethan: It really, it really is and that happened by accident that was the neatest thing, you know. Somebody at one of our chapter meetings, Kenny Rinks, who’s a great woman, brought that up and ti was like, duh! I’d been working so hard on like legal reviews of different town ordinances and you know she’d mentioned that at one of the meetings and I just kind of looked up and looked around the room and was like “Oh my god, I love you guys! We’ve worked so hard together for so many things, you know, wow, I really do love you all. And so that’s been something really neat that was total surprise.

Maia: Another way the ocean connects you to something greater than yourself. [absolutely] Yeah, so powerful.

Do you have anything to say to, you’re 36 right? And a lot of my friends I know who are about your age are in the process of starting families of their own, do you have anything to say to the young parents based on your experience of being parented because I can tell you that the undergraduate experience that you described which is one in which you are active and have agency, is unusual and. As an educator, I would certainly like to see more young people feel like they’re in this for themselves and what they can learn about who they are and how they fit in. I wonder if you have anything to say to parents what worked for you as a child in terms of being parented.

Ethan: Well, my parents were strict my parents were real strict and my parents made me work you know and they reminded me constantly of, you know, the roof over your head kind of conversation but um it would seem like a roll your eyes burdensome kind of thing as a young kid you know having to do chores. We had a wood stove and my job you know from 14 on was to make sure all the firewood was chopped and there was a stack next to the front door, and a backup stack inside, and a third stack out in the backyard and you know and that was my job to keep that fully stocked at all times during winter. And you know it wasn’t a chore that I got paid for or a pat on the back for it was, you know, you’re part of this family and you know we need that done.

And so it was kind of old-school in that way I grew up in suburban America but it was like you know in that mentality was kind of the Life On The Prairie mentality like we need to stay warm so keep the fire stoked um and so my parents were really strict in that regard and that, that I needed to support myself financially as well, if I wanted special things you know. I mean, obviously they paid for all the groceries, they paid the mortgage, they paid for everything but if there was something special I wanted, you know, I had to go earn it. You know I was a snow, snowboarded a lot when I was growing up and they’re like, “Great! If you want a snowboard, save up some money and buy a snowboard!” And I did it and I love that snowboard, I still got it to this day because I cut grasses and I shoveled snow and saved birthday money you know worked for my buddy’s dad’s construction company in the summers and the weekends and scraped money together so I could buy a snowboard and that, you know, that taught me, I think, so much. And it made me very self-reliant and I think in this world self reliance and resiliency is the key if you’re gonna be successful in anything and not just go crazy because it’s tough out there. We’re all connected more than we ever were but we’re all more distant than we have been as a species at the same time and that upbringing, you know, I think encouraged me to be able to take care of myself and gave me the skills and you know learned how to save money and learned how to work hard and I think that, coupled with obviously the knowledge and experience that I gained through undergraduate and also in the work world, but that work ethic is what they really I think instilled in me and I’m so thankful for them instilling that work ethic because then when I hit the professional world it was just of course we work until this thing is done. I’m not gonna work till my time’s up, I’m gonna work until the project’s done. I don’t, I didn’t, you know, spend my one hour chopping wood, no, I spent as much time as I needed until the wood was all chopped. You know that’s reality, you know, that’s how you become successful in the professional world whether it’s IT, or construction or pharmaceutical or whatever industry.

Not, “I gave it my best effort”, you know. They weren’t satisfied with that. At all, at all. And so, I appreciate my parents for those things and I paid for the majority of my undergraduate. I did get some student loans and they helped me with books and so forth now but to answer your questions about your students’ experience, it was liberating for me in that if my parents were paying for the whole of my undergraduate degree they would probably have a significant decision as to what major I was gonna take because they were paying for it. Whereas, for me, I was paying for myself so it was, “I’m here, I’m paying for it, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to pursue.”

Maia: We’ve surfed a couple of times now recently audit’s been been a full North Carolina range last week, it was, it’s cold now it’s wintertime and it got hollow enough and fast enough that I and my longboard thought better of it and got out of the water and, and today it was, what do you think, maybe 6-8 inches maybe [laugh] 6-8 Hawaiian…

Ethan: I don’t know, a couple of the sets looked pretty big thinking you got the pretty big one today.

Maia: I got the shin high, double over… I overheard this fascinating conversation with you and one of your usual surfing friends where you were talking about one of your jobs or a tendency in one of your jobs and you were referring to some engineer who was based in the Midwest who is running calculations and making recommendations about a way to build something that is completely impractical, really even impossible for the local conditions and this is something that in my own personal life, my professional life, one could even say my spiritual life, I have run into over and over again which is that standardization is sometimes the enemy of truth and I wonder if you have anything to say about that because you are in a business that must have to deal with global standards. I wonder if you have anything to say, kind of on the same theme of how the local and the global are intersecting today?

Ethan: Yeah, that’s an interesting question you can continue to use the metaphor of construction you know you need codes and you need standards to achieve the minimum requirements to build X, Y, or Z, a house, so that the house doesn’t fall over but it’s often, I think, forgotten that the building code is just that, it’s the minimum standard that can be applied across, over a vast variety of environments in different scenarios but to try to take that approach of the code is the right way to do things all the time is, you’re gonna fall short, you’re not not gonna be able to build your project. And so, you know, you need to for this, in the piling example, you know, you need to understand the local conditions and how the water table interacts locally with our sand as a pile’s being driven and you know the conditions that are in the Midwest are completely different so it’s important that there’s a minimum code in that there’s a minimum code in that we need the rigidity of the structure to stand and not just fall but to try to apply that to every scenario you know just doesn’t work, it’s not constructable but that’s, you know, I think the same thing goes for life too, you know, that there’s minimum standards that I think we as a people need to take, you know when interacting with one another, interacting with the physical world need to take, you know, when interacting with the physical world whether it’s, you know, “I don’t litter.” That’s a minimum standard, you know, that’s not everything else is okay. For me life’s been, you know, “Hey, well let’s organize a litter cleanup,” not just don’t litter, you know, so to live life by the minimum standard and to build all my projects by the minimum standard, one isn’t going be very fulfilling for me as a person but two I don’t think it’s going to create a very beautiful world and that’s something that I want, that I want to live in, that’s something I want to pass on to future generations. So, yeah, I think we need codes and I think we need standards. I think they’re valuable but to live your life by checking that box and checking that box alone isn’t going to be adequate for us as a species to survive on this planet and isn’t going to be adequate for us as an individual to find fulfillment, much less connection with each other and all the other beautiful things that can occur on the planet if we do things right.

Maia: You’re a small business functioning in an economy whose rules look pretty destructive to the environment at the moment. Do you have any ideas about how businesses should, could act in this moment when it seems and I’m certainly no scientist but it certainly seems like we’re at this crux point?

Ethan: In terms of like my business in construction or business in general?

Maia: Any way you feel like you have something valuable to contribute.

Ethan: Well I love the tangible reality of construction that’s one reason why I enjoy the field so I’ll stick with that metaphor. You know, there is the right way to build and there’s a wrong way to build. You know, and minimum code standards aside. There’s there’s still best practices, you know, there’s best design practices, there’s best management practices. There’s best construction techniques and we have an obligation I think to, to choose the best or at least pursue the best and the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to do things isn’t an effective model to be a sustainable species, you know, if we just build everything and use everything that’s disposable and has a lifecycle of 20 minutes yet persists in our environment for hundreds of years it doesn’t make sense and is gonna cause the collapse of our species and our planet. I feel very strongly about that, that’s the truth you know there’s only so many resources on the planet, there’s only so many landfills and they’re all filling up. And what’s happening subsequently is that you know, more and more debris and more and more stuff that we’re done with and throwing away is ending up in our oceans.

So we need to build sustainably, we need to build durable products that are reusable, that can have a long life and I think also add value to your own life. If you surround yourself with the disposable things that I think has a huge impact on your, you know, the way you live on a day-to-day basis as well as the way you interact with the physical world. In the construction world we’re starting to get better at I think to be honest in some ways you know we have programs like the LEED Certification Program that defines you know best practices for sustainable construction that include site selection and best materials, locally sourced materials in all sorts of things and that’s growing, you know a growing trend in the industry and I think things like that need to continue to grow. There’s also, I think, better planning, things like urban infill mixed use development can be beneficial to communities as opposed to just rampant sprawl where it’s fast and easy to build a single-story strip mall but then you have to, next door to that, build more houses and then next door to that build office space and then we’ve taken up three times the footprint that we could have taken if we created a mixed-use structure. So there’s best ways to do things and in terms of how we can manage, our planet and manage our companies, you know, that’s what, what I see and what I try to pursue. And in our company we’re lucky in that we’re carving out a niche with public facilities cause that’s something I’m really passionate about and I enjoy. similar to the beach. We’re working on several public parks and so we can build parks that preserve green spaces in in urban environments and also encourage people to be active and you know so there’s lots of exciting really cool things that we can do as businesses, as corporations and stuff if we, again you know, pursue that quality, pursue the best and not just accept the minimum code standards.

Maia: For behavior as well as construction, right?

Ethan: For behavior, for construction, for, you know, how you manage your business and the policies you set up in your corporation, all of the above.

Maia: Sounds like it’s pretty important that your corporation is privately owned and not beholden to the shareholders to maximize their profit?

Ethan: Yeah we start to, I mean for me. certainly, I am a small business and I can pretty easily set those standards and then try to encourage that amongst my employees but I’ve got hope. I’ve got hope that, you know, shareholders can also see the value in those types of organizations. But I’m seeing it, you know from the outside, I’m seeing, you know, good companies be successful and add value to shareholders and so it can be done, you know I’ve got hope. If the shareholders will demand it as well um, it works both ways, you know, you can maximize profit and create a sustainable company and not just you know sustainable in that you no don’t use Styrofoam cups in the coffee maker but a sustainable company that’s not 100% committed to 15% growth every year. I think that’s a trap of capitalism that a lot of us fall into in our pursuit of businesses and shareholders and also life though. I don’t think we have to grow 15% every year you know. Why don’t we sustain our growth and why don’t we sustain our company and develop long-term relationships with our clients and just work on trying to do the best we possibly can for them. And growth or no growth if you’re doing that and you’re providing a good quality product and it’s, your doing the best you can and doing the best for your clients, our businesses has been very successful by doing just that.

Maia: Is there a philosopher whose work is still important to you or influential?

Ethan: Yeah I’m in there lots, lots gosh I’m in but to put on Emmanuel Levinas still always will weigh heavily on me you know his concept of totality and infinity I think has really shaped my worldview.

Maia Has it influenced do you think your thinking as a surfer?

Ethan: Hmm, yeah?

Maia: Or has your experience as a surfer and contributed your understanding of Totality and Infinity?

Ethan: A little bit for sure you know. Surfing is a tangible experience with infinity, you know, and that’s a powerful experience and you know him and Martin Buber really start to I think delve into that, and it impacted me spiritually as well as as a person in general but that experience with otherness and the Thou, and Infinity and things well beyond ourself, you know surfing you know goes hand-in-hand with that experience. You know just sitting out, looking out on the horizon and just seeing as far as you can see, vastness it makes me feel really small. But it also inspires me in some really unique way and I don’t know what it is exactly but it’s an experience with infinity.

Maia: For more information about Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Buber, the Surfrider Foundation, Waves to Wisdom coaching and retreats, visit wavestowisdom.com.

by Waves to Wisdom

Podcast

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~Brad Turner

~Brad Turner

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" ...it was a very difficult time but then you know it's when things are falling apart is when you really get a chance to make things happen so as I tell somebody when I took over the position, I'm tenured, I got my citizenship and I don't give a shit."

~Dr. Antonio Puente

~Dr. Antonio Puente

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"...when I surf I could just sit there, and I know I'm black, and I can tell by some of the stares, people are going, 'Oh, look, a black woman.' But I can just sit there and shut down for a bit. That's nice."~ Surf Sista Mary

Show Notes and Further Reading

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"If you have the chance to get closer to the ocean that’s gonna be life changing. Maybe you’re not living the life you wanted or always expected to be, I think the ocean might help you a little bit to decide here’s my priorities now and this is what I want to do."~ Dr. Nathalie Arias

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~Kevin Pipin Carillo

~Kevin Pipin Carillo

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~Ruth Coleman for Michael

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"... my whole neurological being, body, mind, and spirit, is enhanced when I get in the water. And when I come out my perception, my storytelling about any particular "problem" is, it's just redefined.

I don't sweat the small stuff."

~Elsa Rivera

Show Notes

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SHOW NOTES

Interview Transcript

I-Ocean: Ideas for a good life from Ethan and Martin

To listen to the interview, scroll to the Media Player at the bottom of this page.

~Ethan Crouch

"...when I surf I could just sit there, and I know I'm black, and I can tell by some of the stares, people are going, 'Oh, look, a black woman.' But I can just sit there and shut down for a bit. That's nice."
~ Surf Sista Mary

"If you have the chance to get closer to the ocean that’s gonna be life changing. Maybe you’re not living the life you wanted or always expected to be, I think the ocean might help you a little bit to decide here’s my priorities now and this is what I want to do."
~ Dr. Nathalie Arias