It’s December, and I and myself preparing for another whirlwind Christmas. I’m thinking about when I’ll t a surf in, as I ping-pong from one meal to another, from Dad’s place to Mum’s, to Dad in-law’s place to Mum in-law’s (Christmas is never simple these days, not since divorce became acceptable). No doubt I’ll and time to get in the water though. You always do. For some of us it’s the only tradition we uphold: Christmas Day surf with the old man.
Time is a funny thing. These days I always feel like it’s getting away from me. Each year hurtles by quicker than the last, and before you know it, it’s high time to list a new set of resolutions, even though you’ve got no idea what last year’s were or if you accomplished any of them.
Looking back on my year, I’m wondering, did I surf enough? Did I spend enough time doing the things I love? As the days, months and years roll on, the only thing I know for sure is that time spent surfng is never time wasted. No matter how many things you’ve got on your to-do-list, when you’re out there, sitting in the ebb and sway of the big, shifting Pacific, everything else sort of fades away. You feel beyond time.
Paul Kelly, a die-hard cricket fanatic, in his book How to Make Gravy, says: “I’ve heard of a Chinese folk belief that we have a certain number of days allotted to us in our lives but any time spent fishing doesn’t count. It’s an appealing notion, the idea that some activities are outside time. Watching or playing cricket’s like that for me.” I like to imagine that surfng is also an activity that belongs to this category.”
