Surfer Girl

Posted by DJL on Aug 2, 2014 in Poetry | 2 comments

There is something both beautiful and sad about Barbara Crooker’s poem “Surfer Girl.” And it’s something beautiful and sad that I’ve experienced this past week at our cottage on Lake Otsego. Getting old, someone said, is not for sissies. And my siblings and I can testify to the truth of that statement as we live into the reality of being middle-aged. Water skiing – my substitute for Crooker’s surfing – didn’t hurt this much when I was half the age I am now. Nor did running…or sleeping on the less than perfect mattresses that furnish the cottage. And, quite frankly there are a lot of things like that. And so as I watch my kids embrace the lake activities we did it brings a a number of memories that are simultaneously delightful and just a tad piercing. We are not who we once were, and there are undoubtedly fewer sunsets for us to enjoy in the future than we’ve already enjoyed

And yet I don’t think Crooker would trade where she is. And nor would I. There are things I know now that I didn’t then that make a world of difference. And there is, in a somewhat mysterious way, even more joy in watching my children do things I once did than I experienced when I first did them. Life, I think, has challenges and joys at each stage. And while the past can be hauntingly beautiful and a nice place occasionally to visit, it’s no fit place to live.

So as I read the poem, I enjoyed both the beauty and the ache it evoked. But then I looked around, saw the people God has given me for company at this stage of my life, and could only give thanks.

Surfer Girl

I’m walking on the beach this cold brisk morning,
the bleached sea grass bending in the wind, when there,
up ahead, in the pewter waves, I see a surfer in his wet suit,
sleek as a seal, cutting in and out of the curl, shining in the light.
I’m on the far side of sixty, athletic as a sofa, but this is where
the longing starts, the yearning for another life, the one
where I’m lithe and long-limbed, tanned California bronze,
short tousled hair full of sunshine. The life where I shoulder my board,
stride into the waves, dive under the breakers, and rise; my head shaking
off water like a golden retriever. I am waiting for that perfect wave
so I can crouch up and catch it, my arms out like wings, slicing back
and forth in the froth, wind at my back, sea’s slick metal polished
before me. Nothing more important now than this balance between
water and air, the rhythm of in and out, staying ahead of the break,
choosing my line like I choose these words, writing my name
on water, writing my name on air.

Surfer Girl, by Barbara Cooker, from More (2010).