Coffee spilled from our mugs as we drove over the big tree root at the end of the driveway. It happens every time Eli and I go to check the surf in the mornings holding steaming cups we have filled to their very brims. And every time, we laugh and say to each other that we need to get travel mugs without handles so that they’ll fit into the cupholders in the truck.
We pulled up to the beach and walked to the edge of the dune, mugs of coffee now half-full and with drip stains running down their sides. It was a sparkly morning; the ocean bright and glinting, a fragment of sunlight in each wind-cut facet. Knee-high waves broke and peeled along the edges of the broad, dry summer sandbars. The wind blew wisps of hair over our eyes as it moved gentle and slow over the warming land and out to the green and blue water.
The swell was supposed to be bigger. The reports had us expecting lines of head-high waves sweeping in from the south. There was a feeling of unmet expectations; that grumpy little kid sensation that comes up when you don’t get what you think you want. We watched for a while, taking in the conditions, and reminded ourselves that we were standing at the very edge of the Earth on a beautiful, calm, warm morning that began with hot coffee and laughter. We have learned that the capacity for fun does not exist in direct proportion to the size of the waves.
“Should we go out?” I ask.
“Always,” says Eli.
We surfed those knee-high waves for an hour in our bathing suits — there was no need to zip ourselves into wetsuits. The little waves would climb up from deep water, backlit by the low morning sun, their colors shifting as they grew in height from deep green to the pale translucence of sea glass. They peaked, sparkled, and broke into cascades of white across the still surface of the shallow water.
To catch the little waves, we crouched low on our boards and nestled right into the steepest spot, built speed, and glided across the little green walls of water with an excitement and energy far bigger than the waves themselves. We ran our hands through the curling edges of the waves, our fingertips skimming the surface. The soft quilted texture of the sandbar, visible below our boards in the clearest and shallowest parts of the waves, patterned like wind-blown dunes in a desert. It was mesmerizing.
We goofed off, fell down, and shouted when we caught a wave. There was a simplicity in it. A lack of pressure in the absence of any seriousness or threat of consequences. This was lighthearted and effortless surfing.
Heading home, I thought about the importance of the small things. The morning coffee, the dune-top check (to make sure the ocean is still there), the laughter. In surfing, as in life, we tend to put a lot of stock in gathering our joy and meaning from big waves. But the days of big waves are few and far between. There are many, many more small wave days.
