ITCHY FEET-ITIS
The insatiable desire for exploration has been engrained into my psyche. Do all humans have this intrinsic programming? Or has growing up with a world map for a rug had something to do with it? My inner navigational faculty is mapped by the location of waves. I didn’t just see countries as I stared at my rug; I saw a list of waves I wanted to surf before I die. And not just surf them but experience those waves doing what they’re famous for.
The list was expansive: Pipeline, Teahupo’o, Deserts, Super Suck, Greenbush, Macaronis, Skeleton Bay, Thurso East, Riley’s, Mullaghmore, Mundaka, Maldives, Raglan … it went on.
In retrospect, did staring at my carpeted world map, every day for years on end and imagining what it’d be like to experience those waves, play an integral role in manifesting as reality? That’s the way gurus describe the universal law of attraction, don’t they? Maybe, the years of assuming the feeling of gliding along those different waves had everything to do with it becoming reality. Or maybe it had nothing to do with it at all. Either way, I’ve been fortunate enough to tick almost all of these waves off (Fiji is the pebble in my shoe demanding my attention; one day I’ll get there).
As surfers, we look at the ocean through a magnified lens. Like a bee seeing the world in the ultraviolet light spectrum, surfers don’t just envision water and waves as