PirateLooksAtFortyRearviewMirror

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It's about life - not "lifestyle"

A PIRATE LOOKS AT FORTY
(IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR)

I had a strange experience the other day, not unpleasant at all, but out of what has become quite ordinary for me.

It had been a day of juggling work requirements and an outside committment which I had neither sought out or was able to escape. I figure at this point I'm trying to do three full-time jobs, two of which have about a three-month deadline to complete, and the other (primary) is something like a 3-6 month fill-in for someone out on a leave. There is obviously no capacity to do them all well, which would be fine if I was just some kind of burnout or slacker, but I'm neither. I'm feeling like the term "dinosaur" is perhaps the most fitting, but I don't like the long-term forecast for dinosaurs.

The day had ripped by to the tune of about 13 hours, I'd gone nowhere fast, and found myself drivng north through Malibu on my way home. By all rights I should be a middle-aged surf bum, divorced, broke, in debt...chronically full of booze or whatever other Fun Ticket is out there in this day and age. But call it luck or call it fortune, I'm neither.

I don't really feel like I'm comfortable with the notion that I'm a valuable cog in the Big Machine though. I may well be one, of course, but I don't feel like one. As I go through the days and see and communicate with other people at their jobs it becomes apparent that many are nothing more than machined blocks, while a realitive handful seem like they are functioning on some otherworldly level of awareness. Those are the fun people to deal with. Get on a roll with folks like that and you wind up feeling like you can perform monster special effects right out of some Asian martial arts movie - able to move mountains once in a while.

I'd had a long day this particular day, with other long days ahead for months to come. I was driving by Zuma, an important place from various parts of my late-youth and young adulthood, and found it fairly wind-free. I hung a U down by Trancas and drove back until I found a nice open space between Towers 12 and 13. There were still a lot of people around for a weekday at that hour, but not many in the water.

I'd guess the waves to be around 2-3 foot, but with no standup surfers in that little stretch I was hard to guess if the largest waves were any bigger. I didn't have a board with me for security reasons, given the place I was spending that day, but I did have my wetsuit and fins and my homemade paipo board. Turned out the water had warmed up quite a bit and was very comfortable. The waves with more south than west in them had nice faces, and I managed to cram quite a few into a short session. It was even warm enough to sit on the beach for a while after I got out, watching the people and birds and waves.

Later that evening I was doing dishes, thinking about all the work I needed to accomplish in the near future, all the work around the house and yard, all the work in my personal business (here!)...I was starting to get what HST calls The Fear. I put on old Buffett cd on and hit "Pirate Looks At Forty", my long-standing favorite. I hadn't listened to it in perhaps years.

I have too much happening in my life these days to get that ruminative right now. I know those words by heart, but this day I had a different set of eyes and ears. I realized I'm not "200 years too late" for anything, certainly not in the surfing world. I may not fit in to whatever is current, but the feeling isn't that I'm behind any curve - the "occupation's just not around" maybe, or possibly it just isn't here yet. Maybe it's just one of those summer moments, when life and the world seem limitless. We'll see.