A temple, a shrine, a curated gallery of surf nostalgia and ephemera exists in my hometown. Nothing else like it in the world.
The walls are hung with boards and photos retracing past waves, trips, riders, and rides. Whispers are in the wax-scented air. "Look at that Merrick, Slater surfed it." "The rails on that Caster single are so buttery."
High-end, craftsman-quality boards are displayed for sale. A Mike Griffin (completely logo-less of course) stands next to a Pavel stands next to a Pendo, which stands next to a Miller, bookended by a Larmo.
On the other end of this row is a Mirandon Surfboards La Jolla Twin Pin, manifested over half-a-century ago. Its nose the vanguard to a tail that is cultured with curves and contours surrounding two long pins, each with a thin and elegant fin protruding. It is simply sumptuous in its affect and evokes so many questions. How might this feel underfoot? How did the ideas that led to this design germinate? How was a board like this perceived in its day of inception by the surf-culture of the time? Fascinating.
Yet they walk by. Surfer after "surfer" simply walk by. They are on their way to the boards in a different display area- less expensive, more heavily marketed. Palatable. They seek wetsuits and wonder aloud, "Do they sell SUP's here?" No. Their eyes pass right over the Mirandon miracle.
For some reason, this strikes me as broadly analogous to surfing writ large. We wander past the moments of miracle so frequently in search of the convenient, conventional, comfortable, and consumable. Our search for the platonic ideal of "surf" disallows our full enjoyment of the less ideal daily "surf" moments. Our hyper-awareness of others demands a performance from our surfing rather than an immersion.
I was surfing my little beachbreak on an old egg yesterday. No rocker, some roll through the board- definitely of a certain era. It was clean and cold- much smaller than it has been. Three seals, one a small juvenile, saw me and came to investigate. They swam around me and then under me, away. They just swam by.
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