I have always been grateful that Sam and Lois never batted an eye about keeping my surfboard in their garage. It was one of the biggest reasons I was able to get the board since I don’t live in the LA area. But I also knew the day would come when I would have take the surfboard out of the garage for the last time, not to be returned once it was placed in my car.
As I write this, they are moving to assisted living next week in San Diego. We were able to see them for a short time on New Year’s Eve and retrieve the boards (we gave Greg’s board to our friend Greg who was excited to be the recipient of it as he hopes to learn to surf soon). No matter how much time we have with people, it never feels like enough and it’s hard to believe that nearly ten years have gone by since the board was made for me.
I have written about how I currently can’t ride it because my shoulder pops out and I’m not sure when I’ll have surgery to repair (besides also not being convinced that surgery will actually keep it in place). But we continued to take it down to the beach on many of our trips and used it in Chelle Summer photos. I also hoped for a very flat ocean day because I knew I could at least get out on the water with it and listen to the calm water lap against the balsa wood of the board.
Instead, we’ve made the board part of our home decor, resting it against a wall in our living room, and some people have said it looks like it belongs (exactly how I pictured it in my mind). We’ll use it for Chelle Summer photos, after all, it is part of my logo, and one day it will return to LA and the ocean.
However, the board is just a metaphor for a big change not just for me but for Greg, too. For more than ten years I stayed with Sam and Lois (adding Greg to the mix seven years ago) and it was like our “other” home. I call them my California parents and appreciated how much we felt not just welcomed but allowed to become in some way part of the fabric of their home and their lives in Palos Verdes.
Several months ago, my mom’s candy thermometer broke when I was making prickly pear candy. Quite honestly, I freaked out, thinking my world would end, that my hard candy wouldn’t be the same. But after trying the second new thermometer, the candy came out better than before. I felt as if I’d been kicked a reminder– sometimes you’re asked to give up something for something better.
I don’t want to say that anything could be better than the fun and times we had with Sam and Lois. I am experiencing a grief I can’t talk much about right now. There’s so much to this and they and their house– and the surfboard– are a huge part of who I am today.
Yet I also know that sometimes you must close doors to open new ones, bigger ones. The hardest part is trusting as you stand between those two doors waiting for it to happen. That’s where I am now.