Riding the Wave

Whether you are tuned in to your surroundings or spend most of the day hovering in the stratosphere like me, the evidence all around my town and I’m sure yours of College Move-In Day has cropped up unmistakably in the past week.

Ah yes, College Move-In Day: That magical day in the year when out of state vans and station wagons piloted by frugal, watch-tapping fathers and their overemotional first mate mothers tote boxes of clothing, blankets and towels, enough imperishable food to fill a modest bomb shelter, hand me down appliances, Wal-Mart specials and other last minute impulse buys. It’s easy to separate the first-timers from the two, or three year vets here. By sophomore year, that load of crap in the trunk and backseats is significantly diminished. By junior year, even that once emotional co-pilot can’t wait to book out of there as soon as possible. Senior year we are left with not but a seasoned undergrad unloading a few totes and bags from his or her own car, grabbing a red SOLO cup and finding whatever dorm the booze is flowing most freely from.

I experienced all four, starting with a Fall convocation signaling a new journey right up to the Spring graduation signaling the end and all the move-ins in between. This year I watch the end of summer tradition from the sidelines. What a precarious position it is.

I think at the end of things, after one part of our lives is book ended we find ourselves waiting on the cusp of something new, expecting it to sound its arrival with some form of pomp and ceremony.

What happens next is something akin to surfing, I think. I’ve never been surfing per se, but I suspect that if I did, I’d find myself floating aimlessly on my board for a while. I envision myself tossed around by this unrelenting force far greater than my own, expecting it to lift me upright.

It’s unconscionably awkward: You find yourself trying to balance on a shaky and unpredictable surface. You think you can’t do this, it’s written all over your face. You make a halfhearted attempt to stand, your knees wobbling and your arms outstretched and flailing like the crooked, derelict wings of a WWI fighter plane. They showed you how to do this on land and you envisioned yourself in this role many times. The designs on the board you rented most befit you and your personality. You know where you want to be, how you wish to look, Hell you even bought the skin-tight wet suit that the real surfers wear. But still you wade timidly on your stomach, letting the water take you or worse yet, you’re still standing on the beach.

Up until now you familiarized yourself with something, a self-actualized version of yourself with a lifestyle you want, in a world you wish to inhabit. You know its logistics, who else lives there, and where you want to fit into it. But up until now you’ve only theorized, you haven’t really, well, done much. Bruce Lee once likened practicing martial arts in this sheltered, reserved manner to be like learning to swim (or...surf?) by wading through dry land. He frequently echoed the maxim that knowing was not enough without applying, and willing not enough without actually doing.

Our own will is the pretext here; the earth doesn’t tremble, stars don’t fall from the sky into our hands, and koalas don’t crap rainbows of golden inspiration in our brains. It’s a process that we must start, and a process that we must trust.

You have to sort of feel the ocean out, FIND the wave, and hitch a ride onto it. At the risk of falling, you hop seamlessly from one wave to the next actively looking for the biggest one, the one that will take you the farthest, challenge you the greatest. The link from wave to wave, this chain of events is the process also known as the rest of our lives. Some waves were only meant to carry us so far, as a means to the end of something else. What you envisioned as the perfect wave may yield to an even greater one on which you may surf higher and happier.

This sense of wave hopping, as with going into the water, and paddling towards the waves before actively rising to your feet and riding them out only happens with a self-directed mindset and the constantly renewed sense of what you want to do and who you want to be.

Alright I’m sure most of you are getting the picture here, and I’ll spare anymore philosophizing. I bring it all up not for the sake of producing the 8th Habit of Highly Effective People, but because it’s a situation a lot of people, including admittedly, myself find themselves in after College. I guess I could have simplified this whole post into that one, time-honored, battle tested Nike mantra: JUST DO IT. Let us writers write, let the musicians rock out, and the artists paint according to our voices and visions.

Well, back to the now. My first article for Connecticut Creative Magazine is up and can be viewed either at the link to the right, or at one via my Facebook. On second look it could be a bit better, but I’m a bit attached to it, as It’s the first sort of professional thing I’ve done so, go easy on it. More will come. Got some creative stuff flowing well in the works, and a job interview soon I’m terrified about, so things have been going well by my watch. Let’s hope I can ride this one out without falling.

It starts with a small wave, and an attempt to stand on your own.