Surfing the Strand – Michael Thompson – Challenges of Youth which influence our Adult Self – Divorce and Community – Destructive Grudges and Friendship – Careless Memories of Duran Duran
So softly the season of summer of 1982 faded and so, with the sunshine the fashionable colours of baby pink and baby blue and baby yellow darkened…
A dark brown skinned teenager paddles out into the surf at The Strand. The Sunset Session, we called it. He turns in smiles, delight reflected in his dark eyes. His teeth white and his eyes white, exaggerated against his dark skin. His delight is in the action, the activity, the adventure, the movement of surfing.
He is a sports man.
My delight is in the dance of colours and shapes and patterns. My delight is in the setting of the sun light reflected on the surface of the sea. Patterns dance which my eyes behold, but behind my eyes the patterns enhanced trance, from orange fire to gold lame, from sounds of the seeds in African percussion, to liquids of love, swimming and surfing, embracing my inner world, becoming my outer world, my perception creating the becoming being which is my reality.
I am an artist.
“I’ll race you to the back line, Geoff,” enthuses Michael.
Fixated by visuals, I am transfixed, already so much movement in the dance, I have no desire for movement. A race is superfluous. A competition is irrelevant. I do not need a name, an ego, a destiny. I am here. Already. I am now. Already. I have achieved The Now. Already.
Already there are perhaps clues that Michael and I have lots in common, have a lot of mutual appreciation, admire each other a lot despite our differences, but do not have enough to continue being best friends.
Michael, races away and is already sitting on his surfboard behind the waves when I get to the waters edge. I begin the cold christening of padding out. Walking from the beach and wading out until I am waist deep into the surf. Throwing my surfboard forward, flat on the surface of the sea water so that I can leap to lie on top it, with my arms in the correct position to paddle most effectively, with my body weight far back enough to lift the front or nose of the board up and keep it above the water surface so it doesn’t lead me under, but at an angle so that the energy of the wave will be met by the buoyancy of the board and the force of my paddling to project me over each wave. All this is just paddling out, the beginners strokes, my bru, now to get to a place behind the breaking waves where one can observe and determine where the best not necessarily biggest swells will break with regularity and in the best shape, and with the least crowds to share or hog the waves, so one can get as many enjoyable waves as possible in an beneficial effort to excitement ratio, my brahtjie!
Surfers make it look so easy? Yaaah, but that is only because practice and passion make perfect!
With precise timing before the next wave crashes, launching myself, strong teenage arms in support, I then make a mad dash by lunging those adolescent arms with steadily growing muscles over each swell, speeding or slowing slightly to time going over instead of under each wave before it breaks against the orange skyline. This timing is to conserve energy for riding waves rather than paddling against them and the sea currents. This timing is built into the subconscious, by thousands of milli-seconds of photographic images in the mind, of each wave, it’s clues in colour and curve, to communicate with your instinct to determine your next move in the surf.
“Paddle!”
Michael heckles advice with encouragement.
I am too slow to make it over the wave. “Failure?” I splutter. I gather my muscles and bunch my air to prepare to duck-dive! The practiced manoeuvre of duck-diving is pushing the nose of the surfboard under the powerful wall of foamy broken wave, and holding the surfboard underwater until the power of the wave passes over your back, then quickly pushing your thigh or knee on the tail of the board to direct the nose to the surface again. I pop up again to the surface of the sea. I gasp for air.
The vast powers of the ocean… one of my first challenges as a young man.
Michaels challenge.
He challenged me to race, to speed up. I chose not to compete but to slow down. He challenged me to the external exercise in the competitive external world. I chose the internal experience inspired by the colourful external world. I did not rush to accept the challenge of the race. I did not stand up to the challenge. His enthusiasm to engage with another person was a challenge to my passion for internal adventure. He had not insulted me. I felt insulted. We were each expressing our needs. Neither of us was having our needs met.
“I feel unhappy.
I feel so sad.
I’ve lost the best friend,
That I ever had…
I’m going through changes…”
* “Changes” by Black Sabbath
“Hey, Geoff! Why the dark side?“
Could Michael not tell that I was struggling with the extended delays of my parents divorce? Could Michael not tell that the more the delays, the more the pain experienced? Could Michael not tell that I did not want to feel any more pain, that what I long for more than anything is an end to this pain that had now become my pain. Could Michael not tell that until there was a final decision made, an agreement, a divorce, I would have no conclusion? Until that agreement, I could not decide how I felt, or that the importance of this finality was going to be how I would experience my future. How I would explain my future… As a child of divorced parents.
How could Michael understand? He came from a Catholic family, from collaborative support of church and the community, where divorce was not common. He came from a supporting family, a large celebration of two boys and two girls and two loving parents.
Could Michael not tell that what I longed for more than everything was a large supportive family and the sense of a surrounding community.
How could Michael understand?
I had never told him.
I had never spoken about it to anyone!
Michael did understand something. That something was not as it should be.
“Geoff. Are your parents divorced?” he asked one night with deep sincere concern.
“I don’t know what to answer.”
The trouble was no longer brewing, it had boiled already in 1979, it was boiling over in 1982 but still not yet over… We had been buddies for years. But I had never spoken to my best buddy, to anyone else, all bottled up inside my being… brewing… one day it will boil over.
Did I ever get a full explanation?
I am a teenage boy. The teenage years are a period traumatised by personal challenges, of finding one’s place as a child, now as a man, in the external world, while still nurturing the internal child of curiosity and joy. I am an artist as alive in my internal and eternal fantasy world as I am uncomfortable in the external world of competition, consumerism and constant challenge.
“When we ask the question: “How do we come to be who we think we are?“ A significant part of the answer is found in the conscious, learned influences of our family and the environment we were born into, but much more of our lives will be deeply governed by the powerful patterns we adopted in order to survive in the larger world.”
** James Hollis
“Hey, Geoff! What took you so long?“ Schoolboy competitive nature.
“Michael. I am here. I enjoyed the journey.” Sensitive defensive nature.
Could Michael not tell that I was struggling with what was simply normal schoolboy competitive nature?
“Waiting for waves is okay…”
“Most people spend their lives waiting for nothing.”
That really got me. I felt I was being reprimanded for enjoying myself in my own time. He was just doing what boys do, challenging each other to encourage each other to challenge the boundaries of experience challenge their bodies ability, test the levels of fear and push the limits of achievement.
I resented having to respond parrot fashion to the catchy consumer classic one-liner adverts of the fashionable self-gear clothing brand, Instinct. It was against my instinct to swallow my irritation and stay and surf. My instinct was my learned survival behaviour technique… to run away. Not to physically run away but to stay and hide away emotionally. I had begun hiding from others. But eventually had hidden my negative emotions so deeply that I myself could not even find them anymore. Instead of taking the next wave in, sitting on the beach, in chosen solitude and having a good healthy sulk… I did stay, but I did not surf. Instead of channelling my anger into action, Into aggressively paddling and pulling radical external manoeuvers on the punchbag of the waves were nobody would get hurt… I turned my anger inward, to boil in my blood, vessels of contained hurt and hatred, to hurt only my own heart. Anger turned inwards against oneself becomes depression. Instead of confronting Michael with my own taking of offence, I believed even my best friend did not understand me. Instead of talking about it, letting the parrot out of the cage, I dropped the keys to my heart into the shallows of the sea. Instead of sharing, I believed that even my best friend did not care. I threw caution to the South-Easterly wind and locked the depths of my heart.
Michael was innocent.
Everyone and everything was guilty. I was seeking judgement from everyone, and everything was bearing witness. The courtroom was my formative experience and environment, my primary carers just living their lives and doing the best they knew how. My survival method was to withdraw from life, where I could not run the risk of feeling more pain. My retreat was a prison where I could not run from my collection of pain. Like my music collection, I could sift through the painful memories, the Boy George, the Karma Chameleon and the Victims, the George Michael, the Careless Whispers, the Duran Duran, the Careless Memories, and carelessly condemn the careless behaviour of experimenting experiential adventures of adolescents and fellow friends.
My chains were the clinging onto of destructive grudges. My release was in the blaming of others.
How dare he? Was I not the bravest of all the boys to have the courage to first speak to the beauty named “Lisa With The Lips” from “Durrbhaaan”? And yet you, lascivious lad who calls himself a class mate, had the distain to betray me and actually kiss her!
“So soon, just after you’ve gone, I feel my senses sharpen.
But it always takes, so damn long…
Before I feel how much my eyes have darkened.”
*** “Careless Memories” by Duran Duran
For you, my friend, for your future friendships and your present health and happiness, do you also have to be cautiously aware of your Careless Memories?
Geoffrey Wright
Written: 2021/06/03 and again 2022/10/07
London, United Kingdom
Copyright © Geoffrey Wright
SONGS and QUOTES
* Song: “Changes” by Black Sabbath, 1972. The English heavy rock band began a new musical genre by exploring the dark allure of peoples fascination with the dark side.
** Book: “Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up.”
2005, Page 63.
by USA author James Hollis.
I have yet to figure out why my friend John van Niekerk really recommended that I read this book… I have finally given up trying to figure out why it still took me decades to read it!
*** Song: “Careless Memories”
by Duran Duran, 1981.
The New-Wave or New-Romantic band from Birmingham, England rivalled Spandau Ballet from Islington, the area of London where I live 40 years later in 2022. By fusing music with fashion and style, these bands set the bar exceedingly high for how your 1980’s teenage lad had to present himself to the ladies. Ridiculously high! Yachts, designer suits, flicked fringes, bronzed bodies. Their success was boosted by what was then an ignored and new medium of the music industry… video on MTV! Image was from then on an essential ingredient! Without it you would never get ya a sweetheart! As adults my contemporaries may cringe to be reminded of our musical passions as teens… however, Duran Duran is performing this month in Las Vegas and a ticket will cost ya and ya sweetheart together over $1000.