Endless Session, Day 323: I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends
With the right wing down for the count and plagued by immobile boredom, my entertainment in the form of the infamous Amber Jones, one of my best friends and a walking comedy show, turned into a few silly girls putting on wetsuits and heading down to the water’s edge.
We had been in the surf shack for hours. Hours of watching Amber try not to eat shit on the indo board, and a few more spent planning the future and gleaming back into the past. My small studio attaches to a one-car garage, which I converted into the ultimate surf lair, with funky art spotted across the walls and boards lined up against sturdy racks. An indo board lays in the center, and while wetsuits are dripping dry hanging against the red brick were a fireplace used to be, I sometimes sit on the couch in the lair with the door open working from my computer, while friends and neighbors pop in and out, practicing their balance on the uneasy wood plank.
I was going to wait for Chris Philip, my neighbor and a skilled waterman, to get home from work to push me into a few waves, my injury not at the point yet to where I can move my right arm. But instead, Amber volunteered, and seconds later she was helping me get a springsuit around my arms.
The tide was high, and Amber, who is not a strong swimmer, was holding onto the surfboard for dear life while I sat on it waiting for a wave big enough for her to push me. After a few minutes and realizing that Amber’s wide eyes were showing fear rather than excitement, I helped her get to the beach and proceeded to very carefully do my best to one arm-paddle into a couple sets. When you are guarding the entire right side of your body from any sory of movement, and it takes momentum to get into a wave. things get tricky. It wasn’t pretty, but we called it a session and dissappeared back into the surf cave, trading more stories about boys (or lack thereof) and melting into the day.