Sean O'Kane

It’s been a long time since I tried to learn a new skill, especially one unrelated to my career. The only thing I can think of is getting better at cooking. But that has been more of an ongoing process. It didn’t have a designated beginning.

Picking up surfing did. Just a few weeks after we moved to North Carolina from Texas, I took my first (and so far, only) lesson. The waves were probably 5 feet and it was gusty. I could see my instructor weighing the tradeoffs of collecting his $90 (plus tip) or waiting another week. His name, for real, was Jimmy Fallon.

He ultimately decided it was fine and dragged me through the water like a toddler, and I’m thankful for it. I’ve gone out about a dozen times since on my own. I’m still laughably bad. Real mid-life crisis stuff. But everything you hear about surfing is true. “Surfing’s the source,” as the kid shop clerk says in Point Break.

I don’t care that I’m bad because every time I go out I learn something new — about the way the waves sequence and break, about my fitness (meh) and balance (actually not bad), about the inherent social hierarchy that, frankly, I mostly try to avoid.

I’ve told people I won’t take another lesson until I get to a point where I feel like I’m not learning something each time out, and that’s probably true. It’s hard enough to make the time to get to the beach with a kid and two dogs to tend to and a job that requires a lot of attention.

In fact, it’s the spontaneity — maybe serendipity? — of it that I think attracts me as much as the learning. So much has to align for me to make the 15 (okay, 20 or 25) minute drive. Is the kid in school, or asleep? Are the dogs sufficiently fed and tired? Do I have some deadline to hit, or is there some breaking news that needs to be addressed?

The overlap in that Venn diagram is small, but when it hits, it’s bliss. The weather and quality of the surf is secondary, almost meaningless. I’m not good enough for that to truly matter anyways. Flat or rough, busy or quiet, there’s always something new to learn.

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This is one of those lessons that feels essential to teach my son, and also one of those lessons that’s hard for a kid to grasp for an assortment of reasons. Five — almost six — years in and that feels like the core of parenting. Looking back on the things you’ve learned or wish you’d learned sooner, while also looking forward and trying to cut them in on some kind of secret about life.

It’s tempting to let that collapse into just “trying to be better than my father, so my son can be better than me.” Personally that equation was always going to be easy to solve. My father wasn’t the worst person in the world but he was deeply flawed. Half of my memories of him involve courtrooms or lawyers. Deep down I know he meant well, but the medium is the message.

That’s left me with what feels like a blank slate, which makes me shudder sometimes; I’m always better with constraints. Too much freedom and I struggle for momentum.

Surfing is nothing but constraints: the tide, the angle and speed of the wind, the water temperature, the endless inscrutable conditions under the surface that help determine the size and shape of the wave. Not to mention all the constraints of daily life, as mentioned.

Maybe that’s really why I like it so much. It’s an opportunity to focus (almost) completely on the task and conditions at hand. No phones or Chrome tabs or noise.

But it’s also just a thrill to be in the water, to notice the pelicans in the air. To stare out over the board at the horizon and think, as I always do at a beach, about how a passive observer of Earth who is removed from our gravity-defined sense of “up” and “down” would see me as something sticking out the side of the planet, a tiny pock mark at the edge of a big blue splotch.