Torn

I'm sure every surfer experiences the silent inner conflict at some point. The injured body, painfully expressing a deficiency that renders it less than optimal, less than capable, potentially ready to fail. The inner child, the heart and soul that loves riding waves more than any other activity under the sun, clamoring to go: "The waves are good! Wanna surf! Wanna surf! Waaaa-naaaa!" And the logical mind, urging restraint: "Listen to the body. Give it a rest and recover to surf another day. If you go, you could end up in worse shape and have to sit out even longer."

It's like a devil on one shoulder, and an angel on the other. But hard to tell which is which.

Last Friday, after more than seven years of back pain from a surfing injury and countless less invasive but largely ineffectural measures, I let a doctor inject cortisone into the facet joints along my lumbar spine. He said it would almost certainly lessen the pain within a few days. He said there would be no restrictions on my activities, including surfing, aside from avoiding submersion for a day. He lied.

Yesterday was the first real swell Southern California's seen since I brought home my new surfboard at the end of July, a wave drought that was truly the worst new board curse in the history of surfing. I was eager to test my 5'4" Firewire Spitfire in surf over shoulder high, but I sat out the first day because my back has been hurting more than before I went under the needles. Worse, even in smaller waves on the weekend, it felt weak, and I'd surfed badly.

Today, however, I was going to surf, and surf well, I told myself. It didn't hurt that bad anymore; maybe I was on the way to the pain-free normality I'd been promised, as much as doctors ever promise anything.

A few friends joined me for a surf at my favorite reef break, one that I hadn't been able to surf for lack of swell for far, far too long. The tide was high enough that we had to jump off the rocks to enter, and as I landed, a painful tweak pierced my back. I tried to ignore it as I made the long paddle to the peak. Overhead waves loomed, and I didn't feel up to taking on any of them, not in a crowd, not in my condition. My friends swooped by several times, grinning as they rode. I caught a few waves on the inside as broken peaks passed, feeling weak and slow on the pop-up but taking transient joy before they moved over deeper water and dissipated. The pain in my back grew to the point of almost-tears; I don't know how that ranks on the 1-10 pain scale, but I count it as a 6.

When the tide had dropped enough to render the exit not too hairy, I strung together a couple whitewater rides to shorten the paddle back to the stairs and climbed out, defeated. "Tomorrow!" the inner child piped cheerily. "It will be smaller tomorrow, and less crowded! Surf better then!" The head was not so sure. "Hmm, might be a good idea to rest for a few more days." And the body: "Just, oww! OK? It friggin' HURTS!"

I'm not sure how other surfers resolve this debate. Me? I write. I turn the scattered thoughts in my head into pixels on a screen, typing them down for the first time in a long while for all the internet to see, hoping they coalesce into an answer. Because soon I will change my life in a dramatic way, turning my avocation into my occupation, and it's time to write again for writing's sake, and my own.

The inner child is whimpering now. "Maybe we could decide in the morning? Maybe it will all be better in the morning. Or at least OK. Don't say no... please?"

Hush, child. Here's the Surfline forecast, and it's only poor-fair. But this weekend....