The Pendulum Swings...

LCrow, putting some resin on a surfboard by CChristenson for MHealy. Pic via MMiller.
 

Remember Edgar Allen Poe? The Pit and the...?
A meticulous metaphor crafted to incite horror. And it did. And it does.

I was chatting at the beach with Sin Diego fixture and single fin maestro LCrow. "It's been a good winter, eh?" "Yep, but I've just been dragging a bit. You know, just have to get motivated to get out there." I shrug and skip to the sand's edge, grinning a Cheshire's large. LCrow becomes a spectator. Days pass, as they do, and I see LCrow at The Drive Through for an early morning dip. Meager lines bob and warble along the sandbar. I eye my boards, beauties each, and kind of mumble to myself about cold and stiff and stinky wetsuit and time's a-tickin'. LCrow looks over at me, "Let's get out there." In minutes we are in the lineup. The cold seeps through my stinky wetsuit as time clicks along. But I am smiling. Not mumbling, smiling. The pendulum swings.

Each day a pass of the pendulum, razor sharp, comes closer. Each day we swing like the pendulum. We breathe life into the tiniest moments, then fritter away the grandest. We enfold our thoughts in minutia, then are able to draw intelligent visions upon the future. We dictate and then contradict. We are in constant danger of the pendulum's death blow. We are the pendulum.

The surfing life gives a weight to the pendulum's swing. We have a central gravity that draws us center. Regardless of the wild gyrations surrounding our unsalty-selves we always come to a rest at center. Thank God for the center.