Life interpreted as fiction…

A good year

Russ Grayson
PacificEdge
Published in
6 min readOct 15, 2024

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YOU COME UP a long hill, crest the top — and there it is. The great blue ocean. But here is not where we are headed today. We turn at Southport and follow the main road past holiday apartments, past shops and past houses of weatherboard raised above the ground. Then we’re there. Surfers Paradise.

I’m not driving. That’s because I don’t have a drivers licence. I don’t have one because I’m too young. I’m here in the back seat because the two brothers next door asked if I wanted to come down to Surfers today. They do that sometimes. It’s the only way I can get to the coast from our home in this new suburb on Brisbane’s southern fringe. I suppose I could hitch a ride like all those people you see standing by the road past the end of the tram line, but who knows how long I would be standing there, thumb out?

They’re a few years older than me, Ross and Noel. Ross is an apprentice upholsterer and has taken his new skills to his Mini. Noel bought a Mini before Ross acquired his but has foregone the little round, dangling doo-dahs Ross has sewn around the rear window. Sorta weird I think. I’m not sure what Noel is doing for a living. Their sister, Rosa, is still in high school. They’re a family much like all of the other families around here on the urban frontier, people looking for a start in life in the new houses sprouting up where not long ago there was only rough bushland.

Surfers. It’s a busy scene. Lots of people, most of them my age and a little older, just hanging out. My friends and I do that in the city too, but it is different here on the coast. Different crowd. Different clothes. Different looks. It’s more of a relaxed vibe here.

I take the dingy, creamy-coloured longboard from the roofrack and wander across the wide beach to the water’s edge. The sand is really warm and the people laying out on their towels on it must be like that too. Wait for tomorrow, I think as I look at them, and they will be roasted red like cooked lobsters and experiencing that painful tingling sensation that comes with sunburn.

There’s a small swell running. Two, not quite three feet, maybe. Big space between waves that roll into shore with a lazy languidity. Looks like maybe half a dozen people out there beyond the break. Waiting. Waiting. Always waiting for the better set sure to come when you wait long enough. That’s the myth, anyway.

Just the conditions I’m after, this. It’s my third attempt at surfing. I managed to catch a couple waves on my first attempt at this beach but didn’t manage to stand up more than a few seconds. Second time I managed to stand briefly a couple times before being dumped. So third time I’m hopeful.

My shoulders and upper arms ache as I paddle out. Didn’t realise it was so hard. I’m pushing the nose into the water so I slide back on the board. Warm water cascades over me as I crest the small swells and here I am, out where the swells start to rise and head for shore.

I catch a couple of the low swells and laying prone on the board they carry me shorewards. Next one, I attempt to stand. It ends in an ignoble splash. So does my next. I paddle out and try again, paddling hard but not hard enough to catch the wave as the swell passes below me. Have to paddle faster and start doing that sooner. I miss the next couple swells. The sun is hot on my bare back. Like those sunbakers on the beach, in the morning I too will feel the painful tingling sensation that comes with sunburn.

Paddling as hard as I can, a smooth slow swell picks me up. I move into a crouch, left leg forward, then rise unsteadly. I’m standing. I’m heading for the shore, carried on the onward rush of the wave. Then it crests into white water and I topple into the shallows.

I paddle out again and manage to catch another slow swell, riding it unsteadily straight and smooth into the shore. Ross is somewhere out here too, somewhere a little further along. I don’t know if he has managed to catch a wave, but he probably has as he comes down to Surfers more often than I do.

I don’t know where Noel went when we went in but I can see him there on the beach in his white Tshirt and blue shorts, and he’s signalling to me to come in. Is it already time to go?

The little Mini putters as we turn towards the city. I’m in the back, as usual, but there’s something different to the me who came here this morning. It’s nothing noticeable. It’s something inside. Just a feeling. No, it’s more a knowing. Really, I don’t know what it is, but I do know that it feels good.

On this, my third attempt at this big wide beach I have managed to stand up on Ross’ dingy cream longboard and ride it into the break. Here in the back seat of the little red car, as we head citywards I realise that in managing do that I’ve crossed some kind of threshold beyond which life will be different. I sit back, fold my arms and as a smile crosses my face I know I will thrive in this new life now opening up.

Noel reaches over and turns on the radio. It’s the Beach Boys singing Do It Again. Yeah, I’ll do that, I know I will.

It was such a good year, 1968.

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PacificEdge
PacificEdge

Published in PacificEdge

PacificEdge takes us into the journalism of people, places, events and memoir and on into short fictional pieces.

Russ Grayson
Russ Grayson

Written by Russ Grayson

I'm an independent online and photojournalist living on the Tasmanian coast .

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