Life, death and whether the Leafs will ever win a Stanley Cup again: these are the eternal questions. Or so I imagined of the people staring into the waves of Lake Huron in the Ontario town where I grew up. Biking home along the lake I’d see them there, couples or alone, sitting in their Buicks and Pontiacs at dusk, watching the waves hit the harbour breakwall or the shore. This past week, vacationing in southern California, I realized I’d become one of those wave-watchers from my youth.
It happens slowly and then really quickly, this getting older thing. Last summer in California I took surfing lessons and managed to stand up on the board once or twice. This summer I spent just a few hours getting pummeled by the waves before I abandoned the board and found a comfy chair on the beach. And soon enough my book was set aside and I was staring out to sea, thinking about eternity and wondering where the lions are. That’s right, now I know what Bruce Cockburn was on about.
Ocean waves are perfect for pondering life. They are hypnotic, regular and almost rhythmic, yet irregular and unique as well. Each wave rises up from the depths anew and you must watch each carefully to see what it is up to. Even the surfers seem caught up in watching at times, floating up above the break, waiting for their wave.
Back home in St. Albert, what are we to do without waves? Big Lake, alas, is not big enough. However, it isn’t uncommon to find people at the BLESS platform staring out at the lake. Apparently they call this “birdwatching”. Other folks I know find staring into a camp fire meditative. Perhaps this explains the otherwise puzzling allure of camping. It also may explain both the popularity of backyard fire pits and the Christmas Yule log on cable TV. My wife tells me yoga is perfect for pondering eternity. I’ll have to take her word for it. Personally, I find the infinite roll of my Twitter feed quite meditative.
A great recent book that talks about both the mythic and real power of waves is The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey. Part of Casey’s book talks about big wave surfing, which is the focus of Ghost Wave: The Discovery of Cortes Bank and the Biggest Wave on Earth by Chris Dixon. Just thinking of those 80-foot monster waves sends a shiver down my spine. Finally, there is a beautiful novel by Tim Winton, Breath. Two teen boys growing up in a hardscrabble Western Australia town learn hard lessons about life from an old surfer who tempts them out to more and more dangerous big waves.
