What a gorgeous board

I pulled into Aqua Tech this morning before work just to harass them. Ken was nice (and working with a guy who'd brought in a beautiful longboard with a nose concave). He looked for my board and I immediately spotted it on the saw-horses. Big sleek glassed-in fin. Ken apologized and said it should be wet-sanded and ready at the end of the day. There's nothing to surf in the water, so I'm not overly worried. I was just happy to see all 9'7" of it.

Seeing Coop reminded me of this exercise I did at a writers' retreat years ago. We paired off and one person was blindfolded while the other person led the blindfolded partner to a tree. Any tree at the retreat. My friend led me from the clipped grass, over rocks, through weeds. I could hear the sounds of the ever-rushing river move from my left ear to my right as I turned and felt the sun on my face. When she put my hands on the bark of a tree, I was allowed two minutes to touch the tree, walk around it, smell and taste it if I liked, then she led me back to our starting point.

After taking off the blindfold, I was supposed to retrace my steps to try to find the tree. Crunching over gravel, hearing the river, feeling the sun, I knew I was going in the right direction. Then I got lost. I didn't know where to go from there.

I'm admitting this now after all these years... I cheated. I turned slowly in a circle and mumbled a little as if I was trying to get my bearing, but I glanced at my friend when she thought I wasn't looking. I saw her dart a look in a particular direction. I knew that was the way I was supposed to go.

(I also knew at that moment she would be a horrible poker player.)

So I made some noise about thinking maybe possibly I was going the right way and I stumbled off in the direction she inadverdently pointed. I walked about ten feet over some weeds and rocks and there it was. The tree stood there with its arms akimbo, "What took you so long?"

This is probably the closest I can come to explaining what a dream is like. I mean, when you're dreaming, you "see" images without actually seeing them. I didn't actually have the visual stimulus of actually seeing this tree, but I recognized it instantly. The tree was exactly as I had pictured it... without actually having pictured it.

And all this is to say that I had a similar feeling of "What took you so long?" when I saw my board.

And to say that there are no waves, so I'm talking about trees.