A Fable: Tom Curren and Cottons, or is it Cottons and Tom Curren?

That day at Cottons was glassy.  

Sure, on any other glassy day that would be sufficient.  But it's too mundane for this day.  Too drab.  Lacking the mythos that this day requires.  As this was no ordinary day.  And these were no ordinary glassy conditions. So let's begin again, shall we?  

The reflective glass texture at Cottons that day allowed the rising Sun's light to dance gleefully across the surface; upbeat, spirited, and social.  And while the sun was perched sturdy above the Western horizon, gently rising to greet the day with consideration and purpose, the crystalline light shards waited for no-one, not even the sun, as they dared to pack in their fun before the Sun rang out last call and they disappeared: to a new location, to the deep?  

Yah it was one of those days!  Sheet glass, oily, light reflecting.  A slight offshore breeze, maybe 4-6 knots, tickling the tops of each passing lump, accommodating the wave's natural inclination to draw out.  A Fall day to be certain.  A combo swell no doubt.  And turmeric skies North as far as you could see.  

It was wildfire season.  Such a paradox, for it was Fall as I said, but a season for wildfires?  But it was.  Like every year.  The offshores bursting onto the scene wreaking havoc on the dehydrated vegetation.  No County protected from the risk.  And in this specific season, the season that precipitated this specific session, they were particularly cruel in Santa Barbara.  The fire had driven residents in some areas to seek refuge away from the smoke, out of town, inside as last resort, anywhere but there... anywhere but below the suffocating fumes now percolating throughout the county. 

Now I can only speculate here, but I believe it was these events that resulted in the session that unfolded.  A session, I am largely convinced, that only I witnessed and that only I could properly retell;  how I expect a child might reveal the night they saw Santa Claus appear from a Christmas portal, arriving through a vortex of space and time, a delightful surprise as permanent as it is transitory.  Something only 20 years on could give perspective to. And only 20 years.  Any sooner would be considered madness... folly.  

Wait.  Where was I? Oh yes: 

And despite the smattering of surfers that dotted the line-up, not a one seemed to notice, either too catatonic from the driving beams of light...or too intoxicated from the beauty of the day.

...that is, except for me (or so I've come to believe).  

The waves, unlike the morning glass and the disco light, were quite "everyday."  It was 2-3 foot, a combo swell, as I mentioned, and beautiful.  And as I turned to avert my slumbering gaze from the toils of the rising sun there was no mistaking what I saw.  Not like the dorsal you might see out of the corner of your eye (f***, is that a shark?)... [sigh] a dolphin.

Looking to the horizon you might be blinded if not for a raised hand... but looking back toward the beach everything was crystal clear, the sun's light radiating all before it, highlighting the ought spray from a down carve, the caramel sand's edge, and most importantly, bookmarking faces.

No, there was no mistaking it...or rather, no mistaking WHO.

A blur, a symphony of alignment, cloaked by pace, sped by at what I can only assume was Mach 6, interdimensional, glistening crystals for thrust behind him, I was struck by the speed, obviously, but also by the effortlessness of generating his momentum.  

For the common surfer there is great effort in generating speed... "Speed" ha ha... for the average surfer speed is parochial. It's a feeling. A transient motion state with no better descriptor but to call it speed.  A pedestrian endeavor thought of but never.  

For Tom Curren though, always, and in perfect harmony, speed just existed.  We'd have to ask, but I'm sure he wouldn't have given much thought to "speed" either... maybe in that way the average Surfer and Tom Curren had something in common.   

Commonalities ended there though.  And on this day, this exceptional, unexceptional Fall day in San Clemente, CA, the differences could not be more polar opposite.  

It's one thing to go fast, sure... it's another thing altogether to surf as fast and smooth as Curren.  I wouldn't know of course, but I've bared witness.  

And like I've said, there are things that you know.  And things that you KNOW.  And I knew who was speeding by.  But like that dorsal fin out of the corner of your eye, making certain was all that would matter.  

My feet counter rotating under my board, gently turning me to track the wave's progress, Tom's progress, arced turns, gushing spray, carving his way down the line.  Weightless. Symphonic.  Powerful and yet delicate.  Beautiful.  End section annihilation.  

Geezus!  I swear that's Tom Curren.  Microprocessing head synapses unable to process.  What the F*** is Curren doing down here!?!  A 2-3 foot, glassy, remarkably unremarkable Cottons day!?!

And then it happened:  Proof.  Testimony.  Sanity.  

As he punched through the second wave on his way back out, to no particular honey hole, the entire lineup his offering, there he was.  Curren.  As if  captured by a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR with accompanying ring light and bounce boards.  It was him.  

I know it.  I realize how this must sound.  Corny at best, irrelevant at worst.

But 20+ odd years ago, in my waning young adulthood, at one of my favorite surf spots, with a couple close friends, a perfect Fall day became more perfect.  The day metamorphosed... silently, wistfully, like Curren's enigmatic soul... the day became legendary!  

You wouldn't be hassled for thinking this story has ended.  In some ways it has.  Childhood dream personified.  The day already blessed.  A theme of believable impossibilities.  

For the next 20 minutes I inconspicuously watched Tom surf.  Incredulous that no one else had noticed.  Maybe it was the lully swell. You couldn't help but to be mindless that day.  Perhaps it was the commiseration of the participants on the outside; old friends dissecting angles, pitch, direction, and interval.  Maybe it was the hammock of comfort 98% of the surfers felt beyond the breaking waves, beyond the actual focus of that day's energy, awaiting the sets with careless expectation... maybe.  

I was too anxious for that.  I always am.  Too much energy to sit still.  My passion leading me to a much busier session experience.  Perhaps that's why I noticed;   because I was a busy wave seeker?  No, no, how dare I equivocate the divine surfing prowess of Tom Curren with my impatient, albeit enthusiastic, paddle set.  

No.  I noticed Tom first for his surfing, of course.  Full stop. 

...but like most detectives who begin to formulate a hypothesis from certitudes sometimes obscure and unrelated.  I too began in earnest creating a narrative:  Fires, Fall day, Combo Swell, 2 1/2 Hour Drive, Offshores. Pedros. Turmeric skies.

He was wearing a low-key, muted green color full suit; not turquoise, not forest green, but an ambling color green akin to a well-worn suit a decade its senior:  in and out of the salty ocean brine, dipped in sunlight, restful under the moon's embrace.

His board was also green, a deeper green, reminiscent of shaded ocean blue under a blanket of dark clouds...  (or was it a light blue???  His speed cloaked details).  It had to be no more than 5'4" in length, or so I imagined, likely a fish, maybe a four fin, but definitely loose, nimble, and lively;  but only in a manner that Tom could command, like King Arthur's Excalibur, god-like and magical.  A mortal couldn't surf that board, not ever.  Not with that speed.  Not with that flow.  Whimsical, free, and precise.

And he stalked the inside, but that's too deliberate, he called to the waves and they appeared... he didn't summon them, no, that would bely the synergy between the two.  He called to them, almost spherically, ebb and flow, like hydrofoils transitioning between rides, no start, and no end, finite, but infinite.  That's how Tom (we're on a first name basis at this point, in my head, delirious) did surfing.  

And at once he was gone.  A flickering moment, moving about the other surf riders with a grace, an efficiency, a deftness, to go unnoticed;  likely all by design.  Maybe by default.  Disappeared; or rather evaporated...along with the spray, a transformative mist becoming at one with the natural order of things.  And he was gone.  A singularly focused session cut short not for necessity but more for contentment.  So many little humdingers.  So much fun. Underwhelming power with very good shape (it was a combo swell like I said) brought to life by an icon of style and fluidity, a honed approach recasted time and again by the deepest of bottom turns and cleanest of rail work... not to be duplicated now, and not having been duplicated since.  

As I found myself revving up my upper limbs to compel me forward toward the advancing set;

I wondered if it was all a dream.  

Giddy at the possibility that it was not.  Unsure of my own reality.  After all, the sun was glaring, it was sheet glass, there were turmeric skies, revelry throughout, and it was a 2-3 foot combo swell on the most perfect of Fall days at Cottons.