Born again

Neural connections spike and flourish; old pathways are tread upon once again.  New trails are forged within the infinite forest of life.  

I still remember the empty blackness.  The sickening feeling knowing it was all too real.  Neurons firing into space, lost amongst the abyss.  No connection could be found.  The brain sat lonely on its pillar – looking out into nothing.  Reaching, clawing for the partner, realizing in terror that the partner is gone.  The body spins into despair.  

The heavy door to darkness was pulling me in, but the current of light was too strong to let me fall forever.  I can still remember, that feeling of blackness, creeping its way around my mind.  Now I focus on the light.  

The day was clear, the morning hot.  The waves peeled and split in two directions, left and right.  I found my own peak, away from the pack of hungry surfers.  A perfect left came reaching across the sand bank towards the shallows.  Instinct pulsed through me and I paddled to the peak.  I waited.  Ten minutes passed and the wave came right to me.  I swung the board around and began to paddle.  Three seconds passed and I sprung up, days and days of training had me light on my feet.  Before another second passed, I engaged the fins into the face of the wave, and with a quick pump I was flying down the line.  Another second lost in time.  To the bottom and whipping to the top, I cracked the lip of the wave, before flying back down the face to the bottom of the wave – three seconds.  A second climb to the top happened in a breath, and I whipped my board around again to fly back down the wave.  The section reached out in front me, I could see the wave closing out and I flew to meet its end.  Up on the white water, floater success.  Landed in the flats, sure footed and pulsing with glee.  I swung the board around in an all too confident attempt to punch through the white water.  Wham!  I felt the back of my head sing in pain, my vision blurred, I was unconscious under water.  

When I came to, I was floating, and nothing was there.  Bereft of my body, I was reaching for lost connections.  I was floating and realized I was going to drown – I was going to die if I didn’t flip myself.  But how?  No movement, no body, only a distant numbness I could feel out there in the barren desert of my mind.  I was paralyzed.  A primal instinct to survive washed over me, and I screamed under water raw with angst – striving to live.  

I flipped, and saw the sun again.  I screamed in terror.  “Help!!!!!”  “Help!!!!”  Not the most opportune time to forget my Portuguese, but it did the job.  Sabrina would hear.  A bodyboarder turned the hero, pulled me from the water.  Just right, as to not sever the spinal cord, where unbeknownst to me my broken C6 vertebrate rested on its delicate surface.  Ambulance, stretcher, panic, nightmare.   

The credence of the severity would soak in instantaneously, and I prayed for the surgery to save me.  

I called my dad, crying from the hospital stretcher, asking him if I would be alright.  I could be paralyzed for life.  He was on the golf coarse, and just as the phone rang, the ball sunk into the hole.  A hole in one.  

One year and four months have passed since that dreadful day.  Since my spine was broken, reconstructed, neck sowed back up and awoken to an exploding tsunami of pain. Three vertebrate fused together; disks removed, and titanium installed.  My friends here in Brazil say I was born again.

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The rain began to poor down in the late afternoon; a balance against the penetrating sun of the day.  Sabrina and I rushed home to close the windows before the bed was soaked from the downpour.  She dropped me at home and went back to work.  I finished work, and looked out upon the ocean.  The very same spot I had my accident – waves bigger and better then that day last year, sprung up on the sand bar.  The dark clouds sparred a space for a mysterious, beautiful light to filter through, shining down upon the ocean.  The surfers pulled up to the beach, rushing to get the afternoon delight.  

I could resist no further.  My physical therapist told me to wait, but Dr. Cesar said it was okay to surf again.  I heeded the Neurosurgeons advice.  I grabbed my board I ran to the beach.  I went further down the long stretch of sand on Praia Brava, passed the river mouth, in front of the wooden structure of Warung Club resting in the trees.   I could see a left breaking out there – stacked with size and glassy to perfection.  I thought about my neck, but I shoved the thoughts away, they were drifting dark clouds in a sea of light.  I paddled out.  It was four to six foot, barreling quite strong, people cheering as the sets stacked the horizon.  The sub-tropical Atlantic forest caressed the ocean from all sides, and the rolling hills met the sea with an effortless sprawl.  The lush mountains, sparkling in green, dramatic in their entrance to the hidden emerald bay at the end of the beach.  

I kept looking down to the hills, knowing I was living the most magnificant dream.  The first set came as I paddled out and I dove deep with my board, lunging forward to get under the passing force.  Smoothly, I was out the back of the wave, paddling again.  I made it out to where five others waited for the sets.  I saw the guy I met at Lobitios three years ago, where the Peruvian desert meets the Pacific.  “E ai Gringo, beleza cara?”  “What’s up gringo, all good man”. “Tudo beleza cara.” I nodded with a smile.  

He paddled into a picturesque left, the tube launching forward on the take off, the wave ripping over the sand.  I waited.  I caught a quick wave, dropped, stayed high on the face and kicked out.  I duck-dove under a set.   I paddled further towards the peak and waited for the set.  The lines approached, six foot walls standing up on the sand, ready to unload.  I let the first wave pass and felt my moment.  I could feel it coming.  

I turned and paddled and in a second was gliding into the wave.  I arched way back and sprung to my feet and making the sweeping drop, I watched the wall form out in from of me.  I pumped the fins up and down the face of the wave, climbing within the pocket.  I flew around the section, pumping for speed, down the line like a magic carpet, the energy was transferring into me; I could feel the wind from the open ocean inside of my Being.  I could feel the power of the water under my feet, my vision filled with turqoise water, the energy pulsing upwards, the wave coming to its end, rushing, power grinding over the shallow sand… I safely kicked out the back, slowing to a stop.  I heard the cheers.  “Gringo!!!!”  “ Gringo!!!!”  My friend who I met in the desert of Peru paddled up to me and said “que Onda né Gringo!”  What a wave.  

The transfer of energy has taken place, and I leave the ocean, back to the land to continue my quest.  The gossamer of light turned manifest – pulsing pure awareness through my veins.  I feel the tingle in my arm, the nerves tricking down, I feel the stiffness in my spine…I rise up.  Not to be put down by the trials of life.  I follow the majestic hills to the shore and I find the green tubes kissing the sand.  It is time to make the transition.