Surfing Will Show You

I used to write about surfing often, because I think there are so many life lessons buried within the sport. The ocean is so big and you are just a small speck, trying to enjoy and appreciate its bounty -- it's ripe for existential thought. (I'm actually writing a book on it. If you'd like to take a look at the current draft, let me know.) But sometimes these lessons are things you may rather not know about yourself. They say marriage is a mirror, revealing both the good and the bad, and even a choppy ocean can reflect just as well sometimes.

Since moving back to California, my surf days have increased four-fold, and on a recent trip to a Malibu break, I was having a pretty decent day with a couple friends. The waves were 4-6 feet, but the swell was weak, and so the waves were only mediocre. I had caught a few, and a little set was rolling in. As the wall built and darkened, it looked to me like a closeout. "Take it, Mitchell," I told my friend, in what could have been a gesture of generosity. He went for it and it was a dump I think, or maybe he caught it, I don't remember. But after that moment, it hit me that I "gave him" a crappy wave. If that one had been better formed, or I was in the right position, I doubt the words, "Take it," would have left my lips -- I would have been paddling for it right alongside him. And with my history of surfing with friends, I would have probably snaked (stolen) the wave. What a jerk! Why is anyone still friends with me?!

Sometimes the wave can look like a serrated knife: cutting, revealing...

And that's what surfing will show you sometimes: the worst of yourself. Your selfish desires will float to the surface like the foam whitewash after a crashed wave, and you are left accepting your defeat as a cemented-in character flaw, or repenting and praying to God for a change of heart. When it hit me, I felt shameful, and apologized to Mitchell, who probably didn't care and certainly didn't notice. Still, I was embarrassed at my selfishness on the water, which may just be a microcosm of my whole life.

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

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The bible says the Holy Spirit of God hovered over the waters before the earth was formed. So it is no wonder that realizations and convictions like this can happen exactly there: on the water. Jesus said, "It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment" (John 16:7b-8). The Helper is the Holy Spirit, and this verse reveals the conviction I experienced that day on the water. 

And so the big lesson to me is (outside of "don't be a jerk"), will you let the Holy Spirit shape you? Will you listen to those nudges of conviction, the revelation of sin and character flaws, the push towards healing? Or maybe you aren't hearing any of this, and struggle with the idea of listening to God or conscious or karma at all. In that case, I would say...go surfing. Haha! But really, if you can help it, get out on the water. You'll hear or experience something, if only the quiet of sitting in the water, staring at the horizon. And life will slowly start to make more sense.

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Skating on Borrowed Time...

Sometimes I feel like I'm skating on borrowed time. I am 32 (and a half) now, and it is beginning to feel a little too old to skate. But how could this be?! Skateboarding has been such a huge part of my life, and still brings me so much joy; but there is this one thing that has been just getting to me lately about the sport...I keep getting hurt!

Three years ago I made a pretty good skate video that I'm still proud of. I pushed myself and learned a lot of new tricks. I was progressing at a sport most kids drop after high school...into my thirties! Even after the movie was finished, I kept skating and shooting, preparing for the next video. Then we moved, and my recreational life slowed down. I started working a lot, skating when I could, usually at the school I grew up skating, piddling around on ledges and manual pads. But then I broke my arm -- my first broken bone after fifteen years of skateboarding!

The recovery was speedy thanks to some faith-filled prayer, and I was back on the board not too long later. But this fear filled me -- mostly because the broken bone was expensive and we couldn't afford another one! I took it easy, but still wanted to do another Skater Dad movie. Eventually I did, but the progression was slowed, and I found myself not as proud of this second series. And then I kept getting hurt! I busted my knee at the local skatepark, and thought I broke my knee cap. (More prayer.) I kept falling on my previously hurt arm. I scraped a third of my thumbnail off riding a park in the dark (my fault). And then there was this last weekend...

I went skating at a little set of stairs I have been driving by lately. It's nothing special, but sparks some creativity in me for new skateboard tricks. I jumped the stairs a little, tried a couple tricks, but just wasn't feeling the spot, the run-up, the proximity to a major street. And so I tried a little nose stall on the upper two-set, slid my foot underneath the deck and flipped the board into a casper, then tried to get out. It was a slick little trick, but felt like a bit of a concession -- my dreams were big tricks down the stairs or over a planter gap on the ledge. Was this where my skating was headed? Freestyle tricks on street spots? I guess that's not so bad -- my friend Kyle does it well and with great style and charisma. I went with it, trying to video the trick. But after ten minutes or so, the board flew up and hit the inside of my knee and I dropped to the ground. The pain leveled me, and though nothing was seriously hurt and I was able to skate home, I quit early. I had barely broken a sweat! (I'm pretty careful with my knees though, mostly because my dad has had tons of problems with his.) On the whole, though, this entire session was really...deflating.

My closest attempt.

It all makes me wonder how much longer I can keep doing this. I still love skating so much, and really enjoy it most of the time. I had a session a few weeks prior on a mini-ramp where I enjoyed myself, progressed and didn't get hurt -- and it was great! But these injury sessions are becoming more and more prevalent, and that is a problem.

I guess this is just part of getting older. As I reflected on it, a couple things occurred to me. First, I'm pretty blessed to have been skating even this long. I remember reading years ago that a lot of pros take a huge hit in their skating around age 24. Their situation is a little different of course, because they were chucking themselves down huge sets of stairs for a decade or so, but for me to still be skating at a fairly competent level, and even progressing in some ways, at 32 is pretty good.

Second, I think losing your ability to skate is more difficult than it may look like to an outsider. Imagine something you love taken from you -- your favorite car totaled or your favorite band disbanding. You typically have no choice in the matter; I mean, no one drives their car into an intersection hoping to get smashed. But with skateboarding, a hobby I have loved for over half my life, it's not just suddenly gone -- the decline is slow. It's a microcosm of aging I guess, and eventually you just hit a point where you can't do it anymore, or the lack of progress is so great that you just don't want to do it anymore.

A friend's mentor once explained this concept with a chart: as men grow in age, their abilities decline (think of this chart as starting around late-teens). There is a moment in middle age where the age arrow keeps pointing up and then intersects with the abilities arrow, which is still going down. The age keeps climbing but the abilities lessen -- this is middle age, and this is one reason so many men freak out at this point. I'm not quite at middle age yet, but in the world of skateboarding, I'm a dinosaur. So maybe this is all good. I am learning to deal with aging before all my friends, so I can help all us wandering millennials through every man's hardest season. But maybe that all depends on what attitude I can keep as all this shakes out...

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Nice Things

I resigned the notion of owning nice things a while ago...kids just destroy stuff. They can't help it. Not that I am just letting them galavant around the house with tennis racquets in their hands while I listlessly watch on. But something in their nature is destructive. Maybe it is the fact that they don't understand monetary value, or perhaps they just don't have full control of their bodies yet. I don't fault them for it, but I try hard to pad the damage as much as I can.

Here is a good example: Today we were walking to a park and Waverly stepped on my sandal. It broke. It was just an accident and may have broken tomorrow with someone else, but for some reason it broke when she stepped on it. Yeah, my sandals are a few years old and maybe this was just coincidental, but have you ever known anyone in life that this kind of thing just happens to? Like they throw a rock and it breaks a window, even if the nearest window is in the opposite direction? I have, and I'm not saying my kids share that curse, but I think all children have this problem for at least a few years, if not a dozen or so.

I hot glued this back in. We'll see if it works.

I am not immune. One time, in my teens, I was getting something in my garage and I knocked a ladder over that happened to fall on my dad's Mustang GT convertible, piercing the top like it was made of paper. It certainly wasn't on purpose, but it happened. Wasn't the first thing I broke either, and certainly not the last (just ask my parents).

So our solution is to just not have nice things. Not like super cheap stuff, but not really nice either. We got our last two couches from the clearance section of Wayfair.com, and you know what? It only took about a day or two for our kids to wipe snot or drool or grease on them. If we had paid a couple thousand dollars for those couches, you can imagine how upset I might have been at this. But we didn't invest much into them, and so it took all that pressure off of both us and our kids to keep them nice.

Again, not that we buy crap and then destroy it -- we keep things clean and try to buy durable stuff that lasts. But can you imagine the constant tension I would feel with my kids running around expensive tables and chairs, or riding their tricycles around a Tesla in our driveway? No thanks.

This is one of the nice things we have. It was a gift, and has swiftly been damaged multiple times.

I guess I'm writing this to share something we do that I think works, and also to give you encouragement if you do the same thing. I haven't always been proud of our living room sets (though right now I really like it), and sometimes our furniture doesn't match. But my mind is at ease when things go wrong, and that is worth more than any custom made solid wood coffee table.

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At the Show

Like many folks, I spent most of my middle and high school years listening to punk music. Christian punk music, really. Most people grow out of this phase and get into hippie jam bands or classic rock in college, and then move on to country or pop or something as they mature. My musical tastes have matured, but I'm just not one to leave a musical genre behind, and so I still listen to punk and ska like when I was a kid. (The one exception to this is rap-rock...I've pretty much abandoned that short-lived phase of my life.)

And so when Slick Shoes, one of my high school favorites, announced that they were recording a live record nearby, I had to go. The problem was, only about two of my friends still listen to this stuff, and they live out of the state. So I had to go alone. Now, maybe this isn't really a big deal, but it's just more fun to go things with other people, you know? Even something like watching a movie -- where you don't talk to anyone for most of it -- is better with friends. But I went anyway, because this felt like a once in a lifetime thing.

Getting ready for the show, my CD snapped in half. This is my favorite one from the band too... (yes, I still listen to CDs)

The hour-long drive wasn't very fun, sitting in traffic, feeling like a weird old dude going to a punk show. I thought a lot about what I was doing, and if it was worth sharing in a blog post or video (I guess it was, because here we are). I think during that introspective drive I felt that doing things like this is a big part of what I claim as my identity. This whole "Skater Dad," music-making and the such really sums up this blog -- pursing passions in parenting. Even though my free time is cut significantly, the things that made me feel more alive before kids don't necessarily have to change. And so to the punk show I went.

The great thing about shows is that it is easy to make friends. I met a fellow writer, as well as a frequent punk-show-goer who told us several times that punk was "in her soul." I also had a conversation with a guy who was in town from Texas for a Power Rangers convention (I had no idea there was enough content there to even have a convention, but it's been around since 2007). Ultimately, it was far less lonely than I expected, and I was surprised to find how many people go to shows without a companion.

Slick Shoes, still good after all these years.

The best part was that I saw tons of families there with their kids! One dad had his son with a killer spiked mohawk, and one of the opening acts even had his infant at the merchandise table (all had ear protection, of course). I had considered bringing Ellie to the show (her first was Family First 5 as an infant), but wasn't sure if the punk scene would be good for her. Then again, it's Christian punk, so people are pretty nice to each other. After seeing all those other kids though, I think I may take her to the next one.

All in all, I'm so glad I went, and I wanted to write this to challenge you to not be afraid to do something that makes you uncomfortable, even if it was something you were into when you were younger. It felt silly screaming the lyrics to a band I loved fifteen years ago, getting sweaty dancing in the pit, but I was with a bunch of other sweaty 20-30 year-olds doing the same thing, so it felt a little less silly and more like fun.

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Homemaker

I became a stay-at-home dad back in 2014, when our daughter Ellie was born. I worked for a few months and then got a job as a property manager, where I could work from home and take care of our baby girl. It suits me well, but to be honest, it was an adjustment, mostly because of societal norms. Being the only guy at the park, surrounded by female nannies and moms is difficult. Watching my friends succeed at work or in their businesses can be even more trying. At first I really struggled with my role in the family as a provider, not financially (though I have always worked freelance or part-time), but in other ways. Kids need a dad who is there and available, for fun, education, trauma. An emotionally available father is a powerful and rare thing I think, not because dads don't desire it, but because it is considered odd.

I went back to work for a year to give Katie the experience I had, but could never make enough for our family to live well. Talk about a blow to your masculine ego -- not even being able to provide enough financially. I felt lost and hopeless, the most depressed I had ever been. But I think the whole thing just pushed us to a point where we realized our family works with me at home and Katie at work. Her job is also pretty flexible, as a teacher with summers off and usually getting home by 4PM (as opposed to the 6-6:30PM, when my job had put me home). We settled back into these roles and our family has thrived since then. And though I still feel weird and deal with slightly awkward situations (again being the only dad at the park or not being able to make play dates with my daughters' friends), it fits.

Matching family outfits: another "Dad" thing that isn't always easy to swallow.

Recently, however, we filled out some forms for something and I had to list an occupation. Usually I would list one of my part-time jobs, but with our recent move, I am currently unemployed. Then I saw it down the list: "Homemaker." Essentially that is what I am, but something about it felt weird. Am I a Homemaker? I thought, as the pen wavered in my hand. It's true, that is probably the best way to describe it, but "Stay-at-home Dad" feels way more cool than "Homemaker." Something about that title just has a feminine connotation to it that doesn't sit well with me. It's all cultural I suppose, but I have to ask myself why that bothers me.

As I reflect on it, I think the reason is because "making the home" is an end in itself, and there are lots of other things I want to do for my "career." I also make music and write while raising my kids. Homemaker + Creative would make me feel better, but why is that even important to include? Is it a pride thing? A label I need to support my identity? What is wrong if the chief goal of my life is to create a stable house and a healthy family?

Homemaker responsibilities...

I ended up putting Homemaker on the form, laughing it off as I pointed it out to my wife. A few years ago, I would not have been so easy-going about it, but again, as we have gone down this journey of stay-at-home daddom, I know this is where I am supposed to be. I write all of this, not only to process it myself, but to hopefully give another struggling dad some encouragement. What you do is not who you are, and probably not the most important thing in your life. Who you influence is a far-greater thing to be concerned with, and though jobs are indeed important and add a lot to our identity and purpose, never neglect those for whom you do the job, as well as those with whom you do it. These are the relationships that make this life, and the next, worth living.

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