She Learned to Surf at 58 and Never Looked Back

I was seven years old the first time the ocean knocked me down. I was at Clearwater Beach in Florida with my parents, and a wave I didn't see coming hit me from behind and held me under just long enough to teach me one lasting lesson: the ocean is not your friend. For the next fifty-one years, I watched it from a safe distance — from the shore, from a pier, from restaurant terraces with a glass of sweet tea. Close enough to enjoy the view. Far enough to feel safe.

The Challenge

elderly surfer wave — pexels · free license

My granddaughter Lily is ten years old and has been surfing since she was seven. She has absolutely no fear of anything, which I find both terrifying and magnificent. Last summer, we were vacationing together in San Diego, and Lily was watching me watch the waves from the beach blanket for the third straight day.

"Grandma," she said, in the direct way that only a ten-year-old can pull off, "you're scared, aren't you?"

I admitted I was.

"Of the ocean?" She looked genuinely puzzled, the way kids do when they can't understand why adults have decided to stop being brave. "But Grandma. The ocean is the best thing."

Then she handed me a surfboard and said, "Just try."

"The most courageous thing about getting on that surfboard wasn't standing up. It was agreeing to try at all — after fifty-one years of deciding not to."

The First Session

I will be honest with you. I wiped out on my first attempt before I even got to my knees. A small, gentle wave — the kind designed for children and absolute beginners — tossed me sideways like I was made of paper. I came up sputtering and laughing, which surprised me. I expected to come up terrified.

Attempt two: got to my knees. Fell forward.

Attempt three through seven: variations of the same.

Attempt eight: made it to one knee and one foot. Fell sideways.

Attempt nine: both feet, crouched, for approximately one and a half seconds. The board slid out. I fell.

Attempt eleven: I stood up. Both feet on the board. Arms out like a tightrope walker. The wave carried me toward the beach for what I'm told was about three seconds, though it felt like a full, golden minute.

I screamed. I mean a full, unself-conscious, top-of-my-lungs scream that turned heads up and down the beach. I was crying. I was laughing. Lily was splashing and cheering in the shallows. The surfer instructor next to us started clapping. Three strangers on the beach started clapping.

I was fifty-eight years old, soaking wet, completely graceless, and I had just stood up on a surfboard for the first time in my life. It was one of the three best moments I have ever experienced.

What Fear Had Cost Me

Floating on my board between waves that afternoon, I found myself thinking about the fifty-one years of ocean views from safe distances. The beach trips where I'd watched my kids play in the waves while I read on the sand. The snorkeling tours I'd declined. The boat trips I'd made excuses to skip.

Fear had been very busy on my behalf for a very long time, making decisions, canceling experiences, keeping me dry and comfortable and mildly bored on beach blankets. And it had done all of this while presenting itself as wisdom. As caution. As being sensible.

That day in San Diego, in front of my ten-year-old granddaughter, I finally called it what it actually was.

Lessons the Ocean Taught Me at 58

I've been surfing for fourteen months now. Not well — I want to be clear about that. I'm a beginner who falls often and surfs only gentle waves in ideal conditions. But I surf. I get in the water. I paddle out. I try.

Here is what the ocean has taught me since Lily handed me that board:

Fear shrinks when you look directly at it. I had been terrified of ocean water for half a century. The moment I got in it, the fear started shrinking. It didn't disappear — but it became manageable, then small, then almost interesting.
The body remembers joy. When that first wave carried me, my body responded with a kind of pure, animal happiness that bypassed thought entirely. We are made to move through the natural world. We have just forgotten.
It is never too late to try the thing. I mean this without any cliché — I was fifty-eight years old with creaky knees and a genuine terror of the water. And I learned to surf. Whatever "the thing" is that you've been watching from the beach blanket, I want to tell you: it's not too late.
Your grandchildren will be proud of you in ways that matter. Lily has told the surfing story to every person she knows. She introduces me to people as "my grandma who learned to surf at 58." That is the most important credential I have ever earned.

"The ocean didn't become less big or less powerful. I became someone who decided that the wave was worth getting knocked down for."

This Summer

Lily and I are going back to San Diego in August. I've been practicing at a beach closer to my home in Tampa — carefully, with an instructor, still falling, still climbing back on. Lily has started giving me surf tips, which is the most delightful reversal of the natural order I've ever experienced.

I'm not going to become a surfer in the competitive or lifestyle sense. But I am going to spend the years I have left getting in the water instead of watching from the blanket. I am going to try things that scare me, at least occasionally, and I am going to let my granddaughter watch me fail and try again until I don't.

That seems like a pretty good inheritance to leave her.

— Donna Ashford, Tampa, FL