I want to tell you a story.
My memory of drowning came a little later than you might think. I was about eight or nine, in Bali, somewhere along Kuta or Seminyak, with my friend Nathan - whom I also call Chance; he started going by his middle name in high school - and his dad. We were thrilled to go body surfing. I was a strong swimmer and had no fear at all. But almost immediately we got pulled out in a rip current and ended up far out in the surf zone, where the waves were huge and the water was strong. I had never been in anything like it. We both tried to catch a wave in, and it threw us into the depths. I lost Nathan. I just remember being deep under the water, looking up, watching another wave crash above me on the surface.
Then a surfer came into view. I remember swimming up to his extended hand. He pulled me up, put me on his board, and brought me in. Another surfer was doing the same for Nathan. Both men were Balinese - Kuta cowboys, I think people called them then. They were furious, demanding to know where our parents were, and when we pointed to Nathan's dad up the beach, they marched us over to him. He was completely immersed in a book, oblivious. They told him they had just saved our lives and asked him to give them something for it.
I will always remember Charlie looking back at them, incredulous, and saying, "Throw them back in. I'm not giving you anything."
They were dumbfounded. They could tell he was not bluffing, and seemed to decide he was out of his mind. Then they walked back to their boards and into the ocean.
I started surfing in my twenties, and the irony is that I had meant to learn on that same beach. Chance and I had met up in Thailand and traveled down to Bali together, and I do not think either of us was even thinking about that childhood afternoon when, in our excitement at reaching the ocean, we ran straight out into the surf again. But this time there were no surfers out there - only endless waves of trash. It was disgusting, and unspeakably sad. We went back to our guesthouse, and I did not end up surfing for real until a month or two later, when I landed in California.
Surfing has been bound up with my fear of death ever since that first memory. I have come closer to dying twice while surfing than in any other situation in my life. I still love it, but it terrifies me. Before every session in the cold water here in Northern California, I take a moment to acknowledge that I could drown, or meet a great white. And then I let the fear go, paddle out, and have an awesome time.
It is kind of like a prayer. But not.