Holy Wetlock
People say your first love is always the hardest one to get over, and I’m still not over mine: surfing. Today, at age 36, I am still as in love with the ocean and surfing as I was at age six when I first stood up on that crusty old brown single fin. Surfing has meant everything to me. Mentor. Teacher. Best friend.
Surfing has enabled me to make a living and travel across the world, enabled me to experience the vast cultures that the world has to offer, outside of the confines of Laguna Beach. You could say my education has come from surfing and travel – far different from what one normally finds in the classroom. This has been an education that has taught me the meaning of honesty, discipline, dedication, desire and, yes, even love. Surfing never fails to show me the way; it’s the one path in my life that I have always stayed true to, never swayed from in fact.
Surfing has truly taught me the meaning of respect … to respect one another and our ocean. I respect surfing and honor it everyday, saying my thanks before I go out. If surfing were a religion than it would be mine, and the ocean my church.
I’m not sure if it sounds shallow to say that surfing defines me as a person, but it does. My whole life, my whole being has evolved from one act in life, and that is surfing. It’s what I do. It’s what I have always done, since the day my older brother John took me out to the Arch and left me out there – catching the first wave of a set – and I started crying.
I mean, surfing has to be pretty special if it can make you cry the first time and keep you coming back for more. Maybe I should just start calling surfing “my wife.”
James Pribram – Pro surfer, ecowarrior, owner/operator of the Aloha School of Surfing (Laguna Beach, California)