a stranger in their land
I’ve seen their faces before – all of them. Though, I don’t think I could name but a few.
They are the locals — a band of men in their fifties and sixties, who hold coffee and conversation in equal regard. They don’t gather at a smartly decorated and finely upholstered coffee shop. They aren’t sitting around a table. They are talking, though rarely making eye-contact at all. Their gaze is fixed on the nameless surfers who dance among the waves just north of the Newport Beach Pier (the locals call it “Blackies“– named for an old beach restaurant nearby). This is their place – it is familiar, stable, home.
I’ve watched them often. I know I’m not them, so it’s at a distance that I observe. I watch as they tote their well-maintained classic longboard surfboards on top of their cars. The boards serve as an almost-too-perfect metaphor for the men themselves. They show the effects of many salty, sun exposed years at the beach. The dings from frequent use mask an underlying confidence and ability. They watch. They sip. It is their beach. I am a stranger in their land. I get to play in it so long as I adhere to a long list of unspoken rules learned from experience and patience. Most days, even on good days, they’d rather watch than surf.
It’s a striking contrast from my personal quest to get into the water as fast as I can, surf as many waves as possible, change and “shower” at the beach, and make my way into the office donning a hat and unshaven face. I wonder, as I awkwardly stumble out of an icy wetsuit, if this approach to surfing misses the heart of the surf ethos – mellow, take-it-or-leave-it. For the locals, they only surf when it’s perfect. They don’t need to surf any other time.
…Because it isn’t really about the surfing.
It’s about them. They’re there every morning, whether the waves are breaking, glassy, windy, choppy, small, or big. For them, this is where they make their home and find each other. They’ve been there ever since I started surfing, and most definitely before that. I can only speculate, but they must have seen each other through divorce, wayward kids, pain, joy, sickness, hurt, anticipation, good coffee and bad. Somehow, that place is theirs together. Whatever “it” was they faced throughout the years, they sipped and talked and gazed together.
In many ways, as a pastor I wonder about this kind of community among church people. I think about students who, in most cases aren’t really allowed to congregate like the locals. Most often, they’re shooed away for suspicion of doing something inappropriate or illegal. I think about parents who can’t find the time for their families, let alone a community defined by enjoying a view and warming up with a morning coffee. I wonder about the shut-ins and the elderly, who long for community, have plenty of time, but no means to make it so. How do those people find a place – familiar, stable, home?
