Big Changes, Little Changes, and New Ideas

I spent the last week traveling to CO because my sister decided it was time to get married.  In the space of several days I managed to just up and leave for a whole week... I'll miss that freedom.

The Little Change:  My sister finally got married.  She has been with her [used-to-be] boyfriend for something like 12 years and engaged for several.  It's about time.  They're great.  I wish them the best and had hoped that they would live closer.  Plus, their wedding consisted of signing the marriage license and then having a Chipotle picnic up on the Colorado National Monument.  What more could you ask for?

The Big Change:  Goodbye California, hello Arizona!  It's been 3 years, it's about time to move on and try something new.  Seeing as how California is in a world of hurt anyway, maybe it's not such a bad time to be leaving.  I'll miss the Pacific Ocean (and plan on keeping at least 1 surfboard to prove it!) but I'll be moving back to a small town much like where I grew up so there's a not a whole lot of shock there.  I'm 95% excited, but 5% sad since I've been convinced for a long, long, time that San Diego was where I was supposed to live.  It's been a good run and maybe I'll be back, but for now it's heads up and onward!

New Ideas:  Or maybe it's a return of ideas long forgotten.  Mountain biking is awesome!  I forgot how much fun it is.  It's completely different that road biking (which I love), but I'd forgotten how much fun varied terrain and flying down dirt trails toward pending doom can be.  When back in Colorado, I went mountain biking with friends and reconnected with a bunch of the trails that I rode as a kid.  Other than the face that the bike I had borrowed was steel and built for someone 6'2" and not 5'7", it was epic.

Priority numero uno in AZ... buy a mountain bike.

And to end with some pretty scenery from one of the hikes we did while there:

Wax Ball

At the prompting of a friend, I finally decided to re-wax a couple (few) of my surfboards.  Although the process sounds trivial, it's much more complicated and time consuming than one might imagine.  I suppose that's a slight exaggeration, in that the only really hard part is scraping off the old wax and that's made substantially more complicated by the fact that my longboard had at least 3 years of wax on it.

3 years.

The wax itself, and my refusal to remove it, sort of became symbolic after a while.  A layer of stuff (literal and figurative) that has built up since before I moved down to San Diego.

The base layer was put down when I was still living in Santa Clara, although more than likely it was done at my sister's apartment when I was over there hanging out.  Living alone, bored, sad, and a more than slightly anti-social.  It wasn't most exciting time, and I wasn't wholly happy with being single, but I was making the beginning of a career and spending my free time focused on me.  Satisfied, but with enough discontent to apply to graduate school and move on.  I'm sure there's a little bit of Capitola and Pleasure Point in there somewhere... tear.

Surely a slight melt layer in transit, I still remember packing the boards on the top layer of my Uhaul and driving down to SD in the middle of the summer with no A/C.  Awesome, except not.

From there it's been a whirlwind!  A year's worth of sand and wax when I first moved here.  Nothing but class work and surfing (with some swimming on the side).  Places like Tourmaline, LJ Shores, Cardiff Reef.  Some Big Wednesday action (alright... it's a longboard... how about the day before Big Wednesday when you could still ride it with a longboard).  Freedom.

Then a lot of moving, dirt from C. Lindo and Mesa and more than a few angry sessions to escape uncomfortable roommates and such.  And saddest of all, a goodly layer of dust from too much settling and maybe a tinge of green form the jealousy of watching me ride off on the bike way too much.  Or maybe that was the girl...

Dirt, dust, sand, and always more wax.  Layer after layer, day in and day out.  It's like a little story all wrapped up in $10 of wax rubbed on bit by bit.

What does one do when memories hit you like that?  How do you handle going through the good and the bad, the amazing and the tragic?

I like to make snowmen and start again.  3 more years of stories and who knows where we'll all be then!