Giedre tyttö Ozista

New Things Undone

So the New Year came and went. I mean the party, the New Year is still with us! We were lucky to go back to Endless Summer Lodge in Ahipara. It was full of nice people again and we managed to do some surfing too. Today is the last day of my holiday, I'm back to work on Monday. Most of the nice things that I dreamed of doing during the holiday are still undone (the good thing is that I can blame the stomach bug for that!!!). Auckland Art Gallery still unvisited. Auckland Museum either. Drank coffee with a muffin in a nice cafe while reading newspaper in the morning - 2 times. Explored nice neighbourhoods or beachfront by foot - 1 time. Cleaning windows - unfinished. Baked muffins - 1 time. Sat in a hammock reading - half a day. Carrot cake - chilling in the oven now. Shopped for books - 1 time: scored 3 books and a magazine. Software - not updated. Files - unsorted.

I'm sure you've experienced that - waiting for all the nice things to happen (imagining how it will be) and remembering them is way nicer than actually doing them. For example, the idea of a relaxed afternoon in a cafe is what matters, actually. When you're in a cafe, your chair may be quite uncomfortable, the muffin too sweet/not sweet enough/dry/soggy, sun too bright/sky too cloudy/you may have forgot your sunglasses, weather could be too cold/too hot, water could taste of chlorine, you may have some obnoxious people sitting too close to you talking too loudly, there may be no (oh sheer horror!) today's newspaper available. But when it is all gone, in the past, you probably would remember it as a glorious afternoon anyway.

It doesn't apply to surfing though. That's the ultimate "here and now" experience. When you're out of water, you are left with sore muscles only. The actual thing is about being there, paddling, catching the wave, feeling your board dropping and taking off at insane speed. You'd probably never look back and dissect your experience. And really there's no time to think that the water is too murky, the sun too bright, there's too much jellyfish in the water and that maybe I'm getting a cataract. Thats an idea for a new yoga - stop thoughts racing in your mind, concentrate on one single thing. So far, I think, surfing is the single most powerful way to empty your mind (that kind of explains why surfers have a reputation as airheads... :). You should try it!