Let’s see, there is the North Pacific Plastic Gyre the size of Texas that can never be cleaned up, there is the Atlantic Plastic Gyre that is building everyday, but can be cleaned up by millions of people using tweezers, there is marine life soaking up radiation from the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant, there are melting glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic, there are warming waters, coral bleaching because of warming waters, shark poachers, sea-turtle egg eaters, surf breaks being lost to dredging, sea birds being lost to developers, run-off, rising gas prices, the job you no longer have, the bills that may get paid, the rent that is going up, politicians who no longer see the working man as a necessity, dings in your log, bigger dings in your 1989 Subaru, parents that are getting on in years, heads being found all over northern Mexico, water shortages, food shortages, disease, genocide, revolts, and the rise of fat kids all over our great nation as children in Darfur and Somalia starve.

Then there is the bicycle, a bag packed with peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwiches, water, a handplane, fins, trunks, a towel and a rashguard. There is an hour and a forty-minute ride from Brooklyn to Long Beach. There are light winds coming from the N/NNW and a decent S/SSW windswell. There is a big round sun rising out of the horizon as I pedal over the Atlantic Beach Bridge.

I lock the bike to a tree. Take a jug of water from my pack, put a bunch down and let out a solid belch. I walk up the ramp to the boards, attempt to not get hit by a big white guy playing the ukulele on his bike, then avoid a woman with fake everything jogging with two giant white poodles.

There are three or four heads out there with their sticks bobbing in big blue. I throw the bag to the sand and get out my sliding gear.

I stretch my neck, look up and see last night's moon not giving up. Two Osprey go for breakfast, groups of Semipalmated Plovers and Sanderlings are fattening up for their travels to South America, making feasts of isopods. The sand begins sticking to the feet. Sweat is drying in the light offshore winds.

I make my way down to her. She is looking really good. A solid ebb tide and rides coming in threes.

I toss the handplane in the water and dive over some breakers with the fins in hand. I put the fins on the feet in the water, then swim after the plane, ducking some white water, my inner seal displaying itself to the couple of surfers out here.

I grab the hand plane and swim out past the break, the channel giving me a nice push. The rain from Tropical Storm Emily has made the water a little brown from dead sea things and runoff.

I don’t care.

Here comes a nice left shoulder bubbling up for me, and I go. I kick and go. I should have waited. The third of the set looked like it had the most glide, but like the over excited puppy on Dexedrine that I am, I go. Left.

I am in her, wrapped in her warm blanket of sea salt and fish shit. I am out in front until the front becomes a wall of foam, which isn’t long, but isn’t short either.

My shoulder meets a sand bar. It is a New York sandbar.

Hello.

Whaddya want?

Be Nice.

You a funny one.

And I come up with some scrapes from her oyster and clamshells, little scratches of red actually. And back out I go.

Maybe we are masochists, us gliders, for the ocean forever trades us bumps and scrapes for only about 30 seconds of pure unfiltered joy, if we are lucky.

Under a foam ball now, I can hear its backend exploding against the sandbar, then a silence and the silence is something I wish for more often in life. A blockage. From all that is out there committing assault on what should be a positive world to live in.

Out past the break again, a fish trawler 100 feet out, a double crested cormorant agonus against gravity, and another Osprey seeking more breakfast, most likely for its young.

Time passes without time out here. It becomes all about the horizon and the bumps that are being thrust your way by storms, winds, a kind God that you wished existed.

There is one. I am fixing myself on taking it. Out here, in Long Beach, the lefts are the optimal choice, but the swells don’t always cooperate so you are forced to take a short fast face-eating right, if bodysurfing. A board lets you skip that part most of the time.

But isn’t that part of the reason we bodysurf? To feel naked and greedy and get away with it. To bleed a little bit. To be told by Mother Ocean that we are small, that we mean nothing, that I, Mother Ocean, may be dangerous at times, but fuck, am I ever going to take you dancing! We bodysurf so we are capable of getting barreled on a day in which the shortboarder is all cusses and defeats. We bodysurf to be part of that thing full of energy, making its way to the shore, bringing Life, Death, tampon dispensers, full Busch Beers, refrigerators full of bullet holes, beech trees, and flare guns.

I see a nice right shoulder. Only three kicks and I am in it, moving fast, getting blanketed, drops hitting me in the face. I see clear down the line, where wave will meet wave and get rid of me. It closes out.

I tumble. I lose the handplane in the surf and connect with my good friend, Sand Bar, once again. I could have pulled out. But it felt so good and was so much fun. I had to stay in. And like I did when my second kid was conceived, I stayed in.

I duck dive a couple and swim out past the breakers. A surf scooter is out here with me. They are pretty strange looking birds that are black, with white squares on their head and an orange beak. This one is solo and on its way somewhere else, warmer, drier, and with plenty of food. They are amazing in the surf, with great ability to “duck dive” beyond the break in even the stormiest of weather. If one watches them in the surf, one can learn a lot.

I am out past the breakers and hanging, catching my breath, letting some decent rides escape without my invasion. I am on my back, knowing I am a lucky fuck. Not that I am rich, well respected, or even a motivated person, but that I am out here, my home break, dirty ass Long Beach NY, acting as one with a force of energy, reconnecting to that child in me that thinks of nothing but pleasure and knows how to have fun without thinking about it.

Three are coming. I position myself for the third by swimming out a little bit more. I kick and lead left with the handplane, a little inside the shoulder, sliding down the face, then beating the break left, connecting waves, seeing straight down the line. Then a gentle exit out and I am treated like an Ancient Polynesian King during peacetime, when the waves were the best.

I exit the water, say thank you to Her, and go to my bag. I towel dry my sun dazed hair, take a couple gulps of water, and grab my Peanut Butter, banana and honey sandwich and bring it down to the shoreline and sit.

I take a bite. It is an exceptional sandwich.

I pack up and head off on the bike to work, about a half hour from here, back in the city.

I work in Rockaway Beach, Queens.

Like I said. Lucky Fuck.