Be Like Water

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

Have you ever tried surfing, windsurfing or paddleboarding?

I tried surfing and windsurfing a few times, back in the 1980s when I lived overseas for several years.

My first forays surfing happened in Byron Bay, Australia’s easternmost point. The area is also a magnet for snorkeling and scuba diving due to its temperate waters, and for whale watching from June into November. I stayed at a youth hostel that provided loaner surfboards for guests to give things a shot, and I sort of got the hang of it after a while!

By the end of the second day, I managed to actually stand on the board several times, dancing and threading through more mellow waves before being dumped into the Pacific Ocean. I also remember sleeping very soundly every night there, and feeling mighty sore the following day.

Surprisingly, my city of Missoula is an inland surfing mecca, following construction of Brennan’s Wave on the Clark Fork River here. It’s a permanent wave built in honor of a young Missoulian who died while kayaking in Chile in 2001, and attracts kayakers, surfers, paddleboarders and spectators when river conditions are right.

No matter where we live, we’re connected by the air we breathe, the ground beneath our feet, the waters on our planet and within our very being.

The same holds true for turbulent tides, waves and storms we all experience throughout our lives. Long ago a friend mused that we tend to take turns when it comes to navigating life’s challenges, while we don’t seem to learn and grow much when things are smooth sailing 24/7.

Three or so hours from my boyhood home in Virginia are North Carolina’s Outer Banks, well known for shipwrecks, lighthouses, towering dunes, huge rolling waves and ever present rip tides.

My mom, oldest sister, younger brother and I especially fell in love with the ruggedness and remoteness of the area, though we did have to be mindful when it came to the ocean’s formidable powers.

With the exception of my mom, who rarely waded into the ocean above her waist, the rest of us all got caught and taken out to sea by riptides at different times. Fortunately and repeatedly, she ingrained in us to not struggle or otherwise resist a riptide, as they can move eight feet per second, faster than an Olympic swimmer!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (N.O.A.A.) recommends the following if you or others are ever caught in a rip current:

Don’t swim against the current. You may be able to escape by swimming out of the current in a direction following the shoreline, or toward breaking waves, then at an angle toward the beach. You may be able to escape by floating or treading water if the current circulates back toward shore.

Right now our planet feels awash with treacherous waves, furious storms and capricious rip tides, heaving flotsam, jetsam and other hubris along our shores, leaving us feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.

Responding and reacting as we have in the past, or going into fight or flight mode, doesn’t feel particularly helpful or effective moving forward.

Perhaps it’s time to unflinchingly go with the chaotic, turbulent flow instead, to trust when to swim and when to float when we’re in unknown waters, to “Be like water” as the late martial artist and actor Bruce Lee advised.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

Be like water, my friends.

Be peaceful.

Be kind.

Be safe.

Be well.