Remember the video of that nice long ride at Poles, past the rocks? Same rocks in the picture below, two months later. The ocean giveth and the ocean taketh its pound of flesh. Totally worth it, and the occasion for a rare poem ... indulge me:

Last summer I dragged my shinbone
across a boulder at Sandyland beach,      
leaving a swatch of myself      
on its barnacle-rasp roundness:      

a superficial part of me, some bloody skin
that disappeared with the next wave.      

When I get wounded, there is a moment      
like a lit fuse, when I don't yet feel pain      
but know for sure it's coming. Likewise      
sometimes I see Soren fall on pavement,      

a solid, thumping faceplant.      
He lies there, unsure whether this concert      
of small boy and wet concrete      
will be an occasion for crying,      
or for getting up and running more.      

If he cries I hold him      
until the sobbing stops      
but usually Soren doesn't cry:      
high pain threshold ane a fierce intention 
to move forward very fast. 

Overhead, airplanes draw chalk lines      
across clear unwounded sky.      
           
In my life of riding waves      
I have likely left more flesh      
on rocks, reefs and jagged limestone      
than I have left on my bones today.      
           
I deposit each chunk      
of bright gore as an offering,      
an ungainly gesture of thanks      
for the beneficence of wavesong.      
           
One day I will leave      
all my remaining skin to the beach,      
and all my bones, and all memory      
of the past three years with Soren.      
       
Maybe he will remember      
this donor dad dumbstruck by love      
and watching helpless as his son      
tumbles on another hard sidewalk,      
and maybe not.       
               Up in the sky,      
the planes keep scribbling.