A Graceful and Perfumed Rage

“I remember looking up the cab service in the Yellow Pages,” Lisa Andersen is saying while ignoring her shrimp ceviche, “calling and saying, ‘How much does it cost to get to Orlando in a cab from here? One way…”

“…from here…” is Daytona Beach or more specifically Ormond Beach. A dead-end Florida town most famous for being home of the last living Civil War officer, a carpetbagging damn Yankee who died in 1933. Not famous for surf. Her shrimp ceviche looks good sitting there in a reddish broth next to a bowl of delicate corn chips. And she is recounting her running away from home, running away from a boozed dad and a scared mom and a two-year stint in juvenile hall at the tender age of 16.

“How much was it?” I ask mid bite of bacon-wrapped hotdog. I am severely hungover and need the doubled pork. She should be scowling at me but understands. Understands that I need a bacon-wrapped hotdog, cheese-drenched refried beans, an al pastor taco and Tijuana street corn just to stay upright. Because she has been through the wars too.

“It was like 90 something dollars and I had budgeted $85 because I think he quoted me $86. Whatever. I think I had $200 left and I bought a one-way ticket for $190 to L.A. on Eastern Airlines.”

One-way. At 16. And do you not know her story? In short, she was a Florida scrapper, a runaway, a rebel, a surfing savant, a mother, a four-time world champion, a cover girl, the inspiration behind a whole movement, a sea change and now an icon. A bonafide.

I’ll forever remember the first time I saw her in person. It was six years earlier and I was on Australia’s Gold Coast to cover the Quiksilver Pro. It was early morning. The cancerous sun had just peaked over the horizon and coffee was being served in the VIP tent. I was getting a cup and there she was, like a vision, across the floor, staring out to sea. I do not get star-struck with surfers. I find most of them stunted. But Lisa. I wandered over to where she was trying to mind her own business and just stood next to her and stared out to sea myself. She was magnetic, not just beautiful, and something compelled me to be in her presence.

And now she’s ignoring her shrimp ceviche and now I have mustard dripping down my chin, dark circles under my eyes, hell in my stomach. I could spill thousands of words on her past. It is as unique a story as our cloistered bazaar has but this is not a story about past accomplishments. I want to know what she wants to do next. What keeps an icon moving? When all the mountains have been climbed where is there left to go? Is it a depressing reality or a freeing one?

“…surf starved…”

And now she’s ignoring her shrimp ceviche and now I have mustard dripping  down my chin, dark circles under my eyes, hell in my stomach. I could spill thousands of words on her past.

I catch her saying something about being surf starved as I sip my hair-of-the-dog La Granada mezcal, tequila, pomegranate juice cocktail, preparing to pepper her with Nietzsche quotes.

“Surf starved? I ask, surprised. “Why are you surf starved?” She lives in San Clemente now, not Ormond Beach, and while the waves may not always be perfect compared to the rest of the world they are very good. And she has the time and freedom to surf whenever she wants. 

She looks up at me as otherworldly as she was six years prior, as cute, even when she was 20 years younger. That’s part of her secret. She combines otherworldly and girl-next-door in a rare way. Like maybe Charlize Theron. And says, “I felt like when I was traveling a lot on surf trips I was in a good place because I was in shape, in surf shape, because I had been surfing all the time and, you know, getting the most out of my career that’s when I feel I’m at your best. Then when stuff just kind of dissipates it’s like, well ok, what am I going surfing for? I want to go surfing because I want the feeling again but I’m stuck in the same four beach breaks, or with a bunch of other people surfing a point break. So it’s not as fun. I need to go and find myself again. All over again.”

I put Nietzsche down. I’m usually not interested in talking about surf but I’ve been intrigued lately by its addictive qualities. Not in a clichéd, “surfing makes me high” way, but the actual way surfing re-wires then destroys the brain. So I guess in a “surfing makes me high” way. Why do we all do this strange thing so much? Why do we order our lives around it like… well, like addicts?

“What keeps you paddling out at the same four beach breaks?” I ask.

She’s looking down again. Speaking softly. “I keep paddling out because I need that…I try to get that feeling that I got the first time that I did. Like, and that’s…” Searching for words, shifting on her bench seat, wrestling with something she maybe hasn’t had to in a while.

I press, “But why?”

She is looking up now. “Because it just feels natural,” she says. “Like, the saltwater…I love the way the salt makes my skin feel. It, it, it feels like I get a balance. If I’m losing my mind for whatever reason. Personal life, professional life, financial…whatever it is it doesn’t matter. I need to go swimming or surfing or get in the ocean. There’s something about getting out there where it all washes off.” 

It sounds cliché, it reads cliché, but when she said the words they were not cliché. There was a certainty. A ringing truth. But it still makes me wonder. If balance is found bobbing in the ocean instead of firmly planted on the land, then what is wrong with our rewired brains?

“Will you ever stop surfing?” I ask.

She laughs and says, “I hope not.” Her laugh is that perfect California thing with notes of smoke, haze, sunscreen, sunshine.

I am not satisfied with, “I hope not,” so ask again but this time incredulously. “Really? You will really never stop surfing?” 

She is serious now. Gone is the laugh. Gone is the sunshine. “Nope. I always end up going out…I think I get pissed off because you know when you get in a funk and you’re not surfing as good as you can because you’re surfing shitty waves? Like, if I was sitting down on a point break in Salina Cruz right now I’d probably be like the happiest person in the world.”

“Well why not just move to Salina Cruz?” I ask and now we are back to philosophy, though not Nietzsche but the Stoics. Those Greek bastards believed anxiety exists in the gap between what we fear might happen and we hope could happen. In order to then live systematically, we are supposed to crush every hope. To allow for no oscillation between possibilities. If her dilemma is really, then, about surfing, about not surfing enough or not surfing the right kind of waves, then she should move to Salina Cruz and not just dream about it.

“Because I don’t want to live in Mexico. Because I want…I actually like the finer things in life,” she says smiling again. And good. I love hope. I love dreams. The Greeks can keep Stoicism and a failing economy. Lisa and I will eat, drink, be merry then hungover. And surf. We will surf.

“Is there any place that has the finer things in life and good surf? That’s not crowded?” I ask feeling that we are getting very close to Nirvana.

She pauses for a long time. Thinking before saying, “No…” quietly. “I mean, as shallow as it sounds, I’m not a material girl but I like hot showers and nice cars and living in a nice area. I mean, I really like that. It’s like…” and she pauses again, looking for the words “…it’s a never ending goal. I want to earn what I’ve got but I want to be able to earn it. I want it to be within reach. I don’t want it to be such an impossible feat.” 

And now the smile is gone and she has tears in her eyes and we are not very close to Nirvana anymore but firmly planted on the land and we are no longer talking about being surf starved but about higher truths.

“Well, what would make you think, ‘I did it. I’ve arrived.’” I ask. “I mean, you are an icon, a surf icon. Is that not enough?”

She cuts in quickly and says, “So Frieda Zamba has the key to Flagler Beach. Kelly has the key to Cocoa Beach. Ormond Beach? Daytona? Nothing. And I was always a little bitter about that but, then again, last year I went to North Carolina to do the Battle of the Breasts thing and they gave me the key to the city…” the tears are still there but she is laughing too. “…and I said, ‘I’ll take it!’”

“That’s good…” I respond. “Which city?”

She is still laughing and drying her tears that are now running down her cheeks. “Ahhh man, I can’t remember. It’s hanging up on the wall at home.”

“But wait. Is it enough for you being a surf icon?” I ask. 

Men wrestle with what they mean on a grand scale. Women aren’t afforded that luxury. And now we have jumped right down the slimy throat of sexism.

She stops, shifts, then looks at me and says, “I don’t…I don’t know, I guess…I feel like things ended too soon. That there was still so much more surfing left, so much more to accomplish. It just kind of ended but it didn’t need to. Some of my best surfing has only just happened. I mean, Kelly’s 40…whatever only a couple years younger than me and he’s not getting any worse. He’s surfing way more and much better waves than I am…and I still feel like I’m not getting worse.”

When she says the last sentence her voice sounds like its pleading, like it’s supplicating. Not me. What do I have to give? But God. It is at the same time inspirational and heartbreaking.

I had wanted to learn what keeps an icon inspired but in this very moment realize what an entirely chauvinistic concept this even is. Men can wrestle with what they mean on a grand scale. Women aren’t afforded that luxury. Lisa is not afforded that luxury. And now we have jumped right down the slimy throat of sexism.

Surfing is sexist, undeniably, but what does a man know about it? What do I know about it? I have never been on the blunt end of discrim-ination. Anything I write will, therefore, ring hollow and I will be a son of a bitch. Women know about sexism. They know it all too well but if a woman, if Lisa, starts to define her experience through a prism of sex she will be written off as a bitch.

And this is a hard reality. She continues to dry her tears, continues to laugh and blame her mother for the uncontrollable water works. I take a sip of my hair of the dog and the mezcal feels like smoke. And the son of a bitch sits across a sea of half eaten disgusting meats from the bitch, stuck. I can’t write about it. She can’t talk about it.

And here is also a difficult truth. Surfing is essentially feminine. It is a dance upon the water. It is ballet. And Lisa Andersen is the very definition of feminine. Magnificently so. It is why I had to cross the Quiksilver Pro VIP tent early in the morning just to stand next to her. It is why I can’t turn away when she paddles out.

Lisa Andersen surfs with grace, with beauty, but peppered in bits of Tom Curren and Martin Potter along the way and so surfs in a cloud of perfumed rage. Her movement, rhythm, dance is perfect and even more perfect now then it was a decade ago, two decades ago when Surfer magazine put her on the cover with the words “Lisa Andersen Surfs Better Than You.” She did and she does.

So why then? Why are we so impossibly sexist? Why can’t we both recognize and properly glorify our brightest lights?

Why?

And while we’re all thinking about this, thinking about our hard hearts and crusty ways, maybe Lisa should just run away again. The thought of being out of the water, in juvenile hall, for two years launched a 16-year-old girl westward and into a life bigger than most dreams. She needs to surf and the surf needs her. Maybe she should bring some nice things down to Salina Cruz and disappear.

Or maybe not. Maybe she needs to wrestle against this sexist madness for a minute longer. Maybe she needs to cry and kick and scream and finally explode. It was Nietzsche, after all, who said, “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”