25MeaningAs Fulfilling as Mac and Cheese
This story ends roughly where it began—at the ocean, and with a sports metaphor. At the time, I was many years into running Homeroom, into surfing, and into following that little spark from within that grows brighter when I am doing what I love. I had driven out to an aging hippie town for a morning surf and parked my white SUV next to a faded rainbow-hued school bus. I pulled a thick wetsuit over my aging mom body, slipped on a pair of neoprene booties, and slathered my face in the kind of thick, waxy zinc-oxide sunscreen favored by a certain kind of health-conscious parent or, in my case, a pasty-white Jewish surfer seeking maximum sun protection.
I toted my board down to the beach, taking in the sun and the quiet. I spotted a group of surfers near a popular break, and I slipped into the water to join them. As I paddled toward them and their silhouettes became clearer, I noticed something. I had been surfing hundreds of times in my life, but this was the first time all the surfers on the beach were women.
The rules in surfing are simple. When a wave comes, the first person to get on it keeps it all to themselves. This means that as a good wave rolls in, multiple people charge to get on, trying to elbow the other ones out to claim it for themselves. It is territorial, aggressive, and winner-take-all. Like most sports, these rules were developed by men to be practiced ...
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