Surf Trip Rules
Ross taught us a phrase that our family says all the time - “surf trip rules”. It means no expectations. You might wait for surf trip for months, maybe even a lifetime, and when you finally get there the surf can be flat. After a year of being on lockdown and a couple years since we’ve been on a trip, we finally got out just to fill our cups, and it was anything but flat. I am so moved by all that we experienced I had to write it down for you. I have so many thoughts so bear with me. I have bunched them up because there is so much and sometimes it is easier to tell a story in little bites.
THE STORY OF CLAIR DE LUNE AND OUR UPCOMING LAUNCH.
I read a book in Baja that I have had under my bed for years. I have been given All The Light We Cannot See three times by three different people. Timing is everything and for some reason it was on this trip that I decided to read it. Even though the book is set during WWII, some 80 years ago, there are so many themes and references in that are strangely relevant to my life and this trip in particular. The most obvious, were all the references to seashells which I was surrounded by as I read on the beach. But the most striking for me is how the theme of the book was knit together by the most beautiful song that is deeply meaningful to me because my grandmother played it all the time - Clair de Lune.
The book it is simply stunning. The way author, Anthony Doerr, tells the story of a young blind girl durning WWII feels like poetry every step of the way. And in the story, the song Clair de Lune is incorporated over and over. Doerr describes the song as listening to a string of pearls.
Okay, so keep that thought and let me tell you something that I have been working on (long before I read this book). Nicole Novena with Clay and Craft and I collaborated on a piece of art for a client. I will tell you all about it over the next couple weeks but for now, know that it is like a string of pearls, but it is made with ceramic disks and rope, artfully constructed to hang from ceiling to floor as an art installation. We are calling it the Chime.
We decided that we wanted to share the Chime with the world, so on June 17 we will be selling just 55 of them . Nicole, Ross and I have been meeting every Thursday dreaming about how to make the pieces, how to photograph them and how package them.
In preparation for the launch, we made a video with our friend Stacy Bostrom showing how the Chime came to be, and visually telling a story of the process. While we reviewed the raw footage we listened to Clair de Lune and with big goose bumps Nicole and I decided that was the song we wanted to use to tell the story.
Anyway, fast forward to deep Baja with Ross and my boys, sitting on the beach reading All the Light we Cannot See. I knew that when I got home we would start to talk about our art piece and as I read the book that beautiful piano music was playing throughout. It kept filling me up like a little wink from heaven.
THE HONEY BEE.
After my first trip abroad in college, inspired by what I learned, I came home and got a tattoo. I think tattoos are great but the truth is I have been covering this one up for 20 years. It feels kind of silly to be a grown woman with a bumble bee on my hip.
When we were in Baja this week my boys wanted to know about my tattoo. “What’s with the bee mom?” Somehow in 13 years I had never told them - When I came home from Europe that first time, I was filled up with all the best things - food, art, music, stories. I was overflowing. In so many of the paintings I studied that summer, a bumble bee appears and my professor told me the bee is emblematic of how a honey bee goes blossom to blossom carrying nectar to his home.
Inspired by the history and the experience, I decided that the rest of my life I would travel and carry little pieces of my journey home. And this week, down that dusty road, I remembered that part of me and brought home pieces of our journey that have changed me and helped me see things in a different way.
OUR HOTEL.
The White Lodge is where we stayed. It was beautiful and still. It was 45 minutes from town on a dirt road. It was surrounded by the best surf, swell and conditions my boys had ever seen. It has wifi and electricity sometimes. At night people would make the journey to have a meal at their restaurant of six tables. It was a little oasis with spicy tacos and fresh ceviche and tequila with limes. One night at dinner, the desert breeze cosmically blew in an old boss of mine. A person I had not seen in 10 years. A person that I am forever grateful for as he took a huge chance on me. I was a very young and very green designer that he hired to be the in-house designer for his development company. Even applying for that job was the ballsiest thing I had ever done, and he hired me. And there in the middle of nowhere, I was reminded of God’s provision in my life.
A DAY IN SAN JOSE.
We had to get negative Covid tests to be able to get back into the US. There was a bit of a marital debate between a doctor coming to the hotel ($350) or going into town to a clinic (unclear on the exact price but most likely much less then $350). I kind of thought by the time we got into town (lots of driving) and sweated our butts off in a clinic, it might be a better call just to spend the money on the mobile doctor and get our tests by the pool between margaritas. (Plus, we had gotten a ride to the airport, and were saving money not paying for airport parking for eight days.) Ross won the debate by attrition because the doctor wasn’t available. So we got four appointments at a clinic and headed to San Jose on our last day. What a gift that was. We have been there a few times but this time blew me away.
We had the most scrumptious lunch at La Lupita and a cookie and coffee afterwards at Ruba’s Bakery. But the highlight was the most beautiful little art school called Casa Musa. I had to go in because of the sign. I knew if the mint colored painted windows, white plaster and sign were any indication on what was inside, I had to see. It was nothing I have ever seen before. A little coffee and tea counter with individual rooms for creating. One for sewing and painting, one for woodworking and one for pottery. It opened one month ago and somehow, on a torn up dirt street we found it by walking the wrong way to lunch. On the walls were art pieces by a woman named Clara Cebrian who was their first artist in residence from Madrid, and I was completely overwhelmed by how beautiful and original it her work is. We went home with two pieces.
When we woke up this morning, the first thing I did was unroll one of the paintings. I knew exactly where I wanted it to go - above my grandmother’s bench which is next to our fireplace. We had a piece of art there, but we moved it and the nails were never removed. Clara’s piece was tacked to the wall in San Jose with nails, so the holes in the canvas remained, and when I held the painting up to our wall, thinking about how we would hang it, I slipped the nail from the prior painting through the left hole of the canvas and then looked to the right nail. The right nail was in the exact right place. Meant to be, just like the Covid tests in town.
HOME.
We got home last night and when we pulled up, I didn’t want the time to stop. All of that time with my boys. All of that time with Ross. No interruptions. Just in the moment. Saying yes to all the things. Yes to surfing four times in a day. Yes to a Coke at dinner. Yes to painting all day.
We all painted many paintings and on the last night of our trip we taped our paintings around our room and each one of us talked about our pieces. We all asked questions and commented on our different techniques. It was special and I hope our boys never forget it, I know I won’t.
When we arrived in Cabo we went straight to MEGA (I think it is called something else but that is what we call it - the grocery store where you can also buy a mattress and a motorcycle). We got boxes of cereal, a loaf of bread, peanut butter, honey and banana. The cereal was because our boys wake up before the sun and the bread and peanut butter, honey and banana are for meals between meals because our boys never stop surfing and running and exploring.
When we drove to the airport after a week on the East Cape, Conrad said he has a lifetime of stories from our trip. We have a pile of shells, bodies covered in jellyfish stings and one scorpion bite to prove it. After a day of travel we were home, safe. We had a pile of mail and all our fish, chickens and dog were taken care of.
In the book I read on our trip (All the Light We Can Not See), when Marie Laurie plays the radio at night on a machine that once broadcasted across borders, she didn’t know if anyone was listening. She would play recordings of her grandfather talking about nature and she would play Clair De Lune. She thought if one person heard it, it was meaningful. That is how I felt this morning when I started writing. Maybe only one person will read my thoughts and hopefully it will be meaningful to that one person.
JEN FROM TODOS SANTOS.
My college roommate drove two hours each way to sit with me for the day at The White Lodge. It was the kindest gesture of love and friendship. After very little time with friends over the last year, it was so life giving to talk and share. We talked about an article in the NYT about languishing. We talked about how this last year was so hard and isolating and how it was hard to feel inspired or filled up. I read her Rebekah Lyons’ prayer from her book Rhythms of Renewal, because I told her that I often hold back because I don’t have the energy to be brave.
“God, please remove all fear today. I want to enjoy your creation, as a daughter wild and free. Replace the fear with joy.”
Then, just like that, Jen drove away in her little Toyota Baja truck with South Dakota plates. I felt a little weepy as I wondered when we will connect again like that. Thankful for that time and all the nuggets that came from it.
NOW.
Jen gave me a watch. Well it isn’t really a watch. It is a fake watch with no dials and no numbers just a word “Now.”
I am sitting in my room. The boys are unpacking surfboards and rediscovering things to do in their rooms. Ross is helping with laundry (thank you). And I finished my book and felt inspired to write down lots of thoughts.
I feel hopeful for the launch of our art piece that we are starting tomorrow. I feel like I have to be brave because I know it could be a flop. This is the first idea that I have had since Ross and I started working together that we have actually followed through on. There have been many ideas, cookbooks, content ideas, art ideas etc. But this one feels right.
Even though we are only making a limited run, we wanted to do every aspect of it with our whole heart. We even had custom masking tape printed with shapes I hand painted to look like the Chime that we will use to wrap each piece. Because of the minimum order size, we are going to have lots of tape. Boxes of tape.
When Ross and Nicole and I meet we always say that if it doesn’t work we will have really cool tape for a very long time.
Surf trip rules.
Stay tuned for more and thanks for reading.
-ag