It is the most mortifying of feelings when the uglier parts of your personality come to the fore. It seems these aspects of myself have become more apparent since becoming a mother. The best and worst parts of myself have been magnified to greater amplitudes than I have previously known.
Those darker impulses it seems at times have surreptitiously slipped under the radar of my awareness, or likely ignorance, and been upon me with such ferocity I’ve succumbed to acting them out in the most pitiful of ways.
A year or so ago I had some rare one-on-one time with my eldest daughter. It was a gorgeous day and there were small, friendly waves around. I convinced her to go surfing despite the fact that would not have been her activity of choice. By no means was she begging me to go. Quite the opposite.
This lack of enthusiasm has often confused and frustrated me, and on some level it’s been hard to conceive that my three kids aren’t nagging to go the beach. I mean I woulda killed to grow up by the beach. I was raised in Sydney’s inner west— a good hour from the coast. I spent hours soaking in chlorine, trawling up and down pools in the hope of making it big as a swimmer. Olympic dreaming.
Around nine years of age, some friends in my swimming squad suggested I join them doing Nippers down Cronulla way. My parents, ever supportive, would drive from Strathfield to the Shire every Sunday morning in the warmer months for what would be the climax of my week. I just loved it. Everything about it. I wished I was one of the local kids who could play in the ocean every day.
Thirty years later I close my eyes and I’m back there. It’s the annual Four Ways Carnival, which sees the four local clubs— Elouera, North Cronulla, Cronulla and Wanda—competing against each other. It’s in between races and I’m clowning around in the shorey. I sink underwater facing skyward. The sun and the blue sky swirl in the froth of whitewater. The rest of the world floats away.
It’s not until my early twenties that I finally move to the beach in Manly. My competitive swimming dreams long since withered away, I decide joining the local surf club would be a great way to meet people and get in the ocean. And it’s good. I find a playfulness that I’d lost.
After a couple of years in the surf club, I finish my university degree, which coincides with a break up that devastates me. A guy from the surf club offers me this advice: “Go and do something you wouldn’t have done if you were still with that person.” So I’m off to Europe and as the quirks of life go, I meet a guy nine days before I leave. And the guy follows me over. Twelve years later we’re married with three kids.
Together we learn to surf, boosting each other up throughout this humbling endeavour. We paddle out in the ugliest of onshore slop and despite our ineptitude we somehow keep at it. And somewhere along the line we become surfers.
I can’t help but think how lucky our children are that they live at the beach. It’ll be so easy for them to soak in the ocean. They’ll pick up surfing through osmosis. But oddly, despite encouragement our children show little interest in surfing.
However on this sunny day I’m hopeful it’s going to take with my daughter. She’s going to experience the joy of it. And we do have fun. We’re laughing, catching waves and wiping out. And then as quickly as it began she’s had enough and wants to get out. Completely blind to her wants by my own, I’m not having it. “C’mon” I say, “Just a couple more.”
She’s fluffing around when a wave comes and I growl at her to get in position and paddle harder. I’m rough with my hands and push her bottom into alignment on the board with considerably more force than necessary and hiss directions at her like a vicious Tiger mum. I’m aggressive. Nasty even.
A moment of pause brings with it deep shame at the ugliness of my behaviour towards my beautiful, trusting daughter and I immediately apologise and we have a chat and cuddle in the car park once ashore.
I’m struck by the insensitivity and futility of trying to manipulate and control my gorgeous, free spirited girl. It manifested as a meanness, and for that I felt well-warranted remorse. The stupidity to think she would harbour the same desires as me.
I help her peel her wetsuit off and absorb her. Absolutely herself. There’s a softness and propensity to daydream and an absence of competitiveness that allows her to just be, not constantly do. She possesses a wisdom I often miss.
Last school holidays we headed for our annual pilgrimage north. The hubby and I take turns surfing while our three kids play in the sand. I watch as my daughter and her younger sister frolic in the shorey for hours. Ducking under waves and floating. The rest of the world having floated away.
(Watery capture above by Russell Ord)