Catching the California Wave

“The ocean and I have a major partnership,” Matthew said, his tanned skin still beaded with salt water from a morning lesson. “But I call it love. A love for creation, a love for each other, and a common respect for everyone’s journey,” he added before effortlessly popping to his feet to help a father and two pre-teens pick out wetsuits for his next class.

Somewhere on the shore of The Strand in Oceanside, California, is a nondescript white tent. Colorful but faded surfboards line its perimeter, and wetsuits of various sizes hang from the metal beams. An old rug gives it a homey feel. Next to a folding chair is A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, and crinkled, damp fliers for the school are loosely shoved into a plastic bin. As I sit in the chair, foamy white waves crash rhythmically as I watch the surfers, each donned in identical black wetsuits, belly down on their boards as they peacefully wait for the right wave, their wave.  

After what could have been ten minutes or two hours, Matthew Berry, owner of Oceanside Surf School, returns to the tent. Even when he’s far into the surf, I recognize him by his long blond hair. 

I met Matthew a few years earlier, a transplant from Arizona. As a mother of a college-aged child, I couldn’t image surfing myself, but something pulled me to the tent on a late summer day. The school seemed to symbolize everything I had not yet found in California: health, defiance, and freedom. We became friends over discussions of philosophy, our love for the ocean, and life’s struggles.  

“The more I got to know the Ocean, the more I got to know myself. The therapy that sets in once you decide to spend time with the Ocean is one of a kind,” he told me once on a grey May day.  “I love the Ocean’s strength and that I can’t control what she’s gonna bring to me.”

“I can’t control what she’s going to bring to me,” I repeated in my mind, thinking back to my own life, one filled with hardships and tragedies that I also could not control, but I knew it was time to surrender.

“Viewing the Ocean as my guru was what got me through a lot of things in life. She’s always had my back but also brought me down to my knees plenty of times,” he added, both of us now staring into the horizon. 

I knew then what caused me to stop at the surfing school tent two years earlier; the ocean had taught Matthew that letting go was the path to serenity. Now it was my turn. 

“I would say the Ocean teaches us to surrender and enjoy ourselves. I gotta let go in order to be present in the water. Anything in my brain is silenced by the strength of the Ocean.” 

Over the course of days, weeks, months, or even years, my mind began to silence and still. When I first arrived in California, I tried to control my destiny, desperately trying to shape the power of the universe into life the way I had envisioned. The surf school taught me to relinquish control, accepting whatever wave or life circumstance brought to me. 

“[surfers] have a relationship with themselves and the Ocean that few can describe, so just start that relationship up, and you’ll find out the rest for yourself,” he said before disappearing again into the rolling waves and fading evening light.

Oceanside Surf School

760-960-3805

Matthew@oceansidesurfschool.com

Oceansidesurfschool.com