To Dance at Tamarindo

Thank you to the editors at Prime Number for publishing this piece, my first piece of prose fiction published since--oh--1995.  The obvious inspiration was a surf lesson I took in Costa Rica.  I am constantly filled with envy and admiration for surfers and their graceful relationship to the ocean.  Although I can ride with them in my mind, my body has not been successful at following.  When the lesson was over, I said to myself that I would try again if I ever forgot how much it hurt when you fell off your board.  It took me five years but I tried again in Hawaii.  Same results.  You don't easily forget the sensation of being tossed off a rushing wave and dumped into a pile of large jagged rocks.  There is authentic satisfaction at dragging yourself back to your hotel and wiping streaks of highly oxygenated blood off your legs, knowing that you truly stepped (and fell) out of your comfort zone.  That's what will probably send me back onto a board in another five years.  Bali anyone?

http://www.primenumbermagazine.com/Issue13_PrimeDecimals7.html#anchor_473