Old man and the surf

Where are my EarPods?  That ocean’s loud!  I mean, after the silence of the Sahara..

Okay, it started with the blue rocks suggesting a kindergarten for adults.  Then, last night and today, families, French, Italian, American, with their kids on the beach and in the restaurants, as if school were out.  Was it?  I know last week was A Moroccan holiday, and, indeed, this week I’m not seeing many Moroccan kids.  So what’s up?  (“What are you bellyaching about now?”  “Dg!  I thought I left you spoiling a Saharan sunset.”  “I arrived by boat this morning and noticed you roosting with the pigeons in your Berber high rise.” )

(“Yes, it’s an interesting arrangement.”  “Berbers, they like that unfinished wood.”)  There’s a scene in “Good Behavior” where Michelle Dockery is talking with this guy who’s kidnapped her (“Who the hell is Michelle Dockery?”  “Obviously you’re not a fan of Downton Abbey.”  “No, Sir Ali, upper class angst, even if it’s history, doesn’t interest me.”) and he can’t understand the simple argument she just made and she says, “You been home-schooled, or what?”  

(Sir Ali, this whole tirade is the rant of a frustrated teacher.”  “It’s more like the memory of a kid who only went on vacation during the summer.”  “Like Ella says, ‘Get over it.’  These children can’t foul up the future any worse than you have.”)

And the grown up kids, mostly in their twenties, or thirties, have come to Tagazhout to surf.  Walking up the road this morning to Killer Point to see the youngsters show their stuff, I made a wager with Ella about how many people we would see over sixty before noon.  I felt assured there would be zero.  She went with five.  My bet was looking pretty good until, walking up the road we ran across an old Moroccan waiting at a bus stop who was soon joined by an older friend.  So: two; neither of us guessed right, but the general idea behind the count was indisputable—a more limber crowd was being catered to.  

We found a nice outcropping of rocks overlooking the beach to sit on and view the surfers in their wetsuits paddling out to sea.  

Most of those bobbing around in the water were taking lessons, clutching onto their boards like survivors of a shipwreck, but rarely catching the wave.  The hardcore surfers usually showed up alone, or in pairs, and lost no time in swimming out to paddle the surface of an incoming swell before hopping on their boards and riding the foam of a breaking wave, shooting down the narrowing barrel curve, stitching the water as their bodies, arms counterbalancing, crouched and straightened, crouched and straightened, until reaching the slipstream of the beach where they stepped off onto the sand and tucked their boards under their arms before heading out to catch another swell.  

Watching the surfers, I remembered a time when if I told my body to do a thing, it nailed it, or came pretty damn close.  Now I can only estimate and if I succeed in getting my body to pull it off, hope it doesn’t hurt too much.  Heck, it wasn’t easy just getting up from the rock where I was sitting watching the show.  

Back at our guesthouse we snacked on nuts that I bought while I dodged the lighting fixtures.  The layout of the place, like a lot of the rooms we’ve stayed in throughout our trip, seemed to have been designed for short people.  I’m getting used to sitting down and assuming the grasshopper position.  

Later in the afternoon Ella convinced me to get my feet wet in the Atlantic.  (“I grow old…I grow old…”  “Sir Ali, please, stop!”  “I shall wear the bottoms of trousers rolled.”)  Small pleasures; it was the highlight of my day.