Why I Started Surfing in Boston
by: Grant Gary
I never wanted to become a surfer. I didn’t grow up liking the ocean, and was generally terrified of sharks. I hated swimming because the pool was always cold at summer camp and they made us swim first thing in the morning when the air was freezing cold. I was an unathletic skinny kid and I used to shiver for about 45 minutes straight when we had swimming. The fact that I learned to surf at 31 years old while living in Boston made my path into surfing highly unlikely. But here’s how it unfolded.
You see here’s the thing. I’ve always wanted to live a big, bold badass life. Which in my 20s meant climbing and skiing big, scary mountains. Unfortunately I discovered this motivation about 1 year into a 5 year fellowship in Boston. To say Boston isn’t the best place in the world to be a ski mountaineer is an all time understatement. I’d gotten so desperate to be a ski mountaineer that I even set up climbing routes in my local park in Savin Hill. I bolted climbing routes so I could practice with ropes and get ready for the big time mountains. When my fellowship ended at age 31, I was like an eagle freed from a cage. I got in my car and beelined for Colorado, ready for a life as a ski mountaineer. Unfortunately life had other plans.
When I arrived in Colorado, I called my Uncle who delivered some pretty tragic news. My Aunt had stage 4 ovarian cancer. My stomach dropped out as I thought of their 3 children being motherless. At the time they were aged 13, 11, and 7. I loved my little cousins more than anything else and I knew I needed to be there for them if anything were to happen to their mom. So after a few weeks in Colorado I packed back up and returned to the east coast.
I had a lot of time to think on my drive back. I was angry and upset that my cousins were going to grow up without their mom. I was also cursing the fact that I’d have to give up on my dreams of skiing big mountains. I realized that I would need something to help me process all of these difficult experiences, but I didn’t really know what it would be.
Before returning to Boston, I visited my sister and her then husband who were spending a few week in Montauk, NY. On my first day there, their kids were taking a surf lesson and they asked if I wanted to join. I’d tried surfing a couple times before with zero success. This time I rented a 10 foot long board and paddled out. On my first try I caught a wave, stood up and felt a sensation that I’d never experienced before. A sense of weightless, effortless gliding across the surface of the water, the energy of the wave propelling me towards shore. I’d spent my life powder skiing and while this was close, it was a very different sensation, and I wanted more. I caught a few waves that day and each one was as glorious as the first. The best part was party waving with my nephews and trying to high five each other while on the waves.
On my way back to Boston I realized what that thing was going to be: Surfing.
Immediately upon my return I bought a wetsuit and a board. I got a job teaching at the East Boston High School which dismissed at 2PM every day. This gave me enough time to drive to New Hampshire to surf after school, which I did almost every day.
Learning to surf was a humbling process. For the first 30 days I was CONVINCED that I was going to be eaten by a shark or that I would drown. It wasn’t a question of IF, it was a question of WHEN. And did I mention paddling out on big days? I would get absolutely crushed and many days I wouldn’t make it past the break, even after an hour of trying. But the energy that I burned let me process my anger with the world that my Aunt was going to die.
Sometime around day 30 in the ocean, something incredible happened. I paddled out, fighting waves for about 10 minutes, finally making it to the outside. When I got out past the break, all the fear I’d felt in previous sessions suddenly dropped away, and I was filled with a deep sense of peace. Instead of being scared of my own death or my Aunt’s death, it was replaced with full acceptance. Acceptance that one day I would die, it might be from a shark or from a heart attack, or just from being old. My own death was inevitable, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t really that big of a deal. We are after all, just here for the blink of an eye in a cosmic sense. Maybe the purpose of the entire thing was to just enjoy being here and bare witness to the beauty of the earth. Over the next three months I paddled out 4-6 days a week, and each time, I was filled with a deep acceptance of the universe and my place in it. Each time I paddled out it felt like the water was cleansing my body, washing away all of my stress, draining out all of my negative thoughts, only to be replaced with beauty and light. I only stopped surfing after work once Daylight Savings ended and there wasn’t enough light to surf.
In December my Aunt told me her cancer was in remission. By January she had no evidence of disease. It was as close to a miracle as anyone could wish for. She was going to be ok, and I could finally follow my dream of being a ski mountaineer and moving to Colorado. All was good in the universe. My Aunt had 7 more good years, during which I skied 70 days a year and spent 2 months every summer surfing in some far off land. When her cancer finally returned, I moved back to Boston and started Boston Surf Adventures. Partly to help me though a hard time, but also to help anyone else out there through a hard time. Some people come to us for fun, some come for friends, some come to just surf. But I like to think on some level, everyone comes for something deeper, for an answer to those big cosmic questions, for healing, for purpose, for spirit. Surfing in Boston is a ridiculous pursuit. But that’s not the point is it?