Learning to Surf

Paloma always wanted to learn to surf. When she was a girl in Madrid, she watched surfing on TV and dreamed of the sea. But Madrid is far from the ocean, and life was busy. At forty, she decided to stop waiting.

She booked a week in Cornwall, in the southwest of England, and signed up for surf lessons. Her teacher was Bill. He was seventy years old, with white hair and brown skin, and he started surfing on that beach at ten.

Paloma enjoyed being in the water. She loved the cold waves and the gray sky. But she hated falling, and she fell all the time. On the first day she fell twenty-three times. She counted.

"I'm too old for this," she said on the third day. Bill laughed. "I started teaching at fifty," he said. "I want you to try one more time. Just one." Paloma didn't want to, but she went back into the water.

She fell again. And again. Then, on the fifth day, something changed. She stood up on the board and stayed there for four seconds. Four seconds! She shouted so loudly that a dog on the beach started barking.

"I knew it," said Bill. "You needed to stop thinking and start feeling." That evening, Paloma sat on the beach to watch the sunset. Her arms hurt, her legs hurt, and she was happy.

She went back to Cornwall the next summer, and the summer after that. She still falls a lot. But now, when she falls, she doesn't mind. She just gets up to try again.