She feels powerful slicing through the water, racing the swell that is rising toward her. A burst of speed, she's paddling uphill, against the current, thinks please let me make it over the top of this, and she does, slapping down on the other side of the wave as it breaks behind her. She's on the outside now, in the surf line-up, nothing to do but wait for her shot at a wave. Everything lets go. Life is so much clearer.
Nothing is that bad out on the ocean.
It rolls underneath her, lifts her board, she feels the slide downhill, the dropping of her board down the wave corresponding with the rush of adrenaline shooting through her body. This is it. Pushing up, she pops her feet underneath her in one fluid motion, straight into a surfer's crouch. Learning to surf happens typically happens in stages. A girl starts in the whitewater, riding on her belly, getting a sense of the wave, and trying to pop from prone to standing without ending up on her knees or falling off the board.