Young
And Wild And Beautiful Once
Daydreaming ~ by Allan
Weisbecker
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| July
2005
Las Pavones,
Costa Rica
Odd the way
a moment returns, a life-occurrence apparently lost through time’s neglect,
the mental resurrection the end result of a sequence of recollected images,
a one-to-the-next process ruled by the arcane illogic of the subconscious,
but then, unexpectedly, climaxing with perfect sense, like the finale of
a well-wrought tale – the summoned moment clear, flawless, inevitable.
I daydreamed
a seascape of long ago in a foreign land, blurry but for a certain wave
my old surf-chum Christopher rode upon, an image which then segued to a
remote shore-side campsite the two of us shared at another faraway place,
which in turn conjured a certain risk we took, a law we broke, a laugh
we had at the certainty of our invincibility.
I see the logic
of it now: the shared laugh, the lawlessness, the invincibility, the endeavor
of wave riding in foreign lands; how they all connected and culminated
in the resurrected moment, so long lost.
It was the
south of France, near Biarritz, in the summer of 1970. The European surf
scene was in its infancy back then. All the good surfers on the continent
were foreigners – primarily Americans, Aussies and a few South Africans.
Christopher and I had made friends with a cadre of beginning but stoked
French surfers who were hell-bent on staging a contest, up the coast at
a little town called Hossegor, which has since become famous for its fine
beach breaks. I didn’t believe in surf contests in those days, still don’t,
but these French had been very nice to Christopher and me, had taken us
into their homes and so forth, so I agreed to enter. Christopher, who felt
even more negatively about contests than I did, finally acquiesced at the
last minute. |
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Well, I won
the thing, or at least that’s what the judges said; aside from Christopher,
there were some pretty good surfers in the finals, all serious foreigner
travelers. (Christopher placed third or fourth, as I recall.) After the
awards ceremony, Christopher and I paddled back out for a sunset session.
I came in first and was walking down the beach toward the parking lot when
she approached me, this exquisite young French girl whose name has been
(truly) lost to me over the years. Although we had no common language,
we’d smiled and flirted a bit that day. Now it was dusk and the beach was
deserted and the image is so clear of her sliding off her bikini top in
the warm glow of that perfect light, her wide, slightly crazed eyes daring
my response.
This is the
resurrected moment I refer to, real and true these many years later - as
if just a heartbeat ago I’d shut my eyes on that distant beach, perhaps
the better to contemplate the simple perfection of my young life, as it
was there and then.
The French
girl had never been with a man before and decided to give it up to a foreign
surf bum. Whether she’d picked me earlier in the day or waited to see who
would win the contest, mattered not at all to me. Confronted by this vision
- part designing woman, part naughty child, part female animal possessed
by some deep biological imperative - I was suddenly and completely overcome
with pure lust, mindless and unencumbered. But how beautiful she was…
It seems incredible
that she’s in her fifties now - although I’d bet a valued possession that
she’s still beautiful. I can imagine her in a few years, that physical
beauty fading now, talking to a granddaughter, and the adolescent girl
asking who her first lover was. Oh, this young American surfer, she’d say.
Then, smiling at her own resurrection of the moment, she’d describe the
evening on the beach at Hossegor in 1970 when she threw off her bikini
top and drove herself and that young surfer mad with desire. The granddaughter
would laugh and scold her jokingly and then they’d hug and the grandmother
would say that she was young and wild and beautiful once too.
Allan is offering
his palatial Costa Rica home for rent, and has built a new house for sale
near his property.
To rent Allan's
house Click
Here
To see his
new house for sale Click
Here
The following
is a list of articles Allan has written for the magazine:
 The
Caribbean On $25 A Day - Affordable
Caribbean
Adventures
In Baja - Looking
For Shiner
A
Dispatch From Down South Costa Rica ~ The
End-Of-The-Road
Notes
From Costa Rica ~ Shark
A
Night At The Cantina ~ Pavones,
Costa Rica
MY
LITTLE WORLD GETS SHAKEN ~ Pavones,
Costa Rica
A
Fish Story ~ Captain
Zero
In
Baja - A
Birthday
To contact
Allan by email Click Here
.
| Allan Weisbecker
lives at Pavones, Costa Rica. Go to www.aweisbecker.com
for more of his writings and photographs. Subscribe to his Down South Perspective
newsletter (it’s free). Allan is selling lots (and a newly built house)
adjacent to his home overlooking El Golfo Dulce. His FAQ is a wealth of
knowledge regarding land buying and the Down South life. In Search of Captain
Zero and his novel, Cosmic Banditos, are both being developed into movies.
They are available wherever books are sold. |
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