In California it always struck me as, you know, white people surf. I would always go to the beach in LA and watch the surfers. But there was never any idea that I could do it. And then I went to Costa Rica with this group of Black women from graduate school. The trip was led by Melinda Spooner from SheTravels. And none of us had ever surfed — or barely swam. And we had these gorgeous, gorgeous men take us out. The water was super gentle. And it was just so easy and fun and freeing.

Riding the energy of the water was like remembering what it felt like to be a child, or riding my bike, feeling that wind and feeling that breeze, and feeling that openness.

So when I came back to LA I was like, ‘Oh, wait a second. I could do this. I could surf here.’ So I found this group called Intrsxtn, founded by Jessa Williams, which is a program for women of color, particularly Black women of color, to learn how to surf. So I signed up for that, but I did a private lesson with one of their instructors, who was a big wave surfer, and it was so cool, because he's Black, Jessa’s Black, and they looked like me, and they talked like me, but they were surfers, so they had the surfer lingo. So it was just like, ‘These people look like me, they talk like me, and they're doing the thing.’

I usually just jump into something and go hard, hard, hard. But at my age I am taking my time more. If I go full force, my body is like, ‘No, you can’t. Maybe today you should rest, or maybe today you should just sit on the beach and watch your friends, or take a nap or play with the dogs.’

With surfing you don’t really have control, because at any time there could be another wave behind you that could push you down. There have been a couple times when I have ridden a wave, and then I wouldn't be able to get back out because I couldn't get past the break. And just the humbling experience of the ocean being like, “No bitch, you can't do this!” And I'm like, “Okay, ocean, I hear what you saying. You do not want me out there right now. I'm gonna go sit on the beach and just chill out.”

I just learned swimming, like two years ago. And my nieces now see that I surf, and they are swimmers, and they're like little mermaids in the water. What’s cool is just the idea that they're part of the water, part of the ocean, which I feel like has been denied to Black people. But we're like, ‘Oh no, no. We do this. We do this. Yeah.’