The 50 Year Storm

"What do you mean I have another two loops to go?"

Found one of your passports in Sumatra, missed you by about a week in Fiji. But I knew you wouldn't miss the fifty year storm Bodhi.

- Johnny Utah

Have you ever seen the movie Point Break? It's a semi-cheesy but very enjoyable early 90s hooha in which Patrick Swayze plays Bodhi - a kind of zen master surf dude who dresses up like Ronald Reagan and robs banks to finance his "endless summer". At one point in the movie he tells FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) his theory about the 50 year storm.

Everything moves in cycles, so twice a century a winter storm comes out of Antarctica tearing up the Pacific. It sends a huge swell North 2000 miles, and when it hits Bells beach it'll be the biggest surf this planet has ever seen.

- Bodhi

At the end of the movie, after a suitably dramatic showdown Utah finally apprehends Bodhi on a tsunami threatened Bells beach in the middle of the 50 year storm ("death on a stick out there mate" warn the grizzled locals - yes, I own this movie on DVD). In a stunning moment of pure cheese, he realizes Bodhi would never survive a cage and lets him go so he can paddle off and meet his destiny in the killer surf**.

What's that got to do with anything? Well, I guess yesterday was my 50 year storm. But it's blown itself out - today the waves are lapping gently on my seashore, skies are blue, seas are calm, fluffy ducks are quacking away and I'm feeling just a teeny weeny bit silly :-).

Last night we took Gavin and Dylan down to the playground with some friends from the neighborhood and their kids. While Gavin played with them I took Dylan on the swings for the first time. I sat him on my lap, swung gently back and fore, and he smiled up at me. And just like that everything was alright with the world again.

Later I read Gavin a bedtime story and he wanted me to lie down with him "for 5 minutes". We both ended up falling asleep - it was just the kind of evening I needed and I woke up this morning refreshed and invigorated.

So to sum up, the crisis is over and Cactus Rose is back on the radar. Let's meet back up and have another one in about 50 years - give 'em hell at the sunshine rest home!!! Huge thanks to all my family and friends who left supportive comments on my blog, posted on my Facebook page, emailed me privately or called to check on me.

You know who you are, and I appreciate it.


** about 15 years ago, my brother and I went to Newquay in Cornwall for a surfing weekend. One night a National radio station set up a gigantic screen on the beach and showed this movie. After a good many beers, we put bets on whether the local surf dudes would cheer at this part of the movie. They did.