Beginner
The calendar says it is a new year, but an almost infinite number of moments could serve as a turnover point with the same significant as different numbers on the year-end. The moments that could (or should) be marked in the same way we see that blank square on the grid with an auspicious “1” in the top corner.
The “first” is often the hardest. Certainly when learning something new, because it’s the time of least skill and minimal confidence. But it’s also a time of delicious unknowing: you don’t know what messing up feels like.
Both these things - a new activity and a new year - came together on January 1st 2026. I tried surfing for the first time.
I’m terrified of the ocean. I grew up in Texas, I live in Utah, and I haven’t spent enough time with it to understand what it’s staying or interpret its rhythms. I only know that the surface is both ever-changing and something I must stay atop. And that beneath the surface exist exquisite and deadly things, living or otherwise.
But my son wanted to surf. And I don’t mind being close to the ocean, things get tricky when I can’t touch the ground. So I dutifully searched for the surfing version of the bunny slope in skiing and booked us lessons. I’ve been an adult beginner for a handful of outdoor pursuits in the very recent history. Enough that being a beginner is starting to feel normal.
Beginning means throwing yourself into something with an absolute certainty of failure. Maybe even embracing it if you’re wise enough to equate more mistakes with quicker learning.
With a tremendous amount of help from our teachers and a surfboard the size of a battleship, I was able to stand and balance for a few seconds every other wave. Without any kind of grace or planning I would fall into the water. The salt would get in my eyes and I could feel my hair drying into brittle stalks in the time it took to paddle back out. Sometimes I couldn’t catch the wave, sometimes the wave caught me before I could stand.
I was a beginner on that surfboard. I had shallow water to keep my head above the waves and my feet on the ground. I had instructors to give me second-by-second tips. I had a beach full of fellow beginners. I had my son right next to me, trying the same things.
I’m an absolute beginner to the next 365 days too. Maybe I’ll see how I can mess up in the way that means more skills. A bit more looseness for the inevitable meeting with the dirt - or maybe the ocean again, someday.
Inspired by events in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.