Between black and white - the absence of color and its opposite - you get to see grey. A color we're accustom to. A color we've become comfortable with. Because we have to. Because between those two extremes, there's room for a lot of opportunity. Overcast afternoons spent surfing spots only you and a few friends have found. Achromatic evenings where the moon hides behind a wall of cumulus clouds. Differentiating between day and night can be difficult. Color is absent. The sun sets silently behind the hills, turning grey skies to black almost instantly. The morning comes quietly as well. The sea blending ever so softly into the sky. You stand on the sand, straining to see the swell, sipping a warm cup of coffee, unaffected by the overcast conditions or the absence of that green glow over your shoulder. Because there's waves. Good ones. And while that wonderful array of ocular amusement is all but gone - setting with the sun at the end of summer - you're still surfing. Still searching for meaning in that great, grey unknown. Perhaps you'll find it this year, though. Perhaps you'll notice something otherwise overlooked, something you may not have seen in the spring or summer, when color can confuse. Grey gives you clarity. An ability to look through the fog and the fall, to a time of year when waves become bigger and the summer surfers have gone home for good. So don't be so eager for those beautiful blue mornings and orange afternoons. Enjoy the time in between.
This was originally published as part of a cold water collaboration with Surf Right.
