A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

Stuck with his master’s thesis on “The Tao of Surfing: Physics and Metaphysics,” he
avoids getting to work and goes boogie-boarding with his mysticism-loving professor
instead. The older surf addict is of little help, reasoning “you’re out there doing research.
The ocean is your topic” (128. The student had won “Doc” over with a paper entitled
“Surfing: A Surface Trip or a Dive into the Mythic Center”). 599 Out on the water, Nick
can at least escape his feeling of inadequacy, the wife and child he left after he had almost
let his toddler Kaipo drown in a swimming pool at a party: “And no matter what I did or
said in the weeks that followed, her message to me was Not good enough.” 600 When he
meets another woman, beautiful and independent, his surf buddy muses about Nick’s
dilemma: “You see, we men want the ocean… we want it all…. But sometimes a
swimming pool, you know, in a certain kind of light, perhaps midnight blue, music
coming out of the stereo, glass of wine in hand, can be pretty nice” (142). Caught up
between the two women, between security and adventure, between “adulthood” (149) and
being “the eternal student” (133), and between the love for his son and his
irresponsibility, Nick reasons that “catching a gigantic wave seemed to be the only
sensible thing to do” (ibid.). Though he is afraid of the “treacherous” waves brought in by
a “tropical storm in the South Pacific” (147), he ventures out into the dangerous terrain,
getting caught in “a sweeping, swirling hurricane of a wave.” His breathless account of
the ride in (“Faster. Faster. Yeah. board…almost lose board. Hold on. Ace standing up.
On what? See no board. IloveitIloveitIloveit. I turn. 360. Whynotwhynotwhynot?
‘Whoaaaaa…’ Lose board. I’m flying. Ace flying too…fast…too fast. I land hard – ugh!
– on my back,” 151) ends in dizzy laughter. Before Nick even realizes that he has injured
his head under water,
everything was swirling, a vortex of giddiness and fear. I felt weak, as if a power
line had been cut. I sought out the calm in Kaipo’s brown eyes. And I found it
there, in the crescent moons on the edges of his irises. Then his eyes too began to
swirl, a vortex as accessible as Diana’s smile, Lemony’s green sea. Perfect tubes
silvery light” (91-2).
599 Morales 1988: 128. In the same paragraph, Morales describes the ‘Local’ professor type: “Now wearing
cutoffs, a tank top, and rubber slippers (rather than the accoutrements of a scholar – pressed jeans, faded
aloha shirt, Birkenstock sandals), Doc was just another guy to hang out with.”
600 Morales 1988: 141. The little boy adds to the ocean’s significance for Morales’ story. His name means
“Night Sea” (kai = sea water, po = darkness), and he was conceived in the electricity-less darkness of
Hurricane Iwa: “One stray spermatozoön, that nocturnal emissary, braved that night-sea journey during the
blackout and arrived at Diana’s fertile shores” (130).
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