“I have seen my physical health and my future flash before my eyes.”
Some years ago, three I’d suggest, I was commissioned by a Chinese magazine to write a piece on Soli Bailey, the one-time CT level Australian surfer.
The story was an explosion of hyperbole, the most overblown keystrokes I’ve ever written, and that’s saying something, as you know.
An excerpt.
“It’s men like Soli who hold the new surfing, which is neither dangerous nor paltry, neither exclusive nor overblown, in his palm, watching the light, the eternal light of a gift from the gods, dance over his fingertips.”
What made the experience memorable was the magazine’s Australian editor, a handsome homosexual in his early thirties, who asked me out, hardly surprising given the flowery words I’d submitted. He spoke in graphic terms of what he would do to the Byron Bay maestro and Pipeline Pro winner if he was given carte blanche.
I refused the kind offer, although I always wondered if it was a sliding door moment, a gentle entry into the homosexual world where sex is easy and beautifully shallow and so much different to the myriad emotional struggles the heterosexual male must struggle with in his search for the guilt and consequence-free screw.
Anyway, Soli Baily. A terrific man, knows how to wrangle a barrel or two as evidenced by his Surfline series, but is now beset with physical problems after suffering a neck injury.
I’ve been pretty quiet on socials the last few months as I have been out of the water after suffering a serious injury to my neck whilst surfing in Hawaii back in February.
I have seen my physical health and my future flash before my eyes. What began as discomfort turned out to something far more serious, where a disc in my cervical spine had ruptured and was pushing directly into my spinal cord causing compression and symptoms in my arms. It’s been confronting to face the very real possibility that my life may never look the same again.
Since then, it’s been a heavy journey mentally, emotionally, and physically. Countless scans, opinions, and setbacks eventually led me to undergo spinal surgery this week. Now on the other side, I have something I haven’t had in months; a path forward in my recovery. I am grateful to have an incredible support crew around me, including a brilliant medical team, my fiancé, family and sponsors who believe in my recovery as much as I do.
This is just the beginning of the road back not only to surfing, but to full health. I’m glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll be sharing more of the journey as I go, the highs and the lows.
Plenty of thinking and praying going on in the comments with the most moving coming from Selema Masekela, whom you know from his struggles with White Supremacy within the sport.
He writes,
