Lake Calhoun sparkles in the morning sun as it rises over Uptown in Minneapolis.  A southwestern wind gently breathes and the water shimmers.  This is what I wake to every day.  Living in a condo next to the lake, I watch the city come to life. Lake Street beneath me begins its crescendo of noise…buses, cars, trucks, scooters, the occasional siren…all the stretching and yawning of early morning.

Seagulls skirt the furling waves.  An eagle soars past my window, past the lake, surely past Lake Harriet, the next lake below, and onto places that only eagles know.  By afternoon the wind will pick up.  Sailboats begin their tacking back and forth across the lake.  Elegant white sails billow in the steady wind or sometimes sag when the gusts die down.  Always alive with standup paddle boards, canoes, kayaks, the water takes on a pattern of traffic mimicking the schools of sunnies and croppies swimming beneath the surface.  But…the most elegant lake creatures of all stand on small surfboards, humans planing across the water holding onto neon-colored sails…zig-zagging their dance with the wind.

I’m told that windsurfing is an addiction…but a fading sport…adored by boomers and shunned by the younger set.  Expensive equipment…complicated set-up…inconsistent conditions…these things seem to discourage people from taking up the sport.  I live with a man who is addicted.  He checks a windsurfing app every morning and if the wind blows at 15 miles per hour or more, it is a day for escaping the confines of the office to the welcome expanse of water.  It’s because of him that I’ve begun the journey of addiction.  So far, I’m only mildly afflicted.  Soon winter will come and cure me until the warm wind blows again.

It all started so innocently. A year and a half ago we traveled to Bon Aire, a tiny island off the coast of Venezuela, so I could attend a windsurfing clinic taught by Andy Brandt…a California windsurfing genius.  His crew, all experts, divided the group of 24 into classes and I joined my group of one…just me…a true novice, beginner, newby with zilch, nada, zip experience.  My instructor, Derrick…probably assigned to me because of his patience, showed me the basics.  How to climb onto the board was followed with the most difficult task of all…how to stand up.  Ugh…my sense of balance was all off and my butt stuck out leading me to crash backwards into the water for an hour or so.  My wounded pride hurt far more than the smacking water.

Bon Aire is a desert island.  Wild donkeys and goats wander everywhere and it is a normal thing to be startled awake at night by the braying of donkeys near our cottage window.  Salt is the main export of the island and large bays ringed in white pocket the coast.  The camp is located in Jibe City…a windsurfing mecca located in a shallow turquoise bay with a steady wind.  A stoney jetty protects the bay from the surf and currents of the ocean beyond.  Dozens of windsurfers fly across the water…leaning back against their sails, hands holding the boom, tacking and jibing back and forth and forth and back…planing…planing….that moment of zen for the windsurfer when flying is possible and the world blurs into a callidoscope of sun, sea, and sky.

Ahem…you ask?  Marsha…did you discover your moment of zen? Five days passed with six hours a day on the water and an hour clinic late in the day reviewing our skills on tape.  No.  I never advanced to the level of flight; however, I could uphaul, downhaul, beach start, and sail downwind (the easiest), upwind (the hardest), jibe, and tack. Never pretty in the saddle, but I could sail with my butt straight and the boom steady in my hands.  Enough to enjoy the gateway drug to something more addictive.

Last Sunday we went out on Lake Calhoun.  I’ve done little sailing since that week in Bon Aire. Yet, Derrick’s patience and lessons came back to me.  I stood on the board, boom in my hands, and my neon blue and green sail carried me across the sparkling waves. If the wind blows, I look out with awe and anticipation…to my moment of zen.