The Rockaways made me a surfer at 47

👋 hey, i’m Suzanne

I’m 47 and I live in Brooklyn, New York.

I was interested in surfing a long time ago when I was a kid. We would go to Florida, I’d go to Ron Jon, and I think I took one surf lesson as a young person. But the real start came through my kid, who is now 12. He started skateboarding around age seven or eight, and we learned about free skate sessions in the Rockaways in Queens.

They were taught by Mr. Lou Harris, whose main gig is teaching kids to surf in the summer through the Black Surfing Association. His goal in Rockaway—a really diverse neighborhood—is to make surfing accessible to kids from any background. As we all know, it can be an expensive sport.

My kid started surfing with him four or five summers ago. The first year, I was just a mom on the beach. Then I found a group lesson and started surfing too.

mother-son surf life at the rockaways

We began doing mother-son surf trips—Mexico, El Salvador, Puerto Rico—and this year, Costa Rica. It became our thing. I’m still maybe an advanced beginner. I just moved off a soft top to a hard top and want to try longboarding in Costa Rica. I got a longboard at the end of the season in New York. You can surf into fall here, but the waves get messy and powerful and aren’t as friendly as summer.

I mostly surf with the Black Surfing Association in the Rockaways—mostly with kids. I also have a daughter who is almost seven, and she did a few pop-ups in the whitewash this summer. It’s a beach break, so you can stand, and instructors push you into waves.

Lou gets wetsuits donated and sometimes gives beginner boards to kids who show up all season. Lessons run two or three times a week and are completely free. All instructors volunteer. I befriended another woman instructor, and sometimes I surf with her.

We’re now going to a real surf camp this February—dedicated to getting better rather than just taking a couple of lessons.

learning and leveling up

I loved surfing immediately. I’m sporty but older, with old soccer injuries, and wanting to surf better has actually gotten me into great shape.

We surf the Rockaways two or three times a week in summer. I’ve watched surfing for so long I know what I should do—now I’m teaching my body to do it.

The hardest part lately is catching my own waves. I moved from an 8ft foamy to a 7’6” fiberglass board. Some days I catch half a dozen waves; some days none. Rockaway waves are unpredictable and changeable, so I’ve been learning to read waves for the last two seasons since instructors mostly help the kids.

Sometimes I just sit and float because I’m spending time with my kid.

the lineup and a scary day

I usually don’t have to deal with the lineup. I don’t love it. There’s a lot of space in the Rockaways, and you can always go to a spot that has fewer waves and fewer people. And honestly, I’m too old to deal with that crap. When traveling, though, the lineup intimidates me. It is not my jam.

One scary moment happened last September. The waves were much bigger than expected and mostly closeouts. My kid insisted on paddling out. After he got pummeled, I yelled him back in—uncool mom moment. I was like, “You get your butt back in here.” It was way too big. I was really terrified for him and for myself, but more so for him. That was a huge learning curve about recognizing when not to go out.

humility and progress

Some days it’s so humbling and interesting, and I think it’s great that I’m older and just don’t care as much. Especially if I’m out there with my kid, it’s like—you know what? I’ll just sit out there and float, even if I barely catch a wave, because I’m spending time with my kid.

My pop-up is a little slower in the water than I want it to be, because I think I have a pretty good pop-up on land, which makes me wonder why that happens. And then, right when I think I have it figured out and I’m catching a bunch of waves—a bunch meaning half a dozen in an hour, if that—I’ll have a day where I don’t catch any. The waves can be pretty not great, and also very changeable and unpredictable in the Rockaways.

boards and longboarding dreams

I own two boards. One is a repaired vintage 9ft longboard called the Phoenix. I live in a row house in Brooklyn. A longer board won’t fit through my doorway; it literally won’t get around the corner. I also have a 6’6” Warby we call the “rainbow board” because my kid loves it too. One tiny longboard day, we swapped boards and caught everything—best day ever.

I think I’m definitely moving toward longboarding. As far as my surf goals and dream waves, I really just want to do the longboarding stuff—that’s my jam. Now that I’m an old lady—just kidding. We have amazing older women in this group who’ve been surfing both a short and a long time and are great to look up to. I just want those easy baby waves—what people call longboard waves. And I’d love to learn to cross-step, wherever those waves are in the world.

I’d love to travel to lots of places around the world, maybe Morocco with my kid. I’m Italian and I love going to Italy, and I’ve heard there can be some decent waves in Sicily, so I’d love to see if that’s ever a possibility.

community and anxiety

As for how surfing has impacted my life—it’s been a great thing to do with my kid and a great way to meet this community I’ve become part of. If you Google Lou Harris and the Black Surfing Association in Rockaway, you’ll see he’s gotten a lot of great press, and I’ve even been quoted in articles about him in The New York Times and Time Out New York. One of the things we talk about is how it teaches kids resilience. A lot of kids give up easily, but then you see a kid out there surfing for hours, not catching anything, and still wanting to do it again just to get better. No screens, just the ocean all summer—that’s amazing. I feel the same way. It teaches me grit and determination and gives me a reason to stay physically strong and fit.

There’s also some anxiety in surfing. Part of it is doing it with my kid and knowing how powerful the ocean can be. We’ve all been wiped out and held under longer than feels comfortable. I know the kind of waves I want to be in, even though the Rockaways don’t always offer them. The hardest part is often the anticipation before I get there—wondering what the waves will be like and whether I’ll be worried about myself or my kid. Once I’m there and can assess things, especially now that I’m getting better at reading waves, my anxiety goes down. But before arriving, it’s always: are the waves going to be huge?

Reading waves feels almost intellectual rather than physical, and I’ve found that knowledge comes slowly. But it’s really about the journey. I don’t need to get great—that one perfect longboarding day showed me that when the waves are good, everything clicks. And honestly, New York City rarely has perfect waves; we go out in mostly junk, especially in summer, because the waves are there even if they’re small.

I figure if you can learn to surf in New York, you can probably surf anywhere. So I look forward to surfing anywhere with my kid.