I had a transcendental awakening this morning. And before you skip this week's letter because of an eye-roll opening sentence like that, hold on real quick, maybe there’s something you can take from my spiritual enlightenment. These moments don’t happen that often anymore, so I offer you an opportunity to examine.

Following several busy weeks of life obligation double-ups — parties, travel, travel-parties, weddings, heatwaves, road trips, shoots, etc — my opportunities to surf had dwindled to a slow trickle of pathetic blown out afternoons of “just getting wet.” And that scared me.

I used to puff up with pride when barbecue randoms asked me how often I surf and I could confidently say, “Every day” and not be a total liar. If you asked me lately and I said that I’d turn into a wooden boy with an elongated beak.

Today I stepped in and changed that narrative. But it took drastic measures.

Since the daytime doesn’t offer me many windows for leisure at the moment, I woke up at 4:30 am and decided to flip the script. I made my own coffee because even the best coffee shops are not open at that hour. I drove down to the beach in the dark and soundtracked it with the new Fontaines DC record Romance, which I’m giving a strong 8.1 — it’s a perfectly paced record full of hits and just came out this morning. It was so early still that surely I must have been one of the first people to listen to it in its entirety.

I arrived amped and caffeinated. I suited up, (I’m an all-summer fullsuit wearer), scaled the cliff, faked a few stretches, paddled out and rode my first two waves all in pitch black dark…not to mention all this was done on a Friday with hurricane-hyped swell and warm water, all alone.

For 30 minutes it was me and no one else. Darkness does a funny, nearly psychedelic thing to your equilibrium that early in the morning — the feel of the water, the roll of the waves and the look of the sky, play cosmic tricks on you when you’re in total night. And I liked it. It only enhanced my froth. I felt like I’d unlocked a new level in my surf life. The brothers Slater (Evan and Dylan) came to mind as they are long disciples of the pre-dawn no-look paddle out and I regularly praise them for their commitment. Those two have always had elevated “Core Scores.”

But back to me, I’m out there, feeling my way through the dark when finally those first few gray bars of light made their way into the lineup and made me feel like a superhero. Even with a little light I was now confidently seeing lips and faces, hitting and carving on them accordingly instead of feeling my way around. Now I was confidently setting the tone for all the dawn patrollers starting to storm down the cliff, psyching on overhyped summer swell and lukewarm Pacific Ocean water. “Who was that guy surfing in the dark?” they must have been wondering. Right?

As the frontline made their way into the lineup I was done. I secured one final set wave, bellied in past the hoards of dawn patrollers, a full hour-long session already under the belt. I was changed and driving home with a still-hot coffee in hand all before 7am. And what did all this do for me today? Well, it made me feel invincible all day. Surfing always does something good for us, whether we can see it or not. —Travis Ferré