Despair!

Despair! No, not because of the holidays — Despair, the new T-shirt! Inspired by a fateful kitesurf trip to Portugal in which my kite bar got stolen...

This summer, on a mad weekend dash to Portugal, seeking wind for a team kitesurf competition, I found myself in some trouble. I was kiting in the middle of a big lake with an entry to the ocean — my first time at the spot — when the wind suddenly and completely dropped, leaving me marooned on a sand bar, while my board went floating.

A fellow kiter pointed me to where he saw my board and offered to park my kite with attached bar further down on the sand bar where it was drier, and then off I went swimming in search of my board. It was nowhere to be found, and when I got back to my kite, that MFer had STOLEN my bar!

It was a relatively new Harlem Lead bar and therefore worth about 600€, but, more importantly, it's a piece of equipment that could potentially save a kiter's life by enabling him/her to kite to shore, through waves, or against current. So, it wasn't just the theft but also the potentially putting someone in danger that felt like an awful breach of the code of ethics that most kiters I know abide by.

With the rising tide and currents, I eventually swam with my kite over to the opposite shore from where I'd parked. After inquiring in vain about my bar and trying to borrow a phone to call a taxi, I caught sight of my teammates — they had come to get me. I sat barefoot in my damp wetsuit on the floor of their camper van the 40-minute journey back around the lake, shaken up but grateful. I was also grateful to discover that my board had drifted to shore, and another kiter had saved it for me.

That night, still having not really discussed or unpacked the events of the day, I tossed and turned as I tried to go to sleep. I felt the violation of being robbed, and I felt disgusted and disappointed that I had trusted this guy and that I had depended too much on others and not just focused on rescuing myself. And I was reminded of the other times I'd been robbed — I've had two laptops stolen in Spain, and each time I felt violated and disgusted, and each time it was expensive and annoying to replace. However, I had to also concede that I did indeed replace them and move on without too much ado, while if I had to guess, I'd say those thieves are still thieving.

So, I could see myself feeling this horrible feeling and wanting to escape it (the body drawing on the shirt), and I could also feel that this was just part of my journey and that the good Lord was really still there supporting me (the hand).