Imaginary Intervention

Kook de Ville Wing Foiling gets a visit

“Hi buddy. How ya doin’?”. I know the voice and I don’t bother to turn around.

“Eh? Ah, it’s you. Are the other two here” I say, curious as to why they’re back.

“Yeah. We’re all here. You’ve got the full Hughie, Dewey and Louie today.’ says an older voice.

I slowly run my tongue across the outside of my teeth, as if feeling for trapped food particles. I know they’re all in my head, a triptych of myself representing three different foiler stages. I’d met them before, when they helped break me out of a writing death loop, and now they’re back. Ah yeah! Now I think I know why. I haven’t been turning up in this writing caper, at least at the publishing end. In the backend I’ve been nerd-storming an A5 pad full of silly ideas, scrounging around madam’s sewing room for more unsecured conspiracy thread, and yet not getting close to getting a story out. Understanding this, I acquiesce. Let’s see where this goes then shall we. “Right gents. How can I help you today?” I ask.

“Oh, we’re actually here to see if we can help you.” says Mid Kook, obviously the middle one.

“Yeah, we’ve observed that you appear a bit… stuck” chimes in my younger foiler self, Beginner Kook.

“Okay. Yep, I’ll own that.” allowing that to escape my lips. Yeah, it still hurts a little.

“Any idea why?” says my older imaginary self, Wise Kook.

I have a bit of a think and then offer drawling “Well, if I was to posit a guess, I’d say that finally getting up on foil, and then repeating that for all subsequent sessions since, has metaphorically sucked the wind from my wing, in terms of my story telling. All the stories that I had planned were about my difficulties and how I tackled or approached each of those. Now, they’re obsolete. ‘In excess to requirements’ as it were.”

“Right. And…?” encouraging me to elaborate.

“Now I’m not saying that I’d want those challenges back, but I’m missing a bit of oomph now. I’m no longer feeling the need to steal victory from the jaws of constant defeat by transforming my piddling little wins into stories.”

“Yet you’re chewing on this question of writing over-and-over in your head. I take it that you haven’t given it up” Mid Kook asks.

“No. I’m hoping this’ just a lull, while part of me is wondering whether I have any more Kook stories of interest to anyone. There are other things that I want to write about. I’ve already started writing in another story domain, one for which I’ve always wanted to write. I didn’t want to feel guilty about not writing, to not feel like I’d keep stalling when it got too hard. That seemed like a logical pivot.” say I.

“That’s great but ‘yeah nah!’. You almost had it. This is exactly like ‘apparent wind’! You think that the metaphorical wind has dropped but you’re scooting along as fast as or faster than the wind, and therefore your wing has dropped, leaving you looking around wondering what’s happening. That metaphorical wind was your own emotions that you’d invested, for some considerable time, into besting those challenges. That loss of emotional charge has left you feeling empty and is the key reason why you feel flat about your writing. It’s good that you pivoted. It’s like moving the wing around to find the true wind direction. It has kept you energised to keep writing and blocked despondency from filling that empty space. But you’ve got questions about whether writing the Kook stories is necessary?” says Mid Kook.

“Considering that you’re me, I’m not going to argue that too hard. What do you think I should do about it?” I ask.

“Well, I recommend that you have a think about these two items. Firstly, work out why you’re really writing, sans emotional pressure. You know, like why you’d go out in a boat on a flat sea. Secondly, work out whether you need strong emotional investments to write.” says Mid Kook.

“Aside from the default answer of ‘Ego’ I’ve got no other obvious indicators or easy clues, so I guess that this will take some time. Do any of you have any suggestions?” I ask.

“Well, not everything is ego driven, and sometimes writing is a self-discovery process.” Wise Kook offers.

“But I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. You are going to have plenty more challenges ahead of us.” Mid Kook states a little too gleefully. Beginner Kook and Wise Kook search the ground, nodding.

“Speaking of, how have you been going with your wing foiling?” asks Beginner Kook.

“Funny thing that mention of ‘apparent wind’. I am having troubles coming to terms with that.” say I.

“How so?” Wise Kook asks.

“Well, I work well with the wing off to the side in what I guess is termed ‘beam reach’, and even all the way through to ‘close haul’, getting up to thirty degrees off upwind, however, when ‘running’ with the wind I‘m an absolute fumbler with the wing. The wing just doesn’t want to sit in that position and will get twitchy. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Ah, flutter. Are you holding the wing out in front of you? Boom straight up and down?”

“At times, yeah.” say I.

“Okay, try lifting the wing higher above you, angled, nose up, but not flat, as you still want some wind pressure, pointing the tail downward and allowing the wind to flow out under the back of the wing. You can test for wind pressure by pulling the wing downward with your back hand just a tad. You’ll usually feel some pressure still in there.”

“Thanks. I’ll give that a go” say I.

“What other lessons have you been working through?” prompts Mid Kook.

“Like I said earlier, every session that I’ve been down the beach I will get onto foil at least a couple of times, though it’d be more often if I stopped trying to pump myself out of the water, stalling the foil. Still need to be conscious against my default leaning back into wing pumps. Other lessons include my current ‘fun’ item involving those same old backside waves but it’s now ‘Welcome to the Next Level!’, meaning that I’m yet to work out how to pump up onto foil with our three second period, three-foot waves in backside mode. Tactically I wait until a set has gone through before unleashing on the wing and leg pumping, but this is constantly interrupted as the next set arrives. Before you state the obvious that this is a ‘skills issue’, I’ll let you know that I persevered and have managed to get up on foil a couple of times with backside waves, but again, it’s a new variation on an old challenge.” I recount, to thoughtful nods all around.

I continue with “Aside from building consistency on getting on foil and reducing the instances of stalling, I’m working on board control. Pitch in particular, having found that if I mistime cutting across the peaks and troughs, high on my mast, that I can end up in mid-air on foil, Wile E. Coyote style, followed by a sudden fast fall. So currently I’m controlling pitch, climbing and diving those peaks and troughs, by varying wing pressure rather than by weight shifting, but I must switch to the weight shifting method else it’ll become interesting when I come to learn to glide those waves with a flagged-out wing behind me. Ah, I’ve also had some good Figure ‘S’ runs, but they still result in wobbly ejections after a hundred metres. Cheekily tried a gybe the other day, appropriately rewarded as the board did a one eighty while I did the ninety. So, as a wing foiler, overall, still a work in progress.” I sense their appreciative nods, and perhaps even a suppressed snicker.

“That sounds like it’s going as well could be expected at this stage. What do you think that these new lessons can bring to your writing?” asks Wise Kook.

“Ah. Those new lessons have been both on and off the water. In as far as writing’s going, the last couple of months has about testing myself, to see if I could keep turning up, and trying a regular cadence did at least help me work out a what I can and can’t accomplish. I have a better idea that some stories may take a week to write and edit, and others will take longer. I’m still learning not to get lost or stuck. I’ve started that other domain of writing which I can turn to if I get really stuck. My story snares usually work themselves loose after some time, when some creative escape finally comes to mind. I’m putting away a few external distractions and hope that will leave me more time for writing. As for more Kook de Ville stories? Well, I’m still going to review and recycle my old mind map list of stories. There are some fun ones sketched out there, worthy of the telling, and of course, as we just discussed, I’ve still have a lot of lessons ahead of me, again, both on and off the water. Bring it on!” say I.

“Sounds good matey. Sounds good.” says a fading voice. Sensing their acceptance, I find that once again I’m alone in my room.

Watching the waves, the surface of the water, looking for the ripples indicating gusts… Until the next gust comes through, hopefully shortly, I will be trying out that different story domain. There will be plenty of Kook stories though, from old lessons and from new ones.