Nightglow Window

The Bubble Bursts

This was lifted from my work blog, but it's been on my mind a lot today, so I thought I would share.

It was a few years ago at SIMA Surf Summit 8. I had stepped out onto the street outside Squid Roe in Cabo San Lucas and found myself alone. It was very late. I had been drinking. I wasn’t really sure where I was going.

As I made my way down the street with exaggerated goose steps, it dawned on me that I had suddenly found myself swimming over very deep water. I paused and looked around and suddenly the noisy streets seemed very foreign and home a long way away. I tried to pull myself together, to stand a little straighter, to walk with more purpose, but every silhouette in every alley took on a menace that I had never noticed before.

We are blessed as an industry. The very concept we have of there being “an industry” proves the point. Together we are like some relentless fun machine, some unstoppable, grinning bubble of laughs. How many times have you looked around the room, seen all the familiar faces having fun, and thought to yourself, “I’m safe.” After all, if something really started to go south, there are literally dozens of people you could turn towards for help. Friends.

At least that’s what I thought. Sadly, that bubble of safety that I’ve always felt has been burst with the terrible news of Dane Chandler Williams’ death.

No one yet knows what happened between when Williams was last seen at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday and when his body was discovered Monday night in an alley in City Heights. Unfortunately, the whole story may never be known. We all know this though, it’s a tragedy that no parent or friend or loved one should be forced to endure.

The whole thing has made me examine some past nights a little closer. I didn’t come up with any great pearls of wisdom, except maybe this: given what we’ve all probably seen over the years, isn’t it recklessly fortunate that things don’t go tragically wrong more often? If so, what do we do with that bit of information? How can we look after each other better? How can we make sure that we don’t see headlines like these again.

Or have I been fooling myself all along? Is that industry bubble, that safe sphere of invulnerability, all in my head?