A Soul Surfer's Journey

Papa, You are crazy,

July 22, 2011.

One action produces the next action.

The book(web) I made this time brought various synergistic effects and produced other by-products.

There were many nice things that came out that I did not expect encountered in that. 

I have one son between with Maria Isabel, his name is Ken becoming 15 years old. 

Honesty, we were not close each other. He likes playing with a computer than doing something with me, and he is Mama's boy. He only goes surfing with us several times in a year and we really have to force him to go with us, then he goes with us as a obligation.

Few days ago, this Ken called me and asked me to pick up him at the Robinson's. After picked him up, usually he just do computer game without any conversations with me but the day was different. He suddenly asked me," Papa, what kind work are you doing?". He is always cool for me and it is rare that he ask me like this.

"What? You don't know the work of Papa?",.. maybe that is a normal reaction but I know we are not normal relations. And I didn't expect any for him also. He is not interested in what I do and what I did and I also never trying to fix for that . This was our relation and it was so cold and so poor. 

Such he was asking about my work at this time. I tried to explain about my doing in the work and what kind projects I am doing now. He was really listening while I was talking about that. 

"Ken, by the way, why you are asking about this to Papa?". He said," I was just with friends for a while ago, and they said they hate their Daddy because they are really strict and want to control them. And I said "My daddy is so cool, he don't say anything. He is a surfer and he is the first one who put first surfing school, "Yokohama Surfing School" in the Philippines. But nobody believed it until I showed them the web of Papa. Then everybody was surprised, yet they didn't half trust it.

After this conversation, he asked me," Pa, When is the next surfing trip?" , "I will go with you next absolutely." He also said,"I want to really learn surfing". Wow,… 

And he asked me about surfing a lot. I answered those one by one carefully as much as possible.  

I told him that there are many pupils came to me now and they like to listen my words about surfing. I talked about Paolo also. And I told him," They said that the words of Sensei should spread to everybody as a legacy". This is one of reason that I made this book.

"However, Ken, if you listen to me and if you call me "Sensei" more than anyone else, it is the gladdest for me" and, "I want to give this legacy to you more than anyone", that I told to Ken.

Then, he said,"I want to do it."And he said, " I call you "Sensei" from now on". 

And I talked about the stories: a start of my surfing, various encounters, soul surfing, and moon light surfing, etc. 

He was impressed by one and the one. 

And I told him,

"Speaking of an legacy, all of your friends are rich and they will get big money from parents as an inherit. But can you call that  they are really happy in it? 

As for you, You will get big money, houses and property which Mama worked hard and saved, but can you really find happiness with that alone? 

Papa does not have the money to be able to leave for you. However, I hand the experience of Papa and the book as my legacy to you. 

You have a Mama, Maria Isabel Lopez, the No,1 actress in the Philippines. Mama's leading roll movie,"Kinatay" was the only one got a grand prize of Cannes Film festival in the history of movie industry in the the Philippines ever.

And you have a Papa, Hiroshi Yokohama, what he did? He just did surfing. But he made a book of "Soul Surfing" for you. 

You will get the property of material things from Mama, and you will get the legacy of spiritual things from Papa. 

Therefore, you are more than lucky than anybody and you are a special. 

Special is your Identity.

Identity is to know yourself, to know yourself is to know your origin where oneself came from. 

You are awakened to one's identity and are going to search for it.  

Let's try to search for it together with Papa.

The Journey, the search of your soul,

for you make the "Soul Surfer's Journey" of your own."

After my words, he said," I want to be a soul surfer like Papa". 

When I brought Ken to home and I told this story to Maribel and Mara, they said that they are really pray about this, and they both cried,..

By the way, do you remember that I talked about the book of William Saroyan, "Papa, you are Crazy" the other day.

This book is the story about the relationship between an author William and his son. William got his son from his x-wife for a while and he tried to short trip from San Francisco to Half –Moon bay. ( Do you know this is the place, Matveric's, the biggest wave point in California.) But he is really poor and they only have ,,,,money for this trip. This is a story how to survive this trip for this small money. On the way, he wanted to buy hamburger but his son was the one advice to him that they don't have such a budget.

Through this trip, the son had been dealing with a crazy Papa who really different from daddy of friends or her Mom.

However, at the end of the trip in the book, the son noticed that he learned a very irreplaceable important thing through this short trip with his daddy who is this crazy. 

When I went book store to buy this shook for Ken, the staff said it was out of print because this book was published 1957,…. 

If it was so, I yearned so that I made a further story with Ken.  

Therefore, we go to our special place with three of us, Ken and Mara tomorrow morning. 

To make our story,….

(Of course, there is excellent wave.)

Master, I think this is my real direction of writing more than "Soul Surfing".

I think this theme will be more universal and able to catch the heart of public,…? 

Because this is theme of Love between father and son.

Bible said love is most important things than anything else.

"Mean while these three remain ; faith, hope, and love, and the greatest thing is love". 1 Corinthians 13; 13.

I also remember my soul brother, Tok told me once, when he worried about my relationship with my other son, Kanta,

" Even you became a great surfer or doing other great things, I prefer you become a good father more than anything else. 

Amen,

Hiroshi Yokohama

By the way, William Saroyan became a very famous author after published of this book. Most of students used to read this book like their Bible at the time with together, the book of Salinger,"The Catcher in the Rye" in 1951".