The masters in the art of living make little distinction between their work and their play, their labour and their leisure, their minds and their bodies, their information, their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which, they simply pursue their vision of excellence at whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing.
James A Michener
When I first asked Kelly Slater about creating a book that would explain who he really was, in words and pictures, he sent me an excited text in the middle of that night with the above quote from the great novelist and travel writer. He wrote: “This is how it starts.”
And that was how we started the published version of Kelly Slater For The Love, and I’ve always felt that the Michener quote beautifully and perfectly summed up the philosophy and lifestyle of the greatest surfer in history.
These thoughts came flooding back to me – inspiring a rabbit hole afternoon searching dusty hard drives for the keys to Kelly in hundreds of interview transcripts – after the GOAT was beaten in the third round at Bells last week and once again, inevitably, hinted at retirement. Of course, the decision may not be his to make. While it would be mathematically possible for him to survive the midseason cut by winning the Margaret River Pro later this month, or even by coming second if a lot went wrong for about half a dozen other surfers, the fact is the tour is raising questions his body can’t answer. As the Sydney Morning Herald’s Dan Walsh enigmatically put it, “Kelly Slater is 52, with a baby on the way and a dead man’s body part holding his cantankerous hip together.”
The flesh is definitely weaker and I’m not so sure the spirit is all that willing. But we’ve been here before, many times.
I worked with Kelly off and on, mostly during his European sojourns, for the better part of a decade. I was the head of marketing for Quiksilver Europe and he’d been the face of the brand for his entire career. We were both on the same team but I wanted him to do stuff and he, like Michener, wanted to be a master of the art of living. So we would occasionally collide, but I think there was mutual respect out of which a friendship grew, although it was sorely tested at times when we signed a deal with Chronicle Books in San Francisco in early 2007, signalling the start of a year and a bit of oscillation between fascination and frustration as I chased the champ around the world waving a tape recorder in his general direction.
As our year on the road neared its conclusion, Kelly wrote in his preface to the book something very pertinent to where we are today – and, although much of the book was drawn from interviews I taped with him and with a vast number of friends and rivals, he did write every word of this:
“As I write this I’m in California after having surfed and won the first two events of the 2008 world tour in Australia – the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper Rocks, run by my sponsor of 18 years, and the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach. I have been in the mind-set that I won’t compete a full year on the tour, again sort of going into semi-retirement, which I did for three years after winning my sixth title in 1998 and being completely burned out on living the competitive life.
“I finished third in the world last year and found at the end of it (and actually during it) that I wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about competing at the one thing that has always been my first love. I’ve always said that if I wasn’t loving what I was doing I would simply do something else. Being here with two wins under the belt is getting me fired up to surf well, but at the same time it’s letting me know that my heart’s not necessarily in the same place.
“I think we surfers are mostly addicts of some sort or another, using waves as our fix. I’ve probably spent most of the years of my life using it as my getaway from things I didn’t want to think, feel, or deal with on some level. Many times surfing was the only thing I wanted to feel at all. Yet at the same time, I’ve been intrigued by questions of life, death, family, music, politics, religion, and many other things. For me surfing is my own way to read the world, or at least it’s the place from which I can read things most easily.
“As a grommet and even as a young pro surfer, nothing else mattered like riding waves. (Well, once in a while there were other things but I found girls way more complicated than waves!) But as we grow and experience things our minds grow, our questioning grows, our ideas get bigger and broader, and the purpose of our lives becomes clearer. Life and love is far more important, I know, and surfing is just one aspect of my or any surfer’s life.”
Kelly was 36 when he penned those words and Kalani Miller was the new love in his life. She was at school in UC Santa Barbara and like a lovesick grom he’d drive up there and sneak into her dorm. We had to hold up final production of the book until he produced the perfect picture to sum up their relationship, which endures to this day, and finally they are having a baby, a son.
Regardless of a highly unlikely victory at Margaret River, I really hope Kelly calls time on his long and unprecedented career. We’ll all miss watching his remarkable surfing in real time, but in his own words, “life and love is far more important”.
