Surfing Sunabe and Serial Killers

The temperatures are finally starting to fall into the low 70’s in Okinawa, and with cooler temperatures, have come bigger waves.

The last couple of days have been slammed with throngs of Japanese surfers anxious to surf the Sunabe Seawall. A crowd forms on the South Steps every morning and evening to take in the surf. If I stand on my tip toes, I can just make out a cluster of surfers bobbing with the waves from our balcony. Yesterday afternoon, Sydney and I took the camera out and sat along the seawall, just watching, for about an hour. The break was crowded but everyone came in from surfing Sunabe smiling.

They were calling for lows of 66 last night, so for the first time since moving out here, we decided to turn the air conditioning off and leave the windows open. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep smiling, listening to the waves crashing against the seawall, wondering what could possibly be more peaceful than my life in that moment. Three hours later I got my answer when I was startled awake by the horrific howls of a cat in heat. For a minute my sleep-drunk mind told me I was in the middle of a Criminal Minds episode, and someone was being tortured right outside my window by a sadistic killer.

After I caught my breath and told myself that this was not a case in the making, I laid there for the second time that night listening. This time, not to the waves but to the chorus of cries from our neighborhood’s collection of feral cats, and it came to me: What is significantly more peaceful than falling asleep with the windows open? Staying asleep with the windows closed.