Red Lipstick and the Strongest Woman I Ever Surfed With

I’ve been thinking about Michelle a lot this week. Her birthday is coming up on December 15th, and somehow she still feels like she could text me any minute with one of her wild ideas.

Michelle was one of my first clients back in 2016, when I was running women’s retreats at WRSC. She arrived to her very first surf lesson in bright red lipstick — not waterproof, not “surf-proof,” not anything-proof — and when I teased her, she said she wore it to honor her mom, who had passed a few years before.

Then, without hesitation, she lifted her rashguard and showed me her chest.“One boob down,” she said. “But I’m here.”Fresh out of her fight with breast cancer. Spirit blazing.

We became friends on the spot. That kind of honesty demands connection.

Her cancer metastasized years later, but she fought harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. When I visited her in New York in 2018, she took me on a foodie tour — like the city was her playground. She never told me how sick she really was. She just kept choosing joy, one bite at a time.

Our last surf together was December 2022. She wanted to spend her 50th birthday in Costa Rica, because she always said she left here healthier than she arrived. This was her happy place.

And that session — it was the best I’ve ever seen her surf.Smooth. Confident. Luminous.Like her spirit had taken the wheel.

Three months later, she was gone.

I didn’t know it would be our last session.I didn’t know that warm morning and smudged red lipstick would become a memory I hold tighter than most.

I miss her. Deeply.

But I share this because Diary of a Surfer Girl isn’t just about clean waves. It’s about the women who show up raw and real. The fighters. The dreamers. The ones who squeeze every drop out of the life they’re given.

Michelle taught me that surfing isn’t just riding waves.It’s choosing joy — stubborn joy — even when the body is tired and the heart is heavy.It’s honoring the people we’ve loved by living a little brighter for them.

This week, I’ll paddle out for her.And if someone shows up with red lipstick, I’ll know Michelle is still close —just past the break, catching one more perfect wave. to Michelle 1973-2023