As the father of a 16-year-old daughter, I should have known better. I should have been better prepared for my conversation with Caity Simmers .
"How are you feeling? Looks like they may run on Friday . Feeling ready?" I asked in the most dorky, go-get-em dad way ever.
"Yep," Caity sardonically answered [insert eye roll].
"Sorry, I don't even know what to say. I've been asked how I feel for the last two hours," she continues. "And now I'm not really sure how I feel. I mean, I feel good. I'm comfortable. I'm close to home and just having a good time with my friends. And I'm going to try to do everything I can to stay in first place on Friday. So, that's how I feel."
That teen life. I think I've had similar conversations with my daughter a hundred times ... just without world title implications. But it's WSL Finals time. Gotta change tack, like, immediately.
"Oceanside. After a year on the road it's gotta feel good to sleep in your own bed and be home for this?" I cautiously ask.
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"Oh yeah, that's the best part. It's so much of a difference when you can be comfortable and be where you've grown up, sleep in your own bed, and see the people that you love every day."
"And you've got a close relationship with your family, that has to feel good having them around and all that support?" I continue.
"Yeah, for sure." smiles Caity with that little cheshire grin of hers.
Then it's onto talking surfboards ... because, really, who doesn't like talking about surfboards? Caity explains how her and shaper Christ Borst have come up with a design for Lowers that's feeling really good. A combination of her go-to model from last year and something they built for Bells this year, that amalgamation was created for Brazil, where Caity won, and now here we are.
It won't really change the universe if I win or lose
"It's funny, Chris gave me like six boards the other day, but I have this other board that feels like an extension of me," Caity explains. "I don't want to try any of the new boards, I'm just sticking to the one board, not trying to think about something else. If I have something that works, I'm not going to go try all these different boards and get in my head about it all."
Easing into the conversation, I ask her about the whirlwind year it's been. From her emphatic Pipe Pro win, where she now-famously declared "Pipeline is for the f---ing girls," to her Olympic debut, to finishing the year rated number one in the world.
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"I'm just trying to do all the little things right that will make me feel confident," she says. "When it comes down to the hour of surfing that's coming up, I just don't want to think that I could have done anything different. I'm trying to do the right thing, but not get too caught up in it at the same time. I feel like I've done the work, and now I'm just waiting for it to happen. I've just been having a really great time lately at home. I feel like I've been trying to take it easy and slow myself down a little bit. But at the same time, trying to surf and do my best. Just trying to find that balance. I think I'm proud of myself. And now it's just whether it's going to happen or not."
Then it's onto quieting the mind. The pace of the WSL Finals is frenetic and the day moves very fast. There's a lot going on, and for even the most seasoned competitors, it's a lot to process.
"The noise has been LOUD!" confirms Caity. "How do I turn it down? I don't really. I just try to deal with and observe it from a distance and let it happen. It won't really change the universe if I win or lose, so I try to tell myself that too. That's what I've been doing, trying to rationalize my thoughts rather than have this empty fear."
And on the subject of quieting the mind and slowing herself down, in the new print issue of SURFER we interviewed Caity and she was asked about what she was reading lately. So we went back to the well.
"All's I've been reading lately is Joan Didion. I'm really like like Joan Didion. She writes about California, sometimes," Caity says. "It's good to be in someone else's world because you can get caught up in your world so badly. So, I'm just trying to get caught up in someone else's world. She definitely isn't the most positive writer, but she's in a completely different reality than what I'm in. To be in that reality for a couple minutes and get your mind off everything, that's probably the best part about it."
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