Surfing

I’ve watched some older movies recently & got me thinking about surfing. We have lakes here but we are far from the ocean. While we’ve travelled to Florida when I was younger, I never tried surfing. I always have wanted to try it. Don’t care to be good mind you, but just enough where I could actually stay on the board
Who has tried surfing? Do you consider yourself a beginner or advanced? How long have you been doing it? What started it for you?