Edging the Current

When we were at the NOC clinic with Rob I seemed to have a halfway decent eye for eddies, at least for a total novice.  Eddies are places to stop and breath, places where you can get out of the onslaught of water chasing gravity.  They appear periodically along the banks, created by the ebb and flow of water meeting land.  They can also appear in the middle of a rapid, created by the shelter of features large enough to completely break the water flow. 

This river that is my life has shifted from a swampy and stagnant place into a rushing, foamy, sparkling and breathtaking series of clear and cold rapids.  I feel refreshed and cleansed by the change, but also a bit unsettled by the speed and uncertainty of it all.  One year ago I was drowing slowly in an unhappy marriage.  Waking every day to dwindling hopes to rekindle something that had long felt dormant and lying down at night feeling crushed and rejected.  I was abjectly unhealthy in a host of ways, physically and mentally.  I was bored to tears at my job and my performance was beginning to border on passive aggressive.  I was feeling crushed by the pressure and expense of a brand new and massive renovation.  I stopped short of having another baby to save my marriage.  I had a house instead.

Today I’m working with my soon to be ex towards what will hopefully be an amicable divorce.  I gave up the massive renovation and am closing on the sale of the house on Monday.  I gave up the old job and, with a huge leap of faith, switched things up pretty drastically and started practicing family law.  I moved in April, living alone as an adult for the first time in my life (except for my 7 year old son of course).  I embarked upon a physical transformation, going from being completely sedentary to doing 4 months in a row of a hard core fitness bootcamp and training for my first half marathon.  I lost about 20 lbs, discovered muscles I’d never seen before and felt fantastic.  Then, while training for the half I suffered a severely prolapsed disc and running the half anyway pushed it pretty much a bit past bearable. Then I went back to being sedentary, and in agonizing pain while working thruogh the diagnosis, the treatment (hydrocodone, PT and a spinal steroid injection).  Now the 20 lbs is back on which is BEYOND frustrating.  I’ve been in pretty good shape to start working out again for at least the past 2 months but the motivation is missing. 

My new job is exciting and fun and way more engaging than my old but it is also kicking my ass.  I’m writing this during a lunch break on my 11th straight day in the office.  I also work much further from where I live now, and I somehow ended up with all three pets in the split.  Between my commute, my long hours, my child, my animals and my need for a social life I feel beyond tapped out most days.  I have a vision for my future, of a place, past what will be some really challenging rapids coming up soon, that will flow fluid and swift but without so many jagged obstacles, without so many sudden drops.  But still without the mugginess where I used to be mired either.

And, running through all of the rythms of my life now is the steady percussion of love.  I’m in love.  Full on – living the cliche kind of love.  We are each complete, in and of ourselves.  We are each whole and dynamic.  Together we are giddy and delicious, sharp and sweet, bumbling and graceful.  We click, we connect, we play off of each other.  Syncronistic electric eclectic. Yum.  His name is Dave and he thinks the raw me is the best me.  Amazing.

As I’m rushing along feeling alternatively exhilerated and terrified, in control and completely unbalanced, I keep looking out for eddies.  I saw one coming up in the form of roll practice on Stone Mountain lake this past Wednesday.  Being in a kayak on water, focusing on those sensations and that challenge, IS an eddy from the rushing rapids of my life.  But, alas, the rushing rapids of my life wouldn’t let go this week.  I couldn’t ferry through the flow and get across that eddy line.  I didn’t make it to roll practice because I was stuck at work.  ARGH.  Part of me sometimes feels, I just shouldn’t start this now, I don’t have time for it, I have too much else going on.  But that ALWAYS applies if I let it.  And for so many years that was the precise reason that I DIDN’T do so much!  I refuse to accept that the rushing rapids in my life are in COMPLETE control of my direction and pace.

So I’ve got to learn to work WITH the rapids and the drops, they are just part of the landscape for now.  And frankly, I wouldn’t change that for anything, even when I do feel frightened by the transformative power of a river unleashed.  AND I’ve got to keep shooting for eddies, even though I’m bound to miss them from time to time.  There is a deep and calm pool coming up in my amazingly thoughtful birthday gift from Dave.  On October 10 I’m headed back to NOC, by myself, for Anna Levesque’s Whitewater Goddess Weekend! www.watergirlsatplay.com.  I’m determined to come back with an even better eye for eddies, even the littlest ones!

On Labor Day Weekend 2008 my boyfriend Dave and I attended a 2 day beginner’s whitewater kayaking clinic at the Nantahala Outdoor Center (www.noc.com). It was his second time, he’d done the same clinic last year long before we met. For me, the closest I’d been to a kayak had been to wonderingly watch them flit and glide and spin all over the river when we rafted the Ocoee last month. Compared to the lumbering rafts the kayaks were like beautiful dragonflys, skating through the current with grace and speed.

Of course I wasn’t naive enough to presume that I’d jump right in and start flitting anywhere, but you can only start at the beginning, so on August 30, 2008 I sat in a kayak for the first time. A Dagger Mamba 8.0 to be exact. It was quite sexy, with a big snakehead on the back deck. I was suprised at how comfortable it was initially. Our instructor, Rob Barham, was a tall tree of a man with the patience of one who listens to rivers a lot. We’d lucked out in that we were the only ones to have signed up for the clinic so we ended up with 2 days of private instruction. I think we would have been fine with the group but it was really reassuring to have him to ourselves, to never feel pressured to keep up or worried that we were rushing someone else.

After two days of paddling around Lake Fontana and on an easy stretch (although there was some Class II whitewater) of the Nantahala (well above the falls) I was exhausted and sore all over from using muscles that were a bit creaky and previously underutilized. Kayaking is truly a whole body sport. Although upper body strength is certainly helpful, you really need to use your whole lower body in concert with the boat and the water to be effective.

I took one whitewater swim after flipping and bailing and got some nice chunky bruises on my legs from the unforgiving rocks under the current. I was certain I’d been upside and not breathing for at least 5 minutes before I made the decision to wet exit but Rob and Dave both confirmed that it was more like 10 seconds. It’s amazing. No matter how comfortable you can get with the concept of “hanging out” upside down and underwater on a still lake all the sensations change just enough on a moving river to engage all those freak out reactions. Swimming in white water is hard, I’ve always considered myself a strong swimmer but coupled with a lot of gear, very fast and cold water, and the aforementioned rocks moving 6 inches across the current feels like a mile. But I made it into an eddy and back into my boat (which was gallantly rescued, along with my paddle, by the intrepid and unflappable Rob).

From there on out I was determined to, at the very least, make like a duck. There were lots of ducks on the river, and while sometimes they looked more goofy than graceful they never ended up upside down by accident. They just bob and float and bounce along with the current with total aplomb, carrying on their little duckie lives.

For the most part I managed to at least make like a duck. Sometimes having no real control over my direction, somtimes sliding down some rapids backwards, but at the very least staying upright, learning to move my hips WITH the water instead of against it. Until a really embarrasing freak out on Sunday, in an eddy no less, when I got knocked over by a branch and completely forgot which way was up. Of course that time I didn’t have to swim since I was practically on the bank already. I just had to stand up and hope that no one noticed (which I believe they probably did since it must have looked pretty darn silly).

At the end of the day we opted not to attempt Nantahala Falls, a class III rapid. We’ll save it for next time. I was bone deep tired and had started forgetting some of the basics as my muscles rebelled against remembering all the new combinations of movement and balance. I figured it was better to end on a pretty strong note than to end with a potentially very scary wipe out (I’m sure the specatators were disappointed!).

We’re heading to roll practice at Stone Mountain Lake with the Atlanta Whitewater Club next Wednesday and my next trip to Nantahala is in the works I hope. For all the sore muscles and the few moments of feeling scared I also expereinced an extraordinary and much welcome focus and peace on the river that has been missing from my chaotic life for the past few years. I’m a do-er. I tend to attack a problem first, reason it out after. I often find myself needlessly fighting forces in my life that could better be finessed. On the river I felt I was learning something more than simple boating skills. Water is life, and I’m ready to learn to move with it instead of against it.