A lifetime ago I fell in love with whitewater kayaking. I discovered the sport during college. I met a man who claimed to share my passion. For a year we kayaked the St. Francis in Missouri when the water levels allowed, the Arkansas River in Colorado, then the Chattooga in Georgia and the Ocoee of Tennessee.
Things changed and we stopped kayaking. Not my choice but I did not fight it. I still dreamed of one day returning to the roiling current cascading past boulders, dropping into holes before barrelling through waves cresting overhead. When the kids grew up. When I had more time.
I finally realized the man no longer shared any of my passions, so I set off to reclaim my one true love from twenty-five years earlier. I booked a week-long introduction to kayaking class at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina. Despite a bloody, gouged shin from swimming yet another rapid, I bought a boat.
Life, work and kids continued to distract and drain me. I dabbled at whitewater kayaking, and it is not a sport that welcomes dabbling.
“If you don’t like cold, wet weather, you’re in the wrong place,” said my kayaking instructor while sneering at me as I whimpered about practicing an eskimo roll in Pennsylvania’s Youghiogheny River last summer. My paddle chopped at the water as my Jackson Little Hero bounced off a rock past the eddy he had directed me toward.
He shook his head as he snorted. “Just a turd floating down the river.”
I steered toward the next eddy on the right, turned too sharply too soon and promptly flipped upside down. The rushing cold water shocked me as it filled my sinuses. I jettisoned out of the boat, not even bothering to attempt an eskimo roll. Coughing up river water, I kicked and dragged myself toward the shore as my instructor rescued my boat.
While slumped in my chair later that evening by my campfire, a voice startled me from my reverie.
“You’re here alone? You are so brave!” the woman declared, her jaw dropping open as she scanned the kayak and mountain bike strapped to my car’s roof rack.
I shrugged my shoulders. For a second, I agreed with her. I turned down her offer of a hotdog grilled by her boyfriend.
The next day I peddled toward some singletrack near my campsite in Ohiopyle State Park. An early morning drizzle had glazed the rocks. I struggled up the hills, slipping in the muddy sections I hauled my bike through before falling once again, out of control. With my feet still clipped in, my butt landed on a rock the size of a fist. I howled in pain and started to bawl. No one else was dumb enough to mountain bike this slick trail that day. For once, I had no audience for my failure.
What am I doing here? I’m fifty-one years old. Maybe it’s time to grow up. Time to give up on youthful fantasies I can no longer chase.
I limped back to my campsite. That night it rained and rained. I dreamed my tent washed away.
After a fitful sleep I crawled out of my bag and grappled with my wetsuit as I forced it over my stiff limbs. My windshield wipers slapped back and forth while I drove to the outfitter headquarters for my prepaid group intermediate kayak class. Of the six signed up, only four of us defied the downpour. Me and three guys. One dropped out after swimming too many times as we practiced our eddy turns, ferries and peel outs below Z Rapid by the bridge.
Our instructor wore a pink helmet and had gathered his curly hair in a ponytail. He eyed us hesitantly before asking if we felt ready for the class III-IV lower Youghiogheny. No one flinched.
“Let me try a roll first.” I drifted toward a deeper section just below the bridge. I gulped a lungful of air as I flipped myself upside down. I placed my paddle alongside my overturned boat, slapped the surface with one end of the paddle, then flung my torso backward while I snapped my hips. The instructor smiled as water streamed down my face.
I swam nearly every major rapid on the Lower Youghiogheny that week, including Dimple and Cucumber, but I managed a whitewater roll four times, twice even in a hydraulic that windowshaded me, flipping me over again once I righted myself.
I returned home with more than just a frightening bruise on my butt.
* from “Brave” by Sara Bareilles and Jack Antonoff
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