“How’s your day going?” I asked a new canoeing friend, R, as he pulled into the eddy. My class, the more experienced solo boaters, had already scouted Staircase Rapid, just below. From the boulders on the shore we’d picked our lines and were heading back to our parked boats as…
I don’t want to suggest it’s a good thing W got sick and we had to turn around and drive two and a half hours back home this morning rather than paddling in the race. But it did mean I stepped up, driving-wise. A side note: I also learned a…
I feel like I’ve been holding out on you, dear readers. A weekend in March, just before I began this blog, something happened that I haven’t shared with you—the incident, in fact, that renewed my determination to get better and convinced me to start this blog. *** When whitewater paddling…
I was getting jostled in my whitewater solo canoe in the swirly eddy next to gate 11 of the slalom course when it occured to me, This is my problem in my life: staring at an obstacle I know I can negotiate, but don’t trust myself to make the move.…
W has picked a route home from the whitewater slalom race in Maine on mostly back roads. After we exit the first stretch of interstate he says I should tell him when I’m ready to drive. It occurs to me that I can have a non-stressful ride just taking in…
It feels like I am clinging to shore above a massive waterfall. My heart pounds against my life jacket, the paddle slips in my clammy hands, and my limbs have turned into silicone replicas which don’t make any promises to follow my brain’s commands. W in his bright orange canoe…
My ex-boyfriend used to say, “Speed is your friend.” He was usually talking about mountain biking and he meant, let go of your @&%#ing brakes. I don’t mountain bike anymore, but I can see how this advice is true in many sports. On skis, for instance, if you’re trying too…
I wonder what would happen if a squirrel 30 feet up a tree suddenly looked back and thought, Shit that’s a long way down. I’m hanging here by my toenails. Or, midleap between tall branches understands, I’m defying gravity. He looks at his landing zone and realizes, That little twig?…
W wasn’t thrilled with the idea of my taking the wheel today for some reason. On our way out the door to our local the ski center I mentioned the possibility that I might drive, but he said no, he just felt like driving. I wondered if my anxiety makes…
So far this week I launched this blog, drove my husband’s truck for the first time, telemark skied some black diamond trails, and opened several plastic containers of unknown vintage in the back of the refrigerator. None of these feats, however, compare to the daring move I contemplated yesterday: pointing…
