Moving With

Yesterday I happened to go down into my cellar. I saw my kayak lying there, waiting out the winter. I’m not physically capable of doing all the white water I did a number of years ago, yet just seeing the kayak brought back things that little boat taught me.

I remember surfing a wave, attempting to do an ender. I remember the pull of the current, the power of the water, the boat rising vertically backwards up out of the water, my body flung up into the air, feeling out of control and terrified. Water all around, overwhelming, overpowering. Resisting it or fighting it or ignoring it is an impossible struggle.

An ender

Then all of a sudden, for one fleeting moment, giving in, flowing with it, a moment of beauty, a moment of poetry, feeling the power and loving it in all its terror. Living it and going with it, putting all of myself into that moment, committing totally, accepting the price. Knowing that the only way to learn enough to be able to do it is by making mistakes.

The author in the midst.

When I lean too much or don’t lean enough, when my mind wanders or maybe just when the water gods demand it, all of a sudden I am flipped over upside down with immense unbridled fury.

The world underneath a kayak is mysterious and foreign. It’s dark and cold. I can’t breathe and my helmet hits rocks I can’t see. I’m pushed and pulled and flung around in every direction. I just want to get my head above water. My body is pleading, begging, gasping for air. Every instinct says: just get me out of here, stop this, fix this, make it go away, stop the pain, give me the quick fix. If I give in and bail out of the boat, I get my head above water. I can breathe. But then I’m swimming and I’m swept downstream. It’s many minutes before I can drag myself, dripping wet, cold and bruised out onto the shore.If however, I sit under there, stay underwater and enjoy it, be patient, be present, then I can get my paddle in position and I can roll up in one fluid, easy, effortless motion, and I’m back to the world of sight and sound, colors and smells, safe and warm and it’s two easy strokes back to the shore.

When I think of this experience as a metaphor, I realize many different challenges in my life, in my work, can leave me begging and gasping for air. The challenge is to be present, to tune in intuitively and let creative solutions emerge organically. It’s not so easy to do yet it seems crucial.