I have been under a lot of stress with my sister being in hospice now for almost a year. I have been trying to find paddling ways to deal with the stress. One has been rolling a lot lately, solo. I have found that I do better practice if I am not socializing. I warm up with flatwater forward stroke practice for about 30 minutes. It is good to be on the river. I see fish in pools, there are great blue heron, woodpeckers, a barred owl. Rolling there is comforting and peaceful.
I still have anxiety pop up on whitewater. I don't know a way to get past it except to be in my boat as much as I can, so that is what I am doing.I did a practice roll Sunday with the crew around, in flatwater below slice n dice, and my hand slipped off the paddle, so I had to set up again and do it right. This little thing, I knew, was a significant step to getting my zen back. If you paddle this might make sense to you. There is a joy in paddling whitewater, it is intense and feels like electrified life. The seeking of that joy is one of the best things I have ever experienced, and the threat of losing that joy is terrible. This sport, the arena of the river, draws out emotions that one might not even realize they have. I have had this happen and have seen it in others. I had a flip on the Greenbriar in March, and for the first time ever I felt fear of entrapment in my boat. I swam in 2 ft. of water and everyone was surprised. I was frustrated and angry when it happened, but then I realized that the flip was a gift. That flip, in an inconsequential spot, showed me that I still had lingering fears from being in a heads down upstream pin on the Upper Nanty last fall. Even though it was easy for me to get out of the boat in last fall's incident, the fear of being trapped with my head underwater was planted there. Every time I have had a serious whitewater accident my mind has just locked into focusing on the task at hand, just doing what I needed to do to get to safety. But later, perhaps that night when trying to sleep, ruminations on what could have happened, what did actually happen, and how effing scary it was, slam into my mind. I wish I could be one of the knuckleheads who shrug dangerous carnage off and never ponder the ramifications, but I'm not. Maybe it's why I'm still here though.
I'm not going to write about my sister because A. it is too personal and B. it is her privacy, too. But suffice it to say this has been a really, really, really hard year. And I have been in sorrow that I really didn't know I could ever feel.
We were around the campfire Sunday night, and everyone kept expressing how amazing it was and how we missed the river life and how it felt so good to be back. And I was with my tribe, the Whitewater tribe. If I could I would prefer to just stay there than be anywhere else in the world.
