Gonna try something new here

This memory, from so many years ago, comes back to me as the water closes over my head again. Churning, rolling feet over head, head over feet, like being tumbled in a cold-water wash cycle in some immense washing machine from hell. It continues until the motion changes, now turbulent, still a roaring chaos of water, but no more tumbling. I know instinctively that I am deep under the surface. Too long now. I need air. I reach down for the release handle on my spray skirt, my paddle about to be let go, forgotten. I have to push away panic. I fight to push aside these memories of her that keep joining the disorganization in my head, to allow space for awareness. It seems impossible, but I am suddenly aware of a single calming memory of one of the important lessons she taught me: Pulling the skirt and swimming out of your boat is only ever the last resort. Especially when you find yourself where I am currently.

It feels like it was just this morning: how excited she is to get me started kayaking, to share her love of the river, the wildness of it, and the artistic freedom of paddling in whitewater. I am fairly convinced that she is trying to kill me in the beginning though, and the cold nail of panic is driven into my chest when I fall over in the water. She has explained how to roll this stupid “boat” back upright from under there, but all I feel is panic. I abandon the paddle and my hand searches, searches, and finds the spray skirt handle and pulls. It takes what seems like an eternity to get my legs out of the kayak, like trying to slide a rigid pair of pants off over cold, stiff legs. I finally escape from the boat, my head breaking the surface of the water, gasping for life-giving air. I see her laughing. She seems so joyful, so happy. Maybe she really is that sinister?

She is laughing at me because I am standing next to her, in waist-deep water, with laughing happy children all around us. We are in a swimming hole in a river, and there is not a ripple of whitewater within an hour of us. She laughs out the words, “you are such a ridiculous nerd. What are you afraid of?” She laughs again, teasing, but it is good-natured fun. “You are usually so fearless! How can you be afraid of waist deep water? None of these little kids are scared!”

I am as embarrassed as she is mystified by my fear. Why am I so scared sitting in a plastic boat on perfectly mirror-flat, waist-deep water? Surrounded by toddlers. Shit. I have never been a water-person. She is, but that makes it even harder for her to understand that I have never learned to swim properly, or that I have never spent any great amount of time in water. Especially in moving water. Moving water and trapped in a confined space were two terrifying things alone, but combined? This is going to be too much. I think kayaking may be out for me. She seems disappointed, not so much in me, but for me.

She tells me, kindly, that I don’t need to get back in the boat, but when I see the disappointment on her face I know I will. Again, and again. My nature drives me to conquer. My nature pushes me away from enjoyment and into success. Something inside feeds me the belief that I need to prove myself to her, not for me, but for her. I believe I can’t bear to see her disappointed in me. How can she be so brave, and I be such a coward? How can I be half of this partnership if I cannot be half in every way? No. I am doing this. I get in again, and I fall over again. I get in again, and I fall over again. Each time though, with her patient support, something changes, not in the water or in her but in myself. As she encourages me to relax and to have fun I feel less panic, less clouding fear, and less tension. I feel more awareness. My head is clearer, understanding more of how to be in the boat, in the water, without so much fear. I feel a sense of calm on the last try when, still hanging upside down in this crazy plastic kayak, I can see clearly through the water that she is smiling. This makes me smile.

As I try to find a way to explain to her how I feel, she cheers. “I knew you could do this! You don’t need to be scared of it.” She already knows how I feel. She has guided me beyond my fear, and I am better for it. And it is here that I see it: She is proud of me. And yes, to me, this is the equivalent of being in heaven. I selfishly revel in her acceptance of me, in spite of my difficulty, in spite of my fear. I want to feel this again and again. I will happily paddle this stupid plastic boat over giant waterfalls if I can be so privileged as to feel this good again.

And then the realization hits me: She is freezing, which overrides anything I may feel for myself. As we loiter there in the cold water, me sitting in a plastic boat needing to prove something irrational to myself and she freezing, acting on her understanding of the fragility of my self esteem, I see it. I understand fully, that she will be my focus from this moment on. I will never again allow my frailty to preempt her well-being. She has the kindness and compassion to stand in freezing water for hours without a complaint because she understands that what I need is within her capacity to give me. She is the only person in the world who understands my weaknesses and accepts them, that knows me well enough to show me the way past myself. To unselfishly hold my hand and guide me through my fear. I will happily paddle this stupid plastic boat over giant waterfalls every day if it means that I can show her my gratitude for her wisdom, for her acceptance.