Prelude to Absence

Eyes cast the gray carpet above me in a familiar light. The charcoal seeming water swirled color faded by the absence of sun. Riparian smells filled nostrils, shocking brain cells into recognition. Faint whispers of voices carried across the still river air. Rubber soles pressed against the gravel path winding toward the river, feeling more like a front door to home than a path. The absent piece of trash lay forgotten among the sand colored grass. Orange, gray, brown overtaking green in a sea of changing seasons clinging to the sand and rock shivered in the slight breeze cast up from the turbulence of water.  Lungs relaxed in a sigh, muscles lengthened, skin hung from restful bones. A smile parted bitter lips, furrowed brow, stiff cheeks, as knees slid into the plastic straightjacket. Callused hands gripped cold fiberglass, waiting for resistance...
I had been in this scene before, this place never changing, just the man who sees it. I had swam here, become bored here, laughed here, raced here, been alone here, grown up here. A year ago I had mentioned plans to leave this place, travel 180 degrees to the South and explore the rivers of Chile. Their eyes had cast doubt, their words encouraged. Some thought it was wishful thinking, some thought it was a boy's dream, but I knew it was where I would be. The Summer had been spent among the sand and heat of Idaho. Lifting, talking, placating, waiting. It was the first time I had been away from my girlfriend of almost a year. It was the first time I had left home for more than a week. It was the first time I understood who I could be, and who I should be. Upon my return back form Idaho, I counted my money, stared at my plane ticket, and waited. Kayaking kept me busy a few days of the week, the rest of my time spent thinking. Philosophy dominated my thoughts. The countdown to Chile started. Now here once again, lapping a rapid I had done since I was 16, I felt at home. Never before have I felt at home anywhere. No place has ever felt welcoming, except the river. I knew every eddy line, boil, swirl, hole, wave, branch, speed, and temperature of this rapid, yet still managed to learn something new. My friends disappearing over the same horizons, making the same moves, trying the same new lines, invited a sense of practice that was hard to shake. Practice used among the drops and waves of consequential rapids.  I would either be here for a couple laps, or ten, I did not know. The mood of the river constantly affecting mine, my problems affecting its. Abs released, plastic grinded against rock, muscles moved in a pleasing way, mouth closed to the splash, life ceased, living began.

Thoughtless: A creeking experience

Thoughtless. My hips shifted slightly left, breaths came matching the double left stoke. I detached from the water. Cool droplets of turquoise release left the edge of my red fiberglass paddle blade. They fell alongside me as my boat detached itself from the water and into the cool sierra mountain air. A noise like the salt and pepper screen of disconnected T.V. filled my ears. Time slowed. The bright yellow of my boat shone against brown rock of the canyon walls. I was in a crack. The smashing of continental plates years ago had forced the ground burst open unleashing a maze of vertical boulder gardens, and a shallow thirty foot waterfall.
Earlier in the day I had sat on top the large earthen dam, man's triumph over nature, separating the tranquil and placid waters of the lake from the torrent of thrashing whitewater of the South Fork Feather Gorge. Golden and bright, full of energy the sun warmed our backs as we first glimpsed the crack before us. The river came spilling from a pipe near the bottom of the dam, its energy finally realized, racing toward its next prison like lake. With a sudden biting sensation, a cold rush of wind swirled across the lake and invaded our bodies. I twitched with the familiarity of a shiver. I could see the first rapid of the Gorge. The pearl white crash of a fifteen foot waterfall, the swirling water creating large bubbles of imbalance, the graham cracker colored rock, the scene was absorbed into my being. I geared up.  The multi colored wetsuit half hidden beneath my blue drytop cast a very 80's look across my body. Shakily, I slowly placed my feet on the eroding trail to the river. It wound its way down a few hundred yards, each step bringing into focus the river. As I squeezed into my kayak, my mind was clear. Thoughtless. It was brought back the primal state of humanity, survival. A smile flashed across my face disappearing downstream.
 As I fell I realization of impact flooded my senses. I was half a second from the nose of my kayak making a jarring impact with the shallow right side of  the thirty foot waterfall. An image of ankle bones succumbing to the force of gravity in a sickening gunshot noise stole into to my eyes. Instinctively nerve impulses rushed from my brain forcing my right arm to pull a large stroke, moving my entire body to the left. My face made contact loudly with still green water, then my boat. Instantly my head ached. I waited a moment for my boat to be carried away from the boils below the falls. I rolled. "Oh shit that kinda hurt" came tumbling words from my mouth as I reached the point of earshot. The rest of the day blurred into a series of stacked rapids, all of which laced with sticky holes and sweeping corners. As the sun fell toward the seemingly growing horizon, the river lost its vigor. The power and intensity of the gorge dissipated into a dark green languid lake. My strokes quickened to power through the lake. Ahead in the distance I could see the outline of our '96 Subaru adorned in dust, shrouded in the approaching dark. Exhaustion hit me as I detached myself from my boat. Sadness was mixed with the joy of accomplishment. This would be the last creek I would run in California for the fall. The next steep creek I would bang my way down would be 180 degrees to the south. Waiting has never been my strong suit. All I could look forward to now, was a couple weeks alone with my thoughts.