End of season 39... whew! Made it!
After two seasons of about 125 river days each, I'm looking forward to some dry time! Blessed to still have the knees, the back, the coffee and the single malt to get me through (and the wife making the salary). Soooo lucky, though, as my momma used to say (an old King Solomon saying apparently. The jester asked the king what is it that you can say to a poor man and make him laugh, and to a rich man and make him cry?);
"This too, shall pass.
Or, as Carlos Casteñeda used to say: "Live your life as if the Raven of Death was sitting on your left shoulder. That way, you will remember that every moment is precious." (which is why I got that raven tattoo on my arm... to remember).
Back to the broadband we are. (Talking like Yoda I am). So, catching up on some of the great vid, photos, sayings, people, quotes and stories I've come across this last season. Hope you enjoy as much as I did.
First up: See video of my flight in Cream of Chicken rapids on the Tamur in Nepal last month. (So named because 1.) our bag boatman Kamal flipped in this rapid on his last trip, carrying some live chickens he'd bought for the client's dinner that night. They had tofu. And 2.) when we pulled into the micro-eddy to scout, the shore was lined with brightly dressed locals. You can see them in THE VID. That bright orange object right at the shoreline is a body they were about to cremate. Fortunately, they didn't seem bothered by the intrusion. In fact I could hear them cheering us on as I got rubber-banded off the stern (as you can see in the vid... seems to be what happens when you're rowing a "stern-mount" (rowing from the stern while calling paddle commands to the folks). Luckily I landed inside the boat (unluckily on Carrie's now bruised arm...). Check the faces of every paddler: concentration, apprehension, commitment, Super go-for-it attitudes, and in the end, total exuberance and relief. I so love my job.
And, as a bonus, see Hamish McMaster, our Kiwi trip leader, doing THE HAKA on our last Tamur beach, just above the first of dozens of class 4 rapids which lasted pretty much all day long, until we joined the humungous Sunkosi river for our last camp. Super cool trip; 4 days of trekking to the put-in (with porters carrying the metal tables, huge coolers etc.), then 6 days of class 4 to 4+ surrounded by the highest mountains on earth. ( Watch for a short story on our Tamur adventure on the OARS blog). What a life!
I end with some magically beautiful quotes from fellow Idaho and Grand Canyon boatman Heather Solee
There’s this gathering that can only be called upon in that hour right before laying out your sleep kit and right as the last headlamp finds its tent. I recognize it as a kind of dance that walks about in the dark of a river eddy and comes full circle to greet the company of six in the center of a boat.
You can hear it start like some unwritten dialog of poetry that belongs to the hour brewing. One boatman sits probing through their ammo can like some bell ringing us all in. One by one we find a seat and it’s always magic how a bottle is still full in someone’s side box to fill the breach in the middle.
And here it is… the forever toast of a bottle of whiskey and tequila that travels with six boatmen in some deep river canyon. I can hear the echo in the wind blow through as we absorb another story we have heard or told a hundred times, like it’s new again, I can hear the laughs that soak up the drench of thirst in our hearts every time we return and I can hear the crowded company of six that make us all feel the most familiar pieces of the dance we are in.
Someone throws the cap in the river and rather or not we empty the whiskey or tequila tonight? It has never been about finishing the bottle; it’s about knowing the company you are in, and recognizing the place we’ll never be finished with! May we always gather one more time
....
When I was a kid I grew up on my grandparents 2000acre ranch in the middle of the Owyhee desert. I used to take these walks by myself out in the sagebrush, close enough to see the barns and ranch house, but far enough out to feel like grandma was “just” comfortable with her 10-year-old granddaughter being out of sight.
I have this memory of my grandmothers that I carry close, as I don’t recall this moment in myself—but she reminded me of it my whole life, growing up. My grandma asked me one day what I was looking for when I went on my Heather walks in the desert. Apparently, I said this; “I am not looking for anything, I think someone is looking for me.” Who knows what a 10 year old me was feeling or thinking when I said that—but my grandma always brought it up like one day I could/would be able to explain what I meant. My grandma passed away about six years ago… and this is what I know now about that walk in the desert.
Ever since I can remember my life has moved me through places and people, at a pace that often leaves me feeling left behind if I stay too long. Unexplainably, like I am on the hem of not recognizing my way ahead if I don’t keep moving. Knowingly, anyone who knows me at all has watched these colors cover me throughout.
What I know is that rather I am 20miles in or 20miles out there is this long pause that settles in my glance like some silhouette walking through a dust storm, and someone arrives, returns or says goodbye. More induced is a handful too close that follow me everywhere I am and I think that is what I must have felt that day my grandmother asked me what I was looking for and I replied “I think someone is looking for me.” Maybe every now and then I feel the people who have me on their minds and hearts; the ones waiting out ahead or behind, the one’s waiting to meet me, even the ones that if I forget to stand vulnerable and exposed in the middle of a desert might not find me at all!
I have been on a very long walk, for a very long time, never truly unpacking my bags… and rather I was a 10 year old girl who could not have known then what I do know now--I am thankful to all the ones who have met me in such places and found a home for me in their lives and a place for me to rest, “with 20miles still to go.”
....
And finally:
A THOUSAND BEDS
Woke up this morning not completely sure where I was. I sleep in a different place most nights and sometimes in that place of dreaming and almost awake it takes me a little time to get a grasp on where I am. I am on the back deck at the boathouse, in Idaho, this morning.
I sleep on boats, in tents, upon sandy beaches, boat trailers, picnic tables, in the back of trucks, hotels that accompany a pre-trip meeting, a new camp just downstream, pulled over on some dirt road off the interstate or that ol highway I have driven a hundred times over to get to the river. Someplace out of the rain in the boathouse, maybe I am even tucked away in the sewing room where it’s dark and quiet or Denice Napoletano's office where the clock ticks loud and you have to put it outside the door to actually fall asleep Ruth Ann Ratay. I am next to another boat in an eddy, a different boatman to my left and right, under the rain tarp in a cuddle puddle. I am in Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Washington, Oregon—on the Salmon, on the Snake, the Owyhee, The Colorado, or am I??
All the routes of driving or rowing put me under the same night sky over and over, but tonight my bed moves to another place! I am awake… and even when it takes me a little time to realize where I am sleeping when morning comes; I know I have been in a thousand beds that have only offered me a great life. It’s the River and how you get back to her! Sweet Dreams… wherever you are tonight!
All three beautiful stories/ruminations by Heather Solee
More later, cheers, Jeffe
