Steam pours from my helmet like the whining whistle of a kettle. My hands move the helmet to rest awkwardly on my tightly stretched spray skirt. My curly hair hangs low from the weight of the overwhelming precipitation. The clouds seem to be venting their long dry frustrations in a downpour of heavy droplets, as I slide slowly through the murky saturated flood colored waters.
The first rain of fall.
I was alone. I paddled ahead while they played in the squirrely eddy lines upstream. The air was quite. The clouds soaking in the distant sounds, the highway cars, the suburban white noise. The silence was welcome. I could see it across the placid waters. I rolled toward the thunder of familiar rapids. I languidly floated toward the places I had been practicing for the last few months, I saw every move, eddyline, boil, hole, rogue wave, I saw it with a fresh mind. A mind washed clean by the rain. A mind tired of people. A mind struggling in a purgatory between optimism and total despair. Still the rain fell, unconcerned with my thoughts.
How the worries of the future had kept me awake. How the memories of the past kept me from dream free sleep. Dreams keeping my brain in a state of distress. Forcing ludicrous hypotheticals into seeming reality. Waking to the sun. Waking to the noise of the my friend banging around and opening drawers for no reason. Waking to reality. Reality being almost as confusing as the dreams, save for the escape upon the water.
The escape into a world of froth, focus, ecstasy.
Kayaking fuels my will to live, it is the muse for my prose. It is life. My heart swells, pangs, shudders in a way never felt before. In a love so deep, so violent, so consuming, it overwhelms the senses. To think about snaking through boulder gardens, flying over cascading drops, or to moments quiet moments like this one, bring a happiness to my heart unknown. It is love. It is love, pure.
I glance back, the forms of two kayaks coming toward me, breaking the silence. The slight patter of paddle blades gaining resistance echo in the damp air. I smile. The next few months would be filled with kayaking.
Filled with Happiness.
To escape the city, to flee to the rivers, to love nature, to love the water, to love life, this is why I live. This is why I kayak.
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