It's Just Life.

I find it strange. Life. I had never been fond of it in my angsty teenage years. Feeling as though something wrong had been done to me. Some how I had been dealt the worst hand in the world and was now forced to finish the round. It took leaving what I thought to be safe, what I had always loathed, the middle class lifestyle, to break my angst. Feeling like a rebel with no reigns holding me down, I set forth a year ago to become some big name in kayaking, to be the most amazing thing the world had ever seen. Ignorance was most definitely my friend, modesty, something I had not yet known. Fresh off the sudden and violent rupture of what I thought was a life long relationship with my then girlfriend of a year, I took a train south to San Francisco. A couple days later, and after a few plane flights I found myself beyond tired lost in the Santiago Airport. Life was slowly forcing me to become who I should be not who I thought I was. The next few days melted into a sea of sadness, excitement, crushing set backs, and finally being able to sleep away the jet lag.

 

Within a few days I started kayaking. Within a few days I found the best way to compensate for extreme nervousness was to think I was God’s gift to kayaking. Whether I knew it or not I felt I had to prove something. I been working for the last two years for this moment in my life. I did not want to return home a disappointment to those who had doubted my decisions. I wanted to prove my parents wrong and “make it big” being a dirtbag kayaker. I had now Idea how to obtain sponsors, to make connections, to market myself, but what I did know was that I needed to run the biggest drops, and hardest rivers that Chile had to offer.

            Ignorance is bliss, but it also a shit ton of stupidity, and stupidity is the shadow of youth. By my second week of kayaking I found myself charging into the final and hardest drop on the main section of the Rio Nevados. Dulce Amor it was called, before the earth shifted and it changed irrevocably this year. Due to my youthful shadow I found myself deep in the belly of a siphon, my feet pinned against my boat, my friends thinking I was dead, my life seemed to be over. I remember the moment clearly, frozen in time by the icy terror of death. “Okay, I guess this is the end” was all I thought. It was a helpless acceptance of what I could not control. I did not think about how terrifying the idea of eternity seemed. I did not think about what my family and friends were about to feel. I only helplessly waited, to defeated to cry, just wishing I had more time to kayak, more time to love, more time. Thankfully I was able to get a foot free and crawl, scratch, and fight my way out of the siphon. As my friends saw I was alive, as I floated away from the siphon, I felt the most guilt of my entire life. Because of my own sense of false confidence, because of my own want to prove something, I had almost horribly changed the lives of everyone who still loved me.

 

            That night I watched the helmet camera footage in the cabin where my friends and I were staying. Dan, one of the kayakers with me that day, came and sat next to me. Night had fallen, and the wood stove was leaving a smoky odor clinging to his clothes. “Jon” he said the the most sincere and honest voice I have ever heard, “You have nothing to prove. You are 18, in another country, kayaking things that I could not have run when I was your age. You have so much going for you. You don’t need to prove anything to me or anyone else, you already proved everything you needed to just by following your dream. You just need to get experience so you can make good decisions on the water.”

 

It was one of the greatest gestures of concern, well placed, that changed my mentality entirely. After that conversation, I started just kayaking. Nothing more. I developed a level headed and calculated approach to the thing I love most in life.

Summer came. Kayaking slid to only a few days a week, as I worked more than 45 hours a week as a waiter and bartender at night, and in the day working as a kayaking instructor. For two months I only had two days off, for two months I immersed myself as best I could in the unique lifestyle that Chile offered. As the colors changed, and clouds frequented the sky more than the strong southern sun, I no longer felt welcomed in my home of the last five months, Pucon, Chile. I chose to have one last adventure before leaving South America. I would go to Peru.

 

In my dreams I saw myself taking the long 30 hour bus ride north, crossing the boarder, then finding some small Peruvian town near the beach where I would make friends with a local family and get to experience the “real” Peru. Not the tourist’s view of a country. Peru, as the locals lived. It was a very naïve way to think about where I was about to go.  I was leaving the very first world comfort of Chile, and heading to the very third world reality of Peru.

 

            I sat in the no longer moving bus, staring outside the window. Hundreds of other busses stopped behind ours. I looked forward, a large pile of rubble was positioned across the road, on top, tires engulfed in flames sent dark coal black smoke into the empty blue sky of the desert. Behind the road block were hundreds of sharpen stick wielding hard hat wearing disgruntled Peruvian miners. They were protesting against a new government law forcing them to pay taxes. They had blocked the only road between Arequipa and Lima, the only roadway for all freight and bus traffic. There were hundreds of stuck busses and thousands of people, all slowly dying in the blistering desert heat. Some left the busses, walking to the nearby towns. I could not leave. My long blond hair made me a target every time I set foot outside of the bus. Urine and fecal matter soaked the dust around the buses, babies screamed in want of food. Local vendors from the nearby towns had arrived with small carts of provisions. I could not buy anything from them, acknowledging of the fact I had money would have greatly increased my chances of getting robbed, or worse. For the next three days I went without food, and I drank no water, I had given the last of my water to the family in the seat behind mine. I saw things that I wish to never see again. I saw humanity at its most pure. I saw what real poverty was. I saw what real survival was. I saw what tear gas could do. I saw what real fear was. I cried, but no tears came, my body too dehydrated to allow me to release the sadness. It was the most alone I had ever been in my life. It was the most fear I have had to live with. The nights were long, sleepless and cold. The days suffocating, dangerous, and filled with fighting the urge to give up. I just wanted to escape. I just wanted to have the adventure I had dreamed of. The heat and the lack of food causing hours of unwanted blackness. I would sit just outside of the bus during the day, hoping for shade, reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie. I would stare out at the emptiness of the desert, looking away from the deteriorating situation behind me, and would just think. Alone away from everyone, trying to stay awake, trying to stay alive, I found myself repeating the same thought in my head,

 

“If I live, I will be a pro kayaker, I will go back to Chile, I will tell everyone I love how much I love them, I will never take where I came from, or how I was raised for granted. I will try to live a better life, I will only pursue what I love in life, and I never go back to Peru again.”

 

Obviously I lived. By the time I eventually made it to Ica, Peru, I could barely stand with out the sickening feeling of unconsciousness creeping into my eyes. I had passed my limit to feel fear, I only felt exhaustion. I returned home, happy to see my family. I started kayaking almost everyday on awesome hard runs with my best friend, and finally ran the Little White Salmon River, a dream of mine. I found myself back in Idaho again, working as a raft guide. The summer turned into a toxic situation, myself not ready to deal with the bullshit that comes with too many managers, and my co workers unable to understand my need to be alone and have control. Finally the summer ended. I left idaho, was once again able to kayak everyday, and eventually found myself in Chile. After being in the country for two days, I canceled my return ticket home.

 

Now I am back, Pucon, Chile. Rain is falling, summer delayed slightly by the less than perfect weather.  I have almost no money left, very few job prospects that would allow for kayaking everyday, and gear which is rapidly wearing out. It seems like I will never achieve my dream, it seems like I will never reach the place I so badly want to be. Somehow I am hopeful. I am grateful that my worries are about not having money to kayak, rather than the worries of survival. I am so grateful for all my opportunities I have, and the mentality I have gained. This is not normally how I write. I normally use wonderful words to craft a dreamy poetic style of prose, but this is the most honest I can write. The last year was the hardest of my life, it was the most stressful of my life, but it was by far the best, and most rewarding year so far. I have changed so much, yet I still am young, therefore by default will make mistakes and very dumb decisions. I have so much more to learn, and so many more experiences to enjoy. Life is still strange to me, but so far all I can say is that I will continue to work hard, kayak as much as possible, and move forward.