On Friday, I sat in class and listened to a fellow classmate beautifully compare her experience white water rafting to a storm David George Haskell described in the November segment of The Forest Unseen. Her story resonated with me; in the summer before the 5th grade, I traveled to New Mexico with my family. I became acquainted with the so-called “dry heat” people just love to talk about and spent a day on the Zia Pueblo with Native Americans deeply rooted in their traditional lifestyle.
It was in Taos, New Mexico that we decided to go white water rafting; it was one of the strangest experiences of my life.
My parents, two siblings, an instructor, and I all piled into the six person raft. It was an absolutely gorgeous day; the cerulean sky was clear, the songs of various birds became melodically intertwined, and the sounds of the rushing waters roused my inner adrenaline junkie.
At one point, the instructor told my siblings and me to jump out and let the rapids carry us; he made it very clear to not try and swim against the rapids, but let them guide us instead. My brother, known for his feigned machismo, refused. My sister, at the tender age of six, also refused to. But me, 10-years-old with a reputation on the line decided to jump out of the raft, before my parents could protest.
I could hear the screams.
I unintentionally landed on my belly, my face buried in the rushing waters. I remember flailing and struggling until I finally ended up upright, floating lifelessly down the coursing waters. My family shouted for me to get back in the raft. I ignored them. I felt weightless, careless, amazing. I achieved that state of mind so coveted in meditation; I was hyper sensitive of the sensations that surrounded me. I heard the sounds of the waters, which soon turned to white noise. Suddenly, all I could hear was my inner metronome… it was deafening… the pulsing continued deep within my veins…
“Rock!!!” the instructor shouted out.
Rock??
Abruptly, I was halted during my course downstream as a rock jutted into my thigh and the sharp pain slowly moved from where I was struck to my entire leg. I cried out as I watched the raft continue downstream… the vessel began to look more and more like a small beetle flipped on its back with its legs writhing wildly. I began to paddle feebly, my leg still throbbing with excruciating pain. It was no use. These rapids were quite literally a force of nature.
“El… EL!!!!” I could hear from a distance as I continued forward. The pain in my leg had somehow morphed into a numbness throughout my body. This was it. I was going to pass out.
It was then that I realized that my family had pulled the raft up against another large rock, nearly identical to the one that had almost ripped my leg off. As I approached closer and closer, the looks on my parents’ faces slowly turned from sheer terror to that of embarrassment and disapproval, glancing apologetically at the instructor and shaking their heads. I remember being hoisted into the raft, and playing off the huge bruise developing on my thigh like it was nothing, because nearly being amputated by giant rock was apparently not enough to shake the pride of a rebellious ten-year-old.
“You’re grounded,” said my mother through gritted teeth while clenching the sides of the boat with a white-knuckled death grip.
“We’re on a raft,” I retorted, while trying to not wince in pain.
The instructor, his face drained quite literally of all color, looked like he was about to either quit his job on the spot or pass out.
I stood at my spot today at White Clay, and chose to solely focus on the water. Ever since I was little, I’ve been fascinated by the continuous motion of bodies of water and staring at this creek in the present evoked a similar sense of childlike wonder. I remember being told in elementary school that the Earth is 70% water and I am still fascinated by this statistic to this day. On trips to Point Pleasant, I used to stand knee deep in the water and hold my fathers hand and try and look out as far as possible.
“That’s where the water ends,” I would naively tell him as I pointed to the horizon. He would nod acceptingly, a subtle smile on his face, as he would try to conceal his amusement regarding my 4-year-old grasp on the world.
We can build dams and try to alter the path of the water, but it will continue to move regardless. Life is the current and whether we choose to flail or accept its path is our ultimate choice.
Regardless of which we choose, the current will persist.