GET IN THE RIVER
Dear Friend,
Today I am flying to England to embark on the next chapter of my adventure. I am saying 'yes' to my inner calling. I don't know what will unfold. I'm crying a lot today. Feeling my heart break for what I am leaving, for the version of me I am letting go of, and for the friends and love that I am moving on from. I am getting in the river.
Last weekend was a scorcher here on the West Coast of Canada. I woke up on Sunday morning with piles of my life in disarray, my home looking like a disorganised jumble sale — absolute chaos. The idea of sitting and sorting made me feel sick from sadness and overwhelm. I called my friend, "Let's go to the river."
I don't know if you've read the blogs about people spending hours meandering down the lazy rivers in BC. I've been meaning to try it for years. So like any other brilliant procrastinator I escaped my to-do list, bought some cheap rubber rings and we drove out to Maple Ridge.
We parked one car down the river and drove the other car up. Neither of us had ever done it before and we packed like the amateurs we were. We parked near a lesser-known part of the river because earlier some people had said there was an entry point down a mystery path, and the parking was ample. We blew up our rings and as we did, we saw two girls disappear down the path, rubber rings in hand — then promptly return, jump in their vehicle and drive off. "Where do you think they're going?" My friend shrugged. I felt sure it wasn't good.
Not heeding the ominous sign, we headed down the path in the sweltering heat and I heard the rushing river. The entry point turned out to be mid-rapid.
We can handle it, I thought. I had no water shoes and we had no paddles. We attached our rings together. As soon as my dear friend got in the water, she began to panic — the current rushed and she wobbled to stay upright, and she began to cry. Her fear spread like fire into my body, but we persisted with our plan, since isn't everyone doing it?? (Except those two sensible girls — but who are they anyway??) As I was positioning myself to sit in my ring, I said, “Wait for me — we're attached!” Too late. She had plopped into the ring and was off. I had no choice but to launch myself unprepared into the cold water, which engulfed my midriff. I gasped and was immediately spun backward as we shot into the gauntlet of our first rapids. My friend was screaming, "If I hit my head on a rock…" I couldn't hear the rest over my own fearful response. "Don't panic, trust the flow!" I shouted, hardly trusting it myself. I felt the foolish futility of trying to calm someone else's panic with my own panic. Immediately, we were split off — her ring went one side of a big boulder and mine the other. The string strained against the weight of us both, my friend crying out with panic as our cheap rubber rings buckled under the thousands of pounds of water rushing by. I decided quickly that I would calm down. "Okay, Lizzie, you don't have a choice but to go with it." I pulled the rope over the rock, and we were freed. We rushed on and quickly found our first river command — "Arse Up" — which we were to say many times on the marathon river run that followed.
After the initial terror came a patch of relative calm. We had survived. Our rings and skulls still intact. I hadn't banked on it being so perilous. I hadn't actually understood the mission at all. But here we were on the river, and the only direction was with it. No going back.
The river had other plans for us. Rocks came out of nowhere, trees dipped their branches low, forcing us to flatten ourselves completely, and once my friend was thrown clean off her ring and had to scramble back on. We were a hazard to ourselves and everyone around us.
When things got really dicey, my friend shouted:
"We shouldn't be attached."
"But I don't want to lose you!"
After a relatively short time — though it felt like a long time in river years — we found our groove. We learned how to spin each other, rebound off rocks and swing the other to safety just in the nick of time. And of course, to keep for the most part, "arse up," to avoid bruising our beautiful derrieres.
Very quickly, the river became the metaphor for life. What looked like a disaster and felt like a definite end always turned into a near miss, and every time we got through what felt like a very real problem, we laughed hysterically. The laughter cleared the decks — not just from the river experience but from all the stress that had been mounting: the packing, the moving, the grief, the unknown, the insecurity, the loss. Everything cleared with a huge belly laugh. It was exhilarating.
When the river was calm, we saw deer crossing, listened in on conversations between old friends moored up in sunny spots, resting from their own river ride, watched children playing, floated through magical canopies of trees, watched eagles soaring high above, and felt the simple happiness of being with my dear friend. We got used to the rapids. We got used to relaxing into them instead of bracing, panicking and crying.
We stopped a couple of times to rest in the sun, and my friend would ask, "Are you ready to go?" I'd say, "Not quite — can we take a few more minutes together in the sun before we soldier on?" And we'd sit there laughing, recounting the previous brushes with death, trying to predict what might be in store around the next bend.
We got in that river not knowing the river. We got in that river not knowing how scary and real it would get. And we got in that river not knowing the unexpected joy of living, learning, and connection we would find.
Could we have done it any other way? And isn't that life? What choice do we really have?
Just get in the river and go.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Lizzie
