Something unexpected happened to me the first time I observed a flowing mountain stream after Helene came through Western North Carolina. I was riding a bike towards downtown Brevard, NC on my way to a fundraiser for hurricane Helene disaster relief when I crossed a bridge over King Creek. I did a double-take, because normally mountain river water has an immediate calming effect. But for the first time in my life, it caused me to pause. Like record-screech pause.
You know that feeling that hits you in those moments that are mixed with fear, exhilaration, adrenaline, and uncertainty? Maybe I can explain this feeling better by telling a story within this story.
One of the river guides I worked with this past Summer began to stretch his whitewater kayaking wings by using a hard-shelled boat on our trips down the Green River with guests (we had the choice to guide using an inflatable or a hard-shell kayak, I opted for an inflatable...mostly because I wasn’t willing to stretch into the risks). Something I noticed was that while whitewater kayaking in a hard-shell boat is an exhilarating experience, it also requires a critical proficiency in what’s called the Eskimo roll. The Eskimo Roll is a kayaking maneuver that allows you to right yourself after capsizing, without the need to exit the kayak.
The long and short of this story is that my friend got a little ahead of himself one day while guiding in a hard-shell and capsized in a “wrong place, wrong time” sorta way. He ended up, upside down while going through a rapid called “Devil’s Elbow” on the Upper section of the Green. The result was he clobbered his face on a rock while upside down and underwater and quite frankly, this experience spooked him. It took him a couple weeks to get back into a hard-shell boat. And very tentatively at that...because a new respect for the balance between composure, skill level and technicality reigned.
Nature and wilderness settings like this have an inherent risk due to varying levels of unpredictability. Unpredictability, in ourselves and also from within nature herself. But the funny thing is...there’s always a human progression towards mastering ones surroundings. And intrinsic to this process is simply not knowing the extremes that are possible. Like Appalachian trail hikers that set out to hike the AT in the Spring and get caught in a potentially life-threatening snowstorm unawares. Yet it’s through these very experiences as outdoor adventurers that we learn and this learning becomes a part of our fabric.
So now let’s come back to my double-take over King Creek. I now had within my fabric the knowing that mountain rivers and streams can rage. And from within this raging fury can come wreckage and death and a complete rearranging of the landscape. Entire towns can be erased and roads and bridges washed away. Everything you once knew, will forever be changed. So from within this “new knowing” I now held within me almost an indignation for this flowing water below me. It was a strange feeling. I’d never felt disturbed by the sight or sound of a mountain creek before. But now I held this within me like a wound that was raw and painful and bleeding.
I kept on riding that day...knowing that soon I’d have to address the full magnitude of this newly discovered uneasiness within me that emerged around what had previously been my complete admiration for the rivers, streams and creeks. I had stumbled into an emotional yin/yang effect. Before Helene, none of us knew the potential destructive powers that these “water roadways” might bring to our doors. Not in this way.
Yet...and yet...I also know deep within my being that these “water roadways” were simply doing their job...of providing a path for the water to run its course back down to the sea. Herein lies the dichotomy. Rivers and creeks and streams are just like anything in nature...there’s a spectrum of safe and unsafe, harm and no-harm, gentleness and harshness. Extreme highs and extreme lows. Herein lies the challenge of holding these truths with ourselves. That both things can exist at the same time. Extremely high and dangerous peaks, yet so glamorously gorgeous to look at. Lush waterfalls and bubbling creek beds, yet at high water can become tree-destroying, rock-moving, bridge-wrecking, unstoppable torrents.
I came across a book I had in a box the other day compiled by the “Reader’s Digest” called, “Fix-it-Yourself-Manual.” When I saw it I was reminded that some things can’t be fixed by myself. Some things like the over-night-appearance of a deeply emotional dichotomy cannot be fixed at all. But rather we’re called to lean in and learn from it. For myself, when I walk in the forest now along the creeks and streams I have to be gentle. Because a tenderness surrounds my heart. I have to allow myself to listen deeply and let her be who she is...truly just a messenger. She (these beautiful mountain rivers) just delivered a message that night when Helene arrived. It’s up to me to listen and learn what that message is and what to do with it.
Meanwhile I’m getting reacquainted with loving the flowing mountain water again. This experience is once again reminding me of the true power that resides within affording compassion because of all the layers at play in any one given story. Compassion for myself, compassion for nature, compassion for the in-betweens.
Nature is still my greatest teacher.
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