man do i love getting in my boat at night with the moon & all the freaky noises of mother nature. i love the rush of fear when one of those huge ass fish jump out of the water to catch a bug. (they always seem to get really close to my boat & tonight i got hit by two!!!!) i love how peaceful it is having no artificial light, only stars & the moon. i love the calm parts, where the mountains & trees reflect perfectly off the river.
we saw more than 40 wild horses. they are so magical in the moonlight. we saw lots of cranes and an otter! we heard crickets, frogs & birds. it was a great night.
not without incident, though. a guy who'd never paddled before was using a friend's boat & it was more of a white water boat. short & stout. my friend, paige, one other guy & myself were by far the most experienced paddlers. there were 4 girls & 4 guys total.
we are about 2/3s of the way done & just gone through 2 rapids when we realize we're missing sam. i start yelling. so does yolanda. i start paddling back, but the current is pretty strong & it's fighting me hard. one other guy, dan, is trying next to me. but he's in a 14 ft boat & the water is fighting him even harder. everyone else seems to be trying but they give up pretty quickly & decide to yell from an island.
i get past the first current & the m*fucker turns me around & pushes me back to where i started from. i'm pissed because i'm terrified he's hurt. i don't know him so i ask his friend if he would have stopped to talk to those campers? he says if he did i'm going to drown him!
(this really is much safer than this post is going to sound. i've done this a number of times without any accidents.)
i get past it again & the 14ft guy gives up. sam's friend is still going. we get to another strong current. it's so loud we can't hear anything. i'm sure if he was still in his boat he would have come past us by now. so i know he's not in it. (this has been maybe 5 minutes?)
we get to a curve & another strong rapid. it's stronger than the first two, so sam's friend paddles ashore & starts to walk. i get close to the shore & paddle over the rocks avoiding the hardest part of the current. he yells he can see him. so i get on shore, make sure my boat is up far enough it's not going to float away & run back down the river to yell that he's okay so they aren't freaking out anymore. when i get to the guys they're attempting to turn the completely submerged boat over. so we finally get it turned over & he tells us that he took the current sideways, hit a rock & at the exact same time his hamstrings both tightened & wouldn't release. he'd swallowed some water but his instincts said grab the boat & drag it to shore. so he did. luckily! the water isn't very deep it comes (at least right now) maybe to below your knees.
we get him in his boat & then get back to our boats & paddle down stream to meet up with everyone else. you can feel the relief. the next 20 minutes till our take out i'm trying to calm down & stop the what if's.
i'm extremely proud i made it to him. i'm not going to lie, but i'm not really bragging either, it was really, really hard. the currents were very strong. but my adrenaline was on it. if he was hurt i was sure as hell not going to sit down stream. i was going to help.
i'm writing about this (not so our mothers tell us to stop doing this, because we won't -we love it.) because on the car ride back to our drop off location i rode with sam & his friend. he thanked us for helping him. the other guy (wish i could remember his name) said "i'll be honest. i saw her paddling up stream & i knew she wouldn't be able to do it & then she was doing it & i didn't want to get shown up by a girl."
i'm writing this because i am a girl. a strong woman. who freaken paddled up a river against 2 rapids, for maybe 8 minutes? i knew i could. i knew i was strong enough- but i'm not sure i would have been able to do that 4 years ago.
giving birth naturally to finn & maya has given me the knowledge. the understanding of how powerful i am. seriously. i am woman. hear me roar.
that is why i wish every woman the chance (that wants it of course) to give birth naturally. not to be a hero. because whatever, that doesn't make you a hero... all we really want is the prize at the end. but, because without this challenge, this extremely hard hurdle- the intense pain & the feeling of "there is no way i can do this" but surprising yourself & doing it... they'll never know their power. their strength.
birthing a baby takes every ounce of a woman. takes mental power, physical power, emotional power. & you put all those together & baby -you better watch out. you're about to find out what she's made of. & that is such a gift.
i cherish that gift my children gave me, that i consider myself brave enough to have given myself.
before their births i was a wimp. i ran cross country but really i walked & placed in the last 5 every race. my side hurt or it was too hard breath so i stopped. never learned how to push myself because of my childhood/ exercise induced asthma. but now...
i can do it.
anything.
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