Fear & Loathing in 40 mph winds

(Written Fri Sept 15, 06)
Today. Wow. What an experience. I have never piloted such a tiny boat in such high seas. And I do mean "seas." The Miss has now officially earned her title: Mighty.

Freak the Mighty. (Not a bad film w/music by Sting). I felt like a freak yesterday, some nutball recovering depressive Ahab armed with a pocket full of dreams as I endeavored forth on my mad quest to hunt down my own whale-sized inner demon in impossible winds, the canoe shoaling up repeatedly in a mile-wide, 6-inch deep ocean of a river.

I think of Christine who graduated from USC Film School with our mutual friend Mike, Christine now fighting for her life after a bone marrow transplant, Christine who appreciates the little gifts tucked into every nook in time, every moment.

Christine wrote to Mike of me: "I imagine your friend on the water, gleefully paddling down the great river, seeing sunrays through the trees and looking forward to the smell of campfire each night. He truly is blessed. What an effin' amazing adventure!"

True. It is "effin' amazing" and with Christine in mind I won't even begin to complain.

I wonder, however, how Christine would have greeted the Great River Miss today. Her vision is idyllic, and there are days when the Idyll rings true. Today in the half-hurricane winds was not one such day. (On rock radio station KAXE "The Loon" 107-something, they were actually calling out weather advisory warnings to commuters! to watch out for high winds! On a rock station! Well, we were on the rocks, all right.)

I wonder. Hospital-bound yet high spirited, you know, Christine probably would have been thrilled by the dangerous waters - surrounded, as we were, by forests all around of lovely autumn foliage, this beneath a bright sun and cloudless sky.

Mid-afternoon the main channel led us far to the right banks and behind islands made long ago by log jams that refused man's efforts to unjam them and filled thus over time with mud and grew trees, we spotted a beaten set of stairs leading up a high bank and went for it seeking refuge at the house high above. The result was perhaps our most memorable tale of a bad day turned good by the goodness of river folk.

And I'll tell ya all about that when next I have time to write. For now we must away. - RSM
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