Jun
28
The Rogue River is about 215 miles long, connecting the Cascade Range to the Pacific Ocean. It was one of the original eight rivers designated Wild and Scenic in 1968, with 84 miles protected from development and motorized boats and regulated by permit. Out on these waters there is no cell service, no power lines, no passing cars or circling jet skis — just the rush and burble of water, the rallying cry of osprey, the humming summer buzz of insects.
It has always been the perfect place to unplug and slow down, and now more than ever its remoteness offers a true escape from the rest of the world.
Years ago John and I stood on the trail that parallels the river and made a pledge to ourselves: we would find a way to move from the Seattle area to Eugene, to be closer to the cabin and family but maybe most of all to be closer to the Rogue. I always think of this promise when we’re there, and how that river changed the flow of our own lives.
We were at the Rogue for Father’s Day weekend, enjoying our annual family stay at Indian Mary campground before bringing the trailer home and doing an epic unpack and re-pack to turn right around and head south again. John’s parents met us on the road to take the boys to Coos Bay, and John and I stayed the night in Galice before getting on the water Tuesday morning.
From our put-in spot at Argo, we floated to Grave Creek falls, the first major rapid (class III) of the day. John was in his raft with all of the gear, I was in an inflatable kayak, which I’d tried for the first time last year on the river and fell in love with.
I sailed through Grave Creek and successfully navigated the next tricky spot, the fish ladder that offers a bumpy but far less terrifying alternative to class V Rainy Falls (although I completely biffed the part where I was supposed to wait for John’s whistle before going through, I never heard it and thus stayed for far too long which prompted John to start hiking around to rescue me before I finally just went for it). (“You’ll start to second guess hearing it, but it’s unmistakable,” John had told me, which turned out to be only partially true.)
Now, I wouldn’t say I was getting cocky at this point, but I definitely felt confident in my paddling skills. The plan all along was for me to ride with John through the two most dangerous sections but I started thinking how amazing it would be to say I’d run the entire thing on my own. That was about the point I started coming out of the kayak, not once but four times throughout the day.
“What is going wrong?” John asked at one point, to which I angrily replied, “I KEEP FALLING OUT OF THE FUCKING BOAT.”
Eventually we determined that there were a few factors at play: the oar for my kayak was slightly shorter than I was used to, there were no footholds in the boat to dig myself into, and my paddling technique needed to be more aggressive. I learned that when a big wave came at me at an angle, I had to help myself out by really leaning into it and digging into the water rather than assuming/hoping the boat would right itself before tipping me out sideways.
These lessons were learned from multiple unwanted swimming outings, each which happened so fast there wasn’t really time to be super scared. I was lucky enough not to hit any rocks when I was in the water, but I can tell you it is quite the experience to come up from a dunking and be rushing along at what feels like eight trillion miles per hour while somehow hanging onto the oar. At one point the kayak was actually on top of my head while I was submerged, which I registered just long enough to realize with a strange calmness that I was trapped and would have to fight my way out before things shifted.
The third and fourth time I came out was in Upper and Lower Black Bar Falls, once at the start of the drop and once more at the end. It was enormously humbling, and reminded me of the time years ago when Riley was a toddler; he kept climbing up a slide backwards before falling all the way back down, only to repeat the exact same action moments later while wailing with pure frustration, “Not AGAIN!”
It was a steep learning curve but I think I did gain some valuable insight that served me through the rest of the trip, because I didn’t flip again. John added a temporary strap near the front of the kayak which offered a stabilizing foothold, and I worked harder at paddling, mentally chanting NOT TODAY SATAN (along with my normal whitewater earworm, the ridin’ the gravy traaaaaaaaaaiiiinnnn line from Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”) whenever I was tossed around.
I’ve been down the river multiple times in a raft or catamaran while someone else paddles, but being in a kayak is a whole different feeling. You have more freedom, you’re more nimble, it’s more vulnerable but also more immersive; it’s somehow like being part of the water. It is like dancing, or what I as a non-dancer imagine dancing to be like, a joyous movement that celebrates life with every breath. It is like surrendering yourself to the world and feeling your boundaries blur in some deliciously indescribable way, like tapping into a greatness that is beyond human understanding.
It makes me think of the lyrics from Fiona Apple’s “I Want You To Love Me”:
I move with the trees
In the breeze
I know that time is elastic
And I know when I go
All my particles disband and disperse
And I’ll be back in the pulse
I felt this wondrous sense of being rolled back in time, on the river and at camp. Squatting near a creek washing my clothes on a rock, feeling my hips settle into that age-old stance; gazing at the mesmerizing licks of flame in our campfire and the glorious wash of ancient stars overhead.
As though the world was untouched and uncomplicated, a place of raw beauty in which basic needs take priority over everything else. A vacation like no other, a respite and a reminder and a practice in gratitude for everything I am lucky enough to have in my life.
Jun
17
If back in March I was struggling with accepting the reality of a pandemic, I am now struggling with accepting that the pandemic is still very much happening.
I mean, to be clear, I understand that it IS, and that there has been no magical erase-the-virus development, and that cases are on the rise in, what, 21 states now?, and here in my local county which has had relatively few cases there have been 3 recently (a child under 10, a teenager, and someone in their 30s, so that’s … worrying), and everywhere I’ve been since restrictions were lifted shows that at least half the city is unwilling to wear masks (especially at Cabela’s, predictably), so it seems like it stands to reason that things remain pretty Not Great, Bob.
Still, our local reopening (phase 2, which Oregon will be in for a long time assuming we don’t go backwards — phase 3 seems to be specific to “after there’s a vaccine”) really normalized things in many ways. Yes, every store now sports a confusing maze of arrows and signage and warnings, and yes a fair number of people are now masked, but otherwise it kind of feels like…life goes on?
I read this story about a woman who got sick and 15 of her friends tested positive after they all went to a bar together, and the part that stood out to me (aside from the 15 friends) (I’m socially crippled so maybe that only sounds like a lot to me?) (15, though! That’s like…an entourage) is how she said,
“The state opens back up and said everybody was fine, so we took advantage of that. (…) It was too soon to open everything back up.”
This was in Florida so maybe that’s how things were communicated from the state, I don’t know, but here in Oregon there’s definitely not been any Official Word that everybody is FINE if they go out. It seems pretty clear to me that the reopenings come with risk, and if you go to a bar with fifteen unmasked friends…well.
However, I can sort of understand the point of view that reopening implies a sort of safety endorsement, even with the ongoing recommendations to limit outings. Like, how bad can things be if TJ Maxx is open, right? This is where my brain gets complacent and I find myself much less vigilant than I was a couple months ago.
I don’t agree that it was too soon to open things back up. Or more accurately, maybe, it doesn’t really matter what I think or even what health experts think — everyone being in strict quarantine simply wasn’t sustainable. Aside from the real issues of economic and social damage, people just weren’t going to do it forever.
So here we all are in a world of choices and nobody wants to live in a state of paranoia and we’re all pretty tired of being worried about whether that grocery store outing is going to kill us (or the lady next to us in line) but the virus is still every bit as real as it was in March.
It seems like this stage is even harder in some ways than being in lockdown. This is where we have to take personal responsibility, decide for ourselves each day what seems acceptable, and stay committed to handwashing/masks/distancing.
I’ve been getting lax, for sure. Most of the time I like to know that I’m not alone in my ill-advised fumblings, but in this case it’s not particularly reassuring.
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