Carter and the Kayak

So, it’s my day to blog again... but I'm really busy recording guitar tracks... I'll tell a quick story and then get back to work.....

It's funny, the moments that I find suitable for reflecting on my actions. I found myself upside down in a cold river, in the middle of the winter.... and in the mood to look back and figure out how I came to be in this position. I am not using this as a potential "Jacques Cousteau" moment, to catalog underwater life... nor am I showing off the art projects that used to adorn the bottom of my boat (messages such as: "if you can read this, tell my Mom I love her", "S#!T!", or "does anyone have the number for 911")... I am trying to figure out how I came to be wet, cold, and upside down, the latter adding to the fact that this had better not take too long....

I have been Kayaking for a long time, but like many things, my intense interest in the sport seems to come and go (according to doctors these days I have an affliction and there is medication available, as well as a truck load of acronyms)... So, a friend of mine has recently been bitten by the "bug" and must go boating at any and every chance. Being the seasoned veteran that I am, I am a bit reluctant to get back in the boat. But then he uses that age-old negotiating tool that every man has used against the other since the dawn of the ego.... "sissy." It's on....

This was a bit over 2 years ago and we have been boating many times since. It is well into this new chapter that I realize that I have not flipped over in many years... I'm just that good (meaning I will do anything to keep from tipping over, including paddling so fast that not only do my arms look like Shaggy's legs (Scooby Doo, bare with me) when he sees a ghost... but the world starts to spin in reverse). I begin to realize that it is only a matter of time before my luck runs out. Occasionally, I will be floating down any given river... look over at the water, ponder a practice roll (rolling the boat over, not related to a muffin), and then remind myself that I'm not on this river to get wet! I settle for starting every run by confiding in my buddy Brian that "today could be the day!"

At this point I would like to introduce my father, known from this point as "Dad". I started boating when he dragged me (no small effort) away from my skateboard and plopped me in a boat. One of my fondest memories of the "early years" involves Dad and our first kayak class. There we are... all in a row in a cold, muddy river and an overcast sky (a textbook family vacation). The instructor inquires as to whether anyone in the group can roll, to my surprise my father's hand goes up. Ohhh realllllly? The kind instructor asks for a demonstration and a demonstration he shall receive.... Dad rolls over effortlessly, beautiful!! The judges give him a 10! Surprisingly (to everyone but me), nothing happens... a few bubbles, well he did have that burrito for lunch... the boat begins to shake a bit, steadily increasing until it starts to look like a huge blue banana having a seizure..... It would seem that, not only can he not roll, but also he does not know how to exit the boat. I would have helped, but I was laughing so hard that the best I could do was keep my body from evacuating fluids from every point possible. He eventually pops out and we get him upright and back in the boat. He takes this in stride, along with all of the similar moments in our past that he wishes that I would forget.

Back to me... so, we were finishing another run down the James. I made down again... guess today wasn't the day... chatting with Brian and my Dad, goofing off, one hand on my paddle... I hit a rock… in a "rapid" of waves about the size of a soup can. Assess... hmm, I am now underwater, my paddle is in one hand off to one side of the boat, this water is cold (I was right not to practice this, it stinks), and my Dad and Brian are laughing at me... hell, I’m laughing at me. At this point, I decide that I am either going to die... or roll up, no way am I getting out of this boat! Though they learned it all from me, they are both now seasoned trash talking machines.... there will be no end, if I bail out! So, I get both arms on the same side of the boat... moving underwater is like..... moving underwater. I make a quick attempt, just to get some air... it's been a while... and with the second, I'm up. Whew... I guess some things you never forget....

Back to work…

Carter

Comments

[johanna]

This is a great story. It made me smile. I'm sure there's a deep and meaningful parallel between studio recording after touring and time off for life and practicing (or not) gracefully rolling your kayak after touring and time off for other sports and life... and bandmates or friends never letting you live something down... but I can make my own Eisensteinian montages out of anything ;) And so the end of this not story is to say thanks for sharing yours.

[Laurie Mooneyham Baker]

How well I remember such times, as both our fathers were (simultaneously, perhaps) bitten by that river bug many years ago. Dad paddled until just months before he died, and we cast his ashes into the James to keep him in that watery sanctuary he so loved. Personally, I have always preferred a solo whitewater canoe to any claustrophobic kayak, but Dad was suitably unconvinced. Nonetheless, I paddled this weekend and spent time with him by proxy. We communed. Your story brought me back again to those sweetly haunting trips, and easy summers in Blackstone.