Living a Class 3 Existence

I love four-tens.  4-tens.  Four/10s.  Whatever grammatically-challenged way I can express it, I will.  My summer schedule totally rocks.

Last last weekend, as mentioned, started at the Oregon Country Fair.  After that was over, I unfurled my Oregon map and did some quick calculations:  1.5 more days off.  2 hours back home to Portland.  2 hours to Sisters, OR – home of Suttle Lake and a little piece of my heart.  What to do, what to do?

I went East.  The geographical opposite of what my heart usually tells me to do, but in this case it was the right decision.  I watched the clouds slowly dissipate as I drove, and the dirt on the shoulders of the road slowly turn volcanic red.  The air began to smell like Ponderosa, and man, I was home.

I spent a sunny, windy day by the swampy lakeshore, getting my first mosquito bites of the season.  I broke in my National Parks Pass (oh yeah, discounted camping!) and set up my tent like clockwork.  The lake was, as always, frigid.  But quite pleasant if you stayed in long enough to go numb.  I feel buoyed up in that lake like nowhere else.  Held, cradled by that water like a third parent.  And the geese and the fish and damselflies and the birds of prey far overhead all seem a part of that green, slow-motion dance.  Last summer when I was here with my parents, Mom laughed at me for reading Swamp Thing while bobbing over the small waves on an air mattress.  But (to digress nerdily), Swamp Thing is about a consciousness connecting to the web of life in a very visceral way.  It is a horror comic, so yeah, sometimes people turn into masses of insects.  And yeah, sometimes people are disemboweled and/or dragged to Hell.  But it has a good message!  You know, for kids!

Anyway.  That was last last weekend’s body of water.  This past weekend’s was much rougher, much more alien and unpredictable: the new, slightly dangerous friend-of-a-friend who takes charge of the whole evening’s plans when you’re already a bit tipsy and dazed.  I had to learn to take my fear in hand and just ride with it.

An old friend is spending his summer as a rafting guide on the Deschutes River, so again after work on Saturday, I saddled up and headed to the high desert: the tiny town of Maupin, OR.  This town (whose numbered streets go all the way up to 6^th) includes nine separate river guide companies, and in the summer, these guides are a visible, vibrant, sizable slice of the population.  I was lucky enough to arrive into town the night when they were celebrating (for some reason) New Year’s Eve.  The warm night saw a rather impressive homemade laser lights show, and a rather unimpressive ball drop, though there were treats inside, piñata-style, so that made up for it.  Good, friendly, generous people.  Good dancers.

Not knowing Justin’s work schedule, I had mentally prepared myself for a day or so of hanging out by the river, hearing yarns of one gnarly experience after the other and working on adding some color to my blindingly white skin.  But a friend of his volunteered to take me out on the river, so suddenly I was fitted tightly into a life jacket, listening to a safety talk (including such advice as to how to hold the rope if you fall out of the boat), and shoving off.

What?  Really?  …What was that about falling out of the boat? 

I was nervous.  Wildlife gamboled on the banks, the river moved steadily but unhurridly, my fellow paddlers were all able-bodied (and had done this as a family outing numerous times), but still.  The sight of those first white-frothed eddies and I had to remind myself to breathe. 

Forward!  Backward!  Take a break!  and (my favorite): Hold on!  This was the extent of the instruction we were to follow, which is good, because I don’t know if my mind could have processed anything more.  It made it easier for us to move as a whole boat, despite the enthusiasm of the man in front of me, who seemed to translate Keep paddling! as an invitation to paddle like a maniac with no cadence whatsoever.  Chill, man, really.  We got wet.  We were tossed around.  We did that cheesy high-five with the paddles.  We all stayed in the boat, and at one point nosed off of a rapid/waterfall at such an angle that it swamped the boat something fierce, and our guide had to hop up and down to encourage the water to flow out of the strategically-placed holes in the edge of the vinyl bottom.  I even got to “ride the bull”: I sat on the front of the boat with my toes skimming the waves, holding onto a rope and hoping hoping hoping that the rapids coming up weren’t too rough.  It was awesome, and I do feel accomplished.

You know the hardest part?  A little place called “The Ladder” or “Swimmer’s Rapids.” (All the features seemed to have multiple names, including one rapid that was both “Devil’s hole” and “Basket of fuzzy kittens,” though I suspect that was just to see who would end up calling it that.)  This was a series of large but gentle waves that cascaded to a calm eddy in the bend of the river.  We pulled the boat over there and walked back up the bank to a spot right above the first large wave.  Then, one by one, we jumped feet first into the water (one hand holding the nose, the other clamped on the life jacket – for comfort more than safety).  The cold squeezed you immediately, as your lifejacket lifted you back to the surface by the armpits.  Your job was to hold off taking that instinctive inhalation (in order to swear loudly) until you had reached the surface of the water.  Once your soggy head bobbed up and you could spit, wipe your eyes and get your bearings, your next job was to point your feet downstream and pathetically wave your arms as if you were steering yourself, when really the river was taking you where it wanted.  It was a mini roller-coaster, an adrenaline shot that was intoxicating enough to make me walk the bank a second time and leap again into the cold surprise - though I still had to take a moment to talk myself into it once I got there.

I have this bruise now - diagonal across my left shin.  I’m not sure if it’s from trapeze (wrapping my leg tightly around the rope) or from me shoving my feet under the inflatable seat in front of me on the raft.  It might be some chimerical marriage of the two, and I’m damn proud of it.  The cadre of guides (young, athletic, and tanned but for the ghostly white Z-shape of their sandal straps across the tops of their feet) and I played sand volleyball later, and that led to more scrapes and tiny cuts.  My arms and legs are patchworks of light yellow and purple (still on a background of lily pale, dammit), and I love it.  I can’t wait to go back.

New weekend, new adventure, please!