Sometimes

Sometimes you just need to stop paddling and let the water decide.

I’ve gone white water canoeing once. Well, during one trip. A one week canoe trip down the Athabasca River, shooting its rapids more than once.

A lot of things you learn while paddling a canoe, but perhaps the biggest for me was that sometimes… often, even… the best way to paddle a canoe is by not paddling at all. Sometimes you just hold on.

The trick is picking your line. Or in my case, rather, the trick is having your canoe partner at the back end of the canoe know what they’re actually doing and hope they pick the right line. Rapids aren’t random, chaotic though they be. You can read rapids, the way they churn and swirl and eddy around hidden rocks and shallows. And if you read them well, they tell you where to go.

And if your canoe partner does know what they’re doing, once in a while you’ll hear a “DRAW LEFT” or “BACK PADDLE RIGHT” over and through the roar of the water. And when you do, that’s what you do. 

But otherwise you do nothing and, miracle of miracles, suddenly you’re out the other side.

And then the waters are calm and clear, the air is silent, and then you still do nothing. Just hold onto your paddle and let the water carry you still.

(This also came out of my first time attending Write Club)