Today I fell out of my kayak—intentionally.
On this day in 2022, I went for a swim in a lake for the first time since I was 19. That was the first time since I was 26 that I’d been fully submerged in any water other than a shower or bathtub. Even then, I only put my head under briefly to swim.
Today, June 9, 2024, in a class specifically for learning how to roll and right my craft, I deliberately flipped my kayak, Sofie, upside down, and calmly (yes, calmly, almost meditatively) went through the simple steps to do a “wet exit” from my boat.
I came up happy. Joyous even. How odd.
I’d expected to panic. I’d expected to flip, and forget the simple steps: lean forward, hug the boat, slap the bottom of the kayak, run my hands up and down it, (to alert others to my need/presence), then pull my spray skirt off from front to back, lean backward and swim out—all done upside down and under water.
I’d expected to feel my heart race, forget a step, or come up too quickly and crack my head on the boat—anything but get it completely correct.
Instead, each time (I rolled this way twice more) I came up elated and with a deep calm I have only ever felt while floating and paddling on the water. Each time felt like it was something I’d done all my life.
And as I write that, I remember that for the first third of my life, I did! I remember the girl who, until she was 19, dove into pools and lakes without fear and did somersaults and flips under water in challenges with her sister or her friends. I remember little me, diving to the bottom of the deep end to fold my legs and hold my breath as long as I could. I remember countless hours in this place, Lake Whitney, Tx, swimming in the King Creek Lodge pool until I was beet red and Momma sucked her teeth and shook her head as she smeared aloe on my cheeks. I remember that joyful child and know a piece of her has been restored, finally, after forty-one years.
I fight tears now as I recall it not because the emotion of the moment was so intense but because, yet again, I have conquered a ghost from the past. Yet again, a part of me that was stolen and stashed away because it offended him, has been returned to me, by me. (And with the help of Combat Kayak)
I did something that should have been, at the very least, anxiety inducing, because I was not allowed to do it for thirty years and not only did I do so successfully, but I did so without fear.
I still have work to do to be able to actually roll and get Sofie and me upright without having to exit her, for I tired quickly. But I have conquered a fear I knew I had to conquer as long as I was in a water craft: being upside down in water and in need of rescue.
And the tears flow like Texas rain now, but they are joyful tears.