Learning to paddle with a camera in my crotch.
“I’m a creative person” is another way of saying, “I’m occasionally good at one to three very specific things and bad at almost everything else.”
At least, that’s true for me.
That’s definitely not true for the staff of Three Rivers Land Trust, who all share the enviable skill of being able to survive and thrive in almost any environment, under any conditions. These smart and robust men and women can perform every vital skill that elevated human beings to the position of evolutionary world wrestling champions - they can hunt, fish, trap, slaughter, forage, ride horses, build shelters, build houses, build vehicles, repair vehicles, and basically not die with extraordinary gusto. In other words, if and when the shit goes down, these are the people you want on your side.
Me, though? Ehhhhhh.
Quietly judging me like all the other birds.
Shocking news: I am not good at everything.
And I don’t care who knows it. I have a small but intense set of interests which I cultivate and dote on with tender loving care. These interest may sometimes have little in the way practical value, but my joyful pursuit of their secrets has been the great adventure of my life. I love what I love and I’ve accepted that some things are just not for me.
Some people are good at sports, hunting, self-defense, and marksmanship, and some people are good at parodying arts and crafts packaging (see below) and obsessing over movies. Different folks are into different strokes, and specific skills are useful in specific scenarios. For example, if you need an ad concept, I’m your guy. If, on the other hand, you need to fend for survival in the hostile wilderness, ehhh…maybe get back to me if no one else is available.
I’m probably bad at hunting because I don’t even kill cockroaches, it’s a safe bet that every berry and mushroom I forage will be poisonous, I have no clue how to find clean drinking water in the wild, and if we’re lost in the woods for longer than about a half an hour, I’m definitely going to eat you. (Nothing personal, gotta keep up my macros.)
All this say: I’m very aware of the missing crayons in my little yellow box of practical skills.
For the most part, I don’t think about these missing crayons because I never have to use them. I use my limited palette to comparatively good effect. I am happy with my crayons. They are pretty and perfect and just right for me. The only time I ever become aware of my missing crayons is when someone asks me whip out a color I don’t have, which is exactly what happened the day I was asked to whip out the kayak crayon.
(Yeah I know, the crayon metaphor really fell apart at the end.)
I keep trying to tell these people - I can hang with y’all, but this kind of stuff just isn’t in my blood the way it’s in yours. My family wasn’t exactly the camping type. Or the hunting type. Or the kayaking type. It’s not that I hate kayaking, it’s just that I never had the opportunity to love it. That is, until the day the Falls Reservoir Paddle came around. Little did I know, this love was gonna hurt.
As the little hot pink donated kayak bobbed in the lake before me, I know it was finally time to add a few missing crayons to my box.
(Annnddd saved it.)
It’s time to punch up some fun.
Tiny paddle chuckles lead to tiny bloody knuckles.
The first kayak I ever kayaked was a good little vessel. What was less good was the paddle, which was several sizes too small and several inches too short.
As I pushed off into the water, the painful truth of the precarious paddle situation became clear. What happened was that every time I rowed forward my fist would kind of punch the side of the kayak. Row, punch. Row, punch. Row, punch. I felt like a kid trying to ride a bike, if the bike was designed to slice the kid’s little ankles with every peddle.
(Note to self: design ankle-slicing training bike.)
And so there I was, paddle-punching my way across the beautiful lake in a clumsy, zig-zagging pattern, trying to keep up with a dozen season kayakers while shielding my camera from the thunking water explosions of my child-sized paddle. Improvising, I accidentally discovered the best way to protect the camera from the relentless splashing was to nestle it in my crotch and squeeze it between my legs like I had to pee. This sight was not missed by onlookers, who giggled with delight as my knuckles began to bleed. We were only five minutes into the event. It only got worse from there.
Better luck next time.
By the end of the event, I had gotten a little better at paddling but was very unhappy with my photos and video. I spanked together my totally whatever footage into a totally whatever recap video for social media, but it just didn’t do it for me. I ended the day wet, scabby-knuckled, and underwhelmed. I knew I could do better next time.
Luckily, next time was just around the riverbend.
It’s okay, but it could have been so much more.
How is it next time already?
I got my shot at redemption a month later. This time, I was ready.
The kayak crew met mid-morning at Crystal Lake, a deceptively generic body of water with a fabulous hidden secret. The sun was out, the air was warm, my paddle was the right size, and that goddamn grey parrot wasn’t judging me anymore. This time was going to be different. This time I was going to make something I could be proud of.
It’s amazing how much easier paddling is when you’re not punching all the skin off your knuckles. This go around, I felt like I was piloting a Ti Fighter. I felt like like a Lisa Frank dolphin. I felt like an eagle…with a camera…that could swim. Whereas last time my flight path resembled the sloppy crayon scribblings of a dumb toddler (I’m still on the crayons), now I could travel in a straight line, strafe left and right, pivot, swivel, ride backwards (lie), do a flip (major lie), and come to a dead stop (mostly true.) I considered myself the best kayaker who ever lived and I’d fight to the death anyone who claimed otherwise.
Okay, well, obviously it wasn’t like that, but the perfect weather and appropriate paddle size filled me good vibes and springtime zest. Navigating the water was easy, snapping photos was a delight, and everyone was giddy with the glorious inner feeling that winter was finally, demonstrably, over. Little did I know, though, the best was yet to come.
As a newbie to both the sport and the region, I knew very little about Crystal Lake. At first I assumed it was just another pretty but pretty-interchangeable body of water somewhere in central NC - nice enough, but nothing remarkable. That assumption was shattered just beyond a wall of shady cypress.
This is the real Crystal Lake.
Grand pillars of ancient water tupelo cut the light into beams of stained glass, melting in the water on impact and turning the lake to rippling suminagashi. Thick, sun-dappled colonnades of mossy aquatic woodland absorbed every sound save for that of sloshing water, chirping birds, and buzzing insects. This enchanted alcove may as well have a world within a world, only a few meters from civilization in terms of distance but a thousand miles away in terms of immersion. Put more simply, it was basically the lagoon from Little Mermaid.
This was me and my camera.
During our time in that little wonderland we spotted snakes, hoisted ourselves over downed tree limbs, and navigated tight turns and narrow passageways. Piloting our way through these Corinthian wetlands was an enjoyably challenging for novices like me, and a satisfying stroll for the seasoned pros. It gave one the sense of floating along through a waking daydream, serene and liminal. When we finally exited back into the sunny open water, I felt less like crossing over and more like gently waking up.
My two paddling adventures couldn’t have been more different, but they were both special and memorable in their own way. Events like this have kindled a real love for outdoor photography and videography, and I would love to do more of it. More than anything else, though, these events taught me a very important life lesson.
And that lesson is this:
When life’s got you low on colored crayons and it seems like all the birds are laughing at you, sometimes all your need is a longer paddle.