Freewrite Fifteen: Circling the Eddy

I am going for a walk with Gretchen at 11:40 and just finished up a spiritual direction appointment with someone a few minutes ago. I think I will ride my bike to our meeting place. I can do this freewrite in 15 and get dressed and bike over there in time to be there by 11:40.

Yesterday, N and I went kayaking down the Santiam. I have always wanted to go on that river, and it was fun, except that I got caught up in an eddy, and it dumped me over. In 20 years of kayaking, I've never even come close to dumping! So weird. I approached it correctly (I just watched a YouTube video that tells me the angle), but it quickly turned my boat sideways and dumped me over. It was comical how N had to come and wrap her leg around my paddle and we floated down until I could reach the bottom of the river with my feet and could walk my upside down boat to the sandbar on the other side. I think I should have just gone on the shallow side of the river near the sandbar instead of approaching the eddy. I am thankful that I was wearing my life jacket. It would have been OK without one because I am a strong swimmer (Southern California beach girl here - been pulled under the water and waves too many times to count.), but I'm glad I did regardless. 

All that to say is that I told my directee what happened, and God used it a a metaphor for when we are in a shame "eddy" circle and we get pulled under. God's question for my directee was "What is your process for connecting with God rather than getting pulled under and into the shame eddy?" What is your life jacket? 

We talked about speaking up and not feeling shame for doing that too. I always learn so much from interaction with my directees.

The only loss in getting dump out of my kayak was one of my Hawaiian sandals was dumped into the river. It made it hard to stand on the rocks on the sandbar and dump out the water and such, but N helped, and we were on our way. That was the only loss other than my sunscreen lip protector (almost empty anyway). What was so cool was I was going on about 1/4 mile and went right by a brown thing in the water. I looked down and thought, "What is that?" It was my other SANDAL!!!! It was caught in a small eddy downriver! How cool is that?

We also went up the Lukiamute River against the current, but it was so calm compared to the Santiam. I realized I have only kayaked the Willamette, and it is so safe and easy to navigate comparatively. 

We were trying to get to the red pin on
the map as we went up the Lukiamute,
but we realized it would be too far to go.
We were due at the Buena Vista Ferry dock at 3 pm,
and it was already 2:10. So, we turned back
around at the blue dot. 

So that was two adventures with N - e-Mountain biking in the Paul Dunn on Saturday and down the Santiam on Monday. I loved it, and it was nice to spend time with N after six months of not even seeing each other face to face. 

Ta Ta for Now. Off to walk with G by the Willamette.