Current mood: contemplative
Category: Religion and Philosophy

As I have written previously, I went on a rafting trip last weekend. A few things came to mind as I was floating, rather flailing helplessly, downstream that seemed to have greater truth. After hearing a friend share the truths she learned from her dog, I now present the truths I learned from whitewater rafting.

Participate In Your Own Recovery:
During the ‘safety’ briefing from the guide, they stressed how important it is to actually try to help save yourself. If you fall out of the raft in the rapids, you will need help to either get back into the raft or to swim towards the shore. Just because you can’t do it yourself doesn’t mean to just give up and let the current take you. Do your part! Swim towards the help. Grab the rope that the guide tosses your way. Reach towards the oar being extended from the raft. It is a shock when you fall overboard, but wake up and do something.

In recovery, once we have the realization that “okay, I can’t do this myself” there might be a tendency to say “I can’t do this at all,” which isn’t true. I have to study, talk to friends, share, take a class, go to meetings, and try. Yes, I can’t do it without help. But I don’t want to be the kind of person that asks you over to help them build a deck and then expects you to do all the work while I watch. Helping me is different from doing for me.

Quit Trying To Steer:
This was my first trip whitewater rafting. I sat in the front of the raft, since I was the heaviest. It was my job to do three things: paddle forward, paddle backwards, or stop paddling. The guide said when to do those things, and it was my job to do them. I couldn’t see in the back which way the guide was steering the raft. We learned that the safest way to go over rapids was straight ahead, not sideways. But sometimes we got turned sideways. In a panic, I had the tendency to try and paddle to get the raft turned straight ahead. The guide had other plans, though. He allowed the raft to keep turning so that we went over straight, but turned around backwards. If I had tried to steer while he was trying to turn us around, we would have cancelled each other out, gone over sideways and capsized. I had to trust that the guide knew what he was doing, had been down this river before, could see what I could not, and actually had my safety in mind.

It is a shame that I had a much easier time trusting this lunatic (see the pictures if you disagree with my description) than I do trusting God or others who care about me. I knew this guy five whole minutes before we got into a raft and went down the river.

Leave Behind What You Don’t Want To Lose:
Come to find out, people take their car keys, cell phones, and other valuables on these trips. The rafting company warned us to leave this stuff in lockers, because if you go swimming or capsize, you’ll lose this stuff in the river. Pop-A-Lock does great business up there. We were all issued gear to use for the trip, and you didn’t need anything else.

What do I need to leave behind? What am I dragging with me on this trip that is holding me back, keeping me from enjoying where I’m going, or really not that important?

and lastly,
Use The Right Equipment:
From the waiver we had to sign, whitewater rafting involves “inherent risks, dangers and hazards” and may result in “injury or illness including, but not limited to bodily injury, disease, strains, fractures, partial and/or total paralysis, death or other ailments that could cause serious disability” So, before we left, everyone was given a helmet, a flotation device, and an oar. Plus, because I knew that I would be outside, I used half of a pound of sunscreen and wore sunglasses. The guides told us how to use the equipment before we even got on the bus to go to the river. I’m a good swimmer but I knew I needed a life jacket in case I got knocked unconscious. I could see it was cloudy but I used sunscreen anyways, and I’m glad I did because the sun came out later.

How many times have I gone places I knew could be trouble? We are exposed to all sorts of tools and materials that can help us in our journey, but how many do we really use? How careful are we? Do I make my phone calls? “It’s okay, I can miss one meeting…” You know the clich, but it is overused for a reason.

Thanks for letting me share.

Current mood:  confused 

Category: Music

So last night I went to the Hinder/Chevelle/Hoobastank/Nickelback concert here in Tallahassee. I had never heard of Hinder, don’t really care for Hoobastank, and plain didn’t like Nickelback after the recycled song fiasco got into the news. Well, Hinder sucked. Hoobastank did a good job, and Chevelle rocked the house with just the three of them. I’ve been listening to Christian rock music for over 20 years now. When I went to college I didn’t listen so much, because it was just plain crappy. Now there are some better artists, and some bands with Christian members who have had some success. Chevelle is one of these bands. I’ve really come to enjoy listening to music that isn’t so dark and depressing. A lot of my old music really got me down. After hearing over and over just how much I sucked and life was hopeless in my tunes, I started to believe it.

My favorite bands don’t tour much. When they do, they don’t come to Tallahassee. When I heard Chevelle was coming, I bought tickets, knowing full well that crappy Nickelback would get most of the money. But who cares? It was my chance to see them live and not have to travel. I got the tickets months ago and finally concert night was here! My date and I suffered through the first band’s overuse of the ‘f’ word, but luckily their set was only 25 minutes. Set change ended and Chevelle hit the stage. After a great opener, the first song ended and I was about to say “At least we won’t hear fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck from this band” when Pete Loeffler grabs the mic and says “How the fuck are ya, Tallahassee!”

I’m not going to be a hypocrite here (this means I probably will be. Call me on it). I used up my lifetime allowance of the use of the word by the time I was 15. Fun for me at work was trying to work it into conversation in my bosses’ office just to make her cringe. I may not have ever gotten good grades in English class, but I’ve used it in every way possible, noun, verb, past-participle. But five years ago when I started going back to church, I’ve tried to watch my mouth. It hasn’t always been a success. Hell, I used it right before he did on stage. I guess I was expecting more, or was that less. I know their music isn’t going to be a sermon from the mount. I guess I was just surprised.

The next question I had to ask myself was “why was I surprised?” Had I put them up on a pedestal? Had I put too much faith in them as role models? Why was this so disappointing? Luckily these thoughts didn’t interrupt my enjoyment of their set, and I let my mind drift during Hoobaskank so it didn’t seem like they played too long. Before I knew it, it was time for Nickelback.

They opened with the song “Animals” (which my date told me later was her favorite NB song ever… was this a hint?) and managed to do a great show. Take some double bass drums, add a fair amount of pyro and crunchy guitars and you’ve got a rock show. I didn’t know many of their songs, but I did notice they didn’t play “Someday” and “How You Remind Me” back to back. I won’t say I’m a fan, but I changed my rating of them on a scale of 1-10 from -4 to a 2. I’m still not buying their album, and from what I heard from the lead singer last night, he didn’t care if you downloaded it from the net or not. So, I might download a few, at least “Animals” if I go out with this girl again.

I had a really great weekend. A trip out of state, a rock show, a short work week. But I’m left with more questions than answers. How long can I go without saying that word? How big of a deal is it? Do I trash my Chevelle albums now? I don’t think I’ll do that. Am I being judgemental? Probably. Am I getting mixed signals? Definitely. Is this turning into a ramble? You tell me…

Current mood:  peaceful 

Category: Travel and Places

Well, I survived Labor Day Weekend 2006. A few weeks ago, Michele invited me to go along with a group from church to Ducktown, TN for a white water rafting trip. I knew a couple of the people going, but wasn’t sure if:
A. I wanted to ride seven hours with total strangers,
B. Share a house with said strangers, or
C. Travel on one of the busiest holidays of the year.

None of this sounded appealing. I had taken a week off work this month, but didn’t do anything that resembled vacation. I stayed in town, ran errands, slept in a lot, but nothing too fun or exciting. Maybe this trip could give me the excitment that my vacation lacked? Michele mentioned the cabin has a pool table and hot tub, and seven single women were going. Okay, I’m in!

Our four car caravan got off to a rough start. We had the usual mix of bad attitude, lack of sleep, extra stress, bad directions and women who need frequent bathroom breaks. But it all started to fade once we crossed the border into Tennessee. The cabin was beautiful, nestled onto a hillside with a great view of the mountains. Everyone unpacked and settled in, and soon we smelled the scent of chicken wings and burgers on the grill. By 10pm I was in the hot tub and Florida was a fading memory. I’m very thankful that I allowed myself to be fully there and not constantly thinking about the things I left. I didn’t have good cell phone coverage, so I wasn’t tied to my email, voicemail and myspace. Car repair fiasco where they didn’t get me my truck back on time? Gone. A good friend gossipping about me to somene else? Long ago and far away… I know I’m going to have to deal with these things now that I’m back, but in the short term, it was a good healthy break from reality that didn’t involve drugs or alcohol!

The rafting trip was a blast! The first few minutes were a bit unnerving. I’ve been canoeing a lot, but wasn’t used to getting wet. Once that initial shock was over and I learned that the raft won’t sink, I felt a lot better. Our guide, Rick, from Ocoee Rafting was a nut, and as we learned on the trip, that was a good thing. There were a lot of different companies running rafting trips on the river, but most of the other people were not smiling at all! Our guides jumped out of the raft onto rocks and back into the raft. We rammed other rafts, and I was encouraged to jump onto one of the other rafts to try to pull the other guide into the water. We had a great time, and here is a pic to prove it.

Click the picture to open it in a new window.

If you get the chance to go rafting, I’d suggest you try it. We had a great time.

While it was comforting to get home and sleep in a bed, not have to fight for a shower or get woken up early by the coffee addicts, it was nice to have a large surrogate family for the weekend. Did I survive riding seven hours with total strangers? I thrived and met some great people. Did I share a house with said strangers? No, they were all friends by the time we had dinner the first night. The biggest blessing? Our four cars made it there and back safely (even though one got a flat tire). I know this won’t be the last outing, and can’t wait for the next one. I’ll post a link to more pics soon. I have a waterproof camera that needs to get developed…