The Chronology of Water - Lidia Yuknavitch [46]
Hannah turned and picked up her kayak and left the trail in the trees, making for the rocks near the river’s edge. We could see the rest of our class up ahead - some on the rocks, some in the water. Still stunned into focus, at the point where the rocks met the water I saw a dead steelhead, half in water, half out. Even dead, she was something. The silver and black and blue sheen of her body, the white of her underbelly. She smelled like ocean. “She” because of her split open belly, and the dried up jelly of sunburned eggs on the rocks. I had a hard time not looking.
LIDIA. Hannah calling.
No one seemed to notice we were a little late, they just dipped in and paddled around like spinning ducks in a big pool of slow water, their shiny bright colored helmets looking like Easter eggs to me. Big red’s hair briefly mesmerized me, as usual, and I reached my hand out to touch it, but Hannah pinched my arm where fat grows and I got clear again. In we went, Hannah ahead of me, me getting a little too interested in the black lines on the ends of my paddle. Huhuhuhuhuhuh. I had my bright blue tard helmet on backwards but no one noticed.
My feet and legs stretching out the front of the kayak seemed easy to forget existed. The slow water curled long left then slow right, around giant boulders that I knew had steelhead in the eddies. The tree leaves hanging over the water quivered. It smelled like river - dirt and fish and wet and algae. I put my instructional paddle across the skirt over my lap and let my hands trail in the cold dark wet. I closed my eyes. I leaned my head back, up toward the sun, the skin on my face hot, my hands in the water cold. I thought I might be touching bliss. A surface I’d not felt in years. Then I heard my name too loudly and looked up to see Hannah looking back at me: LIDIA. PAY ATTENTION. Too late, Hannah. Too late.
When we hit the whitewater, instead of the lane we were supposed to navigate, I went down the one that was out of our league. Look at all the pretty white. Like lace. I smiled. I didn’t make one paddle stroke how I’d been taught. Instead, I lifted my paddle into the air and laughed, and I heard Jeff’s voice going LIDIA and Hannah’s voice going LIDIA but I was laughing, so the power current took me into a spin and I traveled backwards for a bit and then down and sideways and then right over, my shiny blue helmeted head going down and down. I didn’t have to think about taking an enormous gulp of air first. It’s in my DNA.
Upside down underneath the water holding my breath things became oddly calm. You’d think you wouldn’t be able to see shit, but the water is icy and green colored clear up where we were on the McKenzie. And the underwater blur isn’t as pronounced as you might think. But it does make your eyes feel like ice cubes.
The boulders bigger than bodies rose up dark black jade and shimmered with the sun moving through layers of deep water. I could see the bottom of the river. Rocks, sand and plant life moving and moving by. More than one steelhead shaped itself, their dark shadow selves doing that thing where they water - hover in the current moving only their tails. The cold water made my temples pound. My heart beat me up in my chest and eardrums the way it does when you are running out of air. My lungs burned. My hands went numb. I closed my eyes.
Something-I think a rock - scraped my paddle. Oh. Yeah. My paddle.
I didn’t think get yourself upright, dumbass. My arms simply lifted to position until I could see the lines of my instructional paddle - exactly as they should be. I definitely had the right grip to flip myself upright - I definitely had the right angle with my arms - up until I slowly and simply … let the paddle go.
Upside down I saw the sun and sky at the surface make silver blue electricity. The rushing water and strength of current pulled my arms, rocked my head. The upsidedowness of blood in my skull made my head ache. I closed my eyes. Still smiling. The cold wet of my life. My body in deep water.