As I listened to her high, angelic voice, I was astounded. It was impressive enough to sing standards and jazz classics you’d heard in a past life with working ears, but it was another world entirely to compose and perform music as a deaf musician. The irony was that they were songs she would never actually hear. It seemed preposterous, like a boat that purposely gives up its mooring, floating on an ocean with no rudder or anchor or any tools to navigate, yet it still expects to sail toward its destination. That bold act moved beyond logic, into the realm of faith, like giving in to the unknowable, like kayaking a river you would never see. No matter how hard you tried, you could never truly see the canyon unfolding before you or the impact you made within it. The journey was incomprehensible.

31

When we reached Upset the next day, Harlan had everyone land and hop out to scout. Upset was already significant, but at this water level, thirteen thousand cfs, he said it got even trickier and more dangerous. He pulled me aside and spoke in a clear, measured voice. “Okay, it’s pretty spicy, but there’s a perfect line to snake it cleanly, although it’ll feel counterintuitive. The setup is everything. You enter left, and you keep pushing left into these lateral waves. They’re actually crashing off the left cliff wall. Your brain is telling you don’t go over there, but you have to go left. That big hole Lonnie and Timmy were talking about is to your right, and it is violent; it’s a place you don’t want to be. You want to hit the lateral perfectly on the left, catch the current, and sneak by the big hole on your right. Bam. Done. You got this, E!”

I nodded, but in reality I just kept thinking about that “violent” hole that had subbed Timmy and where Lonnie had swum, the place where you didn’t want to be.

We got back into our boats. The safety guides paddled into position, and mercifully, as Harlan said “Check, check,” the radios were working. “E, don’t let your mind get in the way here,” I heard Harlan’s soothing voice say. “Your mind can be the barrier between you and the river, between thinking it and just feeling it and being there with it. If your mind gets in the way, then you’re defeating the purpose of what this experience is about.”

I let his words wash over me, nodding, slowing my breathing, pushing the fear to the outside edges of my awareness.