Don’t believe what you hear
Don’t believe what you see
If you just close your eyes
You can feel the enemy
When I first met you girl
You had fire in your soul
What happened your face
Of melting in snow
Now it looks like this

And you can swallow
Or you can spit
You can throw it up
Or choke on it
And you can dream
So dream out loud
You know that your time is coming ’round
So don’t let the bastards grind you down

No, nothing makes sense
Nothing seems to fit
I know you’d hit out
If you only knew who to hit
And I’d join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah I’d break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in
’cause I need it now

To take a cup
To fill it up
To drink it slow
I can’t let you go
I must be an acrobat
To talk like this
And act like that
And you can dream
So dream out loud
And don’t let the bastards grind you down

Oh, it hurts baby
(What are we going to do now it’s all been said)
(No new ideas in the house and every book has been read)

And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this
And act like that
And you can dream
So dream out loud
And you can find
Your own way out
You can build
And I can will
And you can call
I can’t wait until
You can stash
And you can seize
In dreams begin
Responsibilities
And I can love
And I can love
And I know that the tide is turning ’round
So don’t let the bastards grind you down
-U2 (listen to Acrobat)

No one is a good witness at a car accident. People are pretty good at hearing the “bang” but of course before the big noise, they are usually thinking about other things and are not aware of quite why the incident happened. Their perceptions are bent by personal attractions, emotions, beliefs, environment and many other factors that can, distort their observations. This of course is why these witnesses are often deemed unreliable in court. Lawyers can pick’em apart.It’s like the water cooler discussions over the Scott Peterson trial or O.J. Simpson for that matter. People are quick to make judgments and argue them over the cooler. “He is guilty cuz he’s a jerk”. Well, that’s why we have judges and juries. Without impartial judgment we would suffer at the hands of lynch mobs. Justice is not in human nature. Very few people are truly capable of un-emotional, un-bias impartiality. Thus we fed Christians to the lions, burned “witches”, hate “outsiders”, suffer racism, sexism and all those other “isims” we ramble on so much about. Sad, but it’s the word we live in. Sometimes we have to accept that the “herd” is truly “crazy” as the cartoon once said.

The “Chasing the Ana” expedition for me was, in it’s infancy, about testing my mind as a “kayaker”. I mean, I just know too many expedition paddlers. They all take on such seemingly crazy risks. Yet, as a kayaker with some experience under my belt I know that a good paddler has done so much to mitigate that risk through training and equipment and such. Iceland can be much less risky than the interstate IF you are prepared and skilled. (Go Freya!!!) Going to Puerto Rico was a “baby step” in my mind. A place were I could stick my toe into expedition paddling, certainly not. . “pushing the extreme”. Yet as I said in the CTA blog, the sea is the sea. Some moments were pretty bloody extreme. We would laugh amongst ourselves and call CTA the “Resort to Marina Tour”. And some days we did get to find nice landings. Yet even then landing in one of these bastions of opulence & wealth, we often found no energy other than to eat and find a corner to sleep in.

In the end, CTA became not so much about testing my mind as a “kayaker”, but through the many hours of silent paddling, tight focus, exhaustion, pain, sleeplessness, fears, adrenaline & disappointments I found CTA became, for me, more about testing my mind as a human. Re-evaluations, observations, multiple futures, foggy grey pasts. So much time spent inward is bound to effect us. Certainly this will be one of the challenges to come after the expedition. Making sense and making choices. Often the hardest question to answer on any given day as you slide up to the shore is, “how do you feel?”. You sit there contemplating swirls of imagery and emotions that swirled through your mind stroke by stroke; the waves, the surf, the sun, voices, wind, home, buiness, friends, love, loss, acquaintances, childhood and a myriad other muslin thoughts. . . ”

How do I feel?

Well, I just don’t know. “

8 Responses to “You’ve Changed Man!”