Drew Rozell, Ph.D.

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Downstream: An adventure story (Part 1)

May 7, 2010 drewrozell 5 Comments

The plan was not well thought out.

I have no qualms admitting that.

When there’s a whiff of adventure in the air, sometimes it’s best to just move forward. After all, things going according to plan are more the exception than the rule.

Mark called me around one in the afternoon on Thursday. He had half the day off from his job and the spring day was full of bright sunshine.  Was it time to drop the kayaks in the water, he asked? Even though I awoke to a fresh inch of wet snow just the morning before, we both knew Mark’s question was rhetorical.

It was time.

(Very Cool Life note: One of my litmus tests for a very cool life is that if someone calls you with an idea that sounds fun, you have enough freedom in your life to say yes at least 75% of the time.)

So we would be dusting our boats from their winter storage and hitting the water. Where we live, the options are plentiful. While the sunshine served as the prime mover for our adventure, the strong winds made me think large bodies of water would not be in our best interests.

Eliminating lakes turned my attention to rivers. In fact, I’d been eyeing my local river for the past couple weeks. The road I drive into Vermont follows the Mettowee River, a narrow stream that snakes its way northward before meeting Lake Champlain. I’d been stealing glances as I drove, gauging the feasibility of a paddle and considering potential put-ins and take-outs. From what I could see, it looked doable. While no more than chest deep, with the spring melt, the was fully engorged and running fast.

I like to explore the things close to me. Where I live, there are more hikes, trails, lakes, and ponds than I will ever get to in a lifetime. But I like to experience what’s around me up close. I like having a personal memory with my geography; a story to tell myself (and repeat ad nauseam to those around me. Did I ever tell you about the time we climbed…? Yes, you did…)

And yes, I like some adventure mixed in with my memories as well. Just a few drops of Tabasco to liven things up.

“How about the Mettowee?” I asked Mark.

“I’ll be over in an hour,” he replied.

And now we had our plan. By the time Mark arrived two hours later (we were on dude-time), I had Googled “kayaking+mettowee+river+vermont.” to properly prepare. The only information I found was an obituary of a young woman whose kayak got pinned between some rocks during the spring melt. She perished on the river. For some reason, this news combined with the fact that vast majority our combined paddling experience was on flat water (lakes and ponds) did nothing to deter us.

It was close to 4PM when, with a hoot of excitement, we wiggled into our boats and let the river sweep us downstream.

Leading, I immediately came to a sharp bend. The large fallen tree easily spanned the 20-foot width of the Mettowee. My boat slammed against the barrier, the broadside of the kayak now taking the full force of the rushing current. While my brain took a second to consider my best course of action, the Mettowee did not wait.

The force of the water rocked my open cockpit upstream. Once the first wave entered my boat, my fate was sealed. In a flash, the boat filled with water and flipped. As my head neared the water, I scrambled to eject my legs and body from the kayak. The cold water stung me like an unexpected punch to the eye and sucked the breath from me. My adrenals firing, I found my footing and dragged my heavy, waterlogged boat to the shore.

Seeing me, Mark lay back, clinging to some brush to avoid my fate, yelling to see if I was okay.

Before I could answer, amid the shock of hitting the forty-something degree water (less than two minutes after departure!), I realized I had let go of my paddle. Now I was running down the side of the country road, in a full sprint trying to beat my runaway paddle to a spot where I could access the river downstream. After a quarter mile, I made it back to Mark, paddle in hand, huffing, puffing, and dripping.

Clearly, this was not a good idea, I thought to myself. Fucking stupid of me. We had at least 10 miles of paddling in front of us. So far, we’d gone less than 300 feet and I was already wet, winded, cold, and shaken.

I considered the facts:

We had no way of knowing how long the trip would take us. We would be racing the daylight.

Much of the river appeared narrow enough where any fallen trees would present the same danger and at the least, require a portage. How many were there between here and Mark’s truck downstream? Three? Thirty-three?

I was wet up to my armpits. And cold.

What if we proceeded, only to find the water impassable a few miles downriver, what then? Our vehicles would be miles away. Who knows how far the river would take us from the road? How would we get the boats out?

“Dude, whaddaya think?” I asked, more than half-hoping Mark would tell me what a foolish idea this had been and we could pack up, head to my place, fire up the grill and have a beer.

END PART 1

READ PART 2

 

Blog, Country Living, Current Events bright sunshine, lake champlain, lakes and ponds, litmus tests, personal memory, serpentine river

How Do You Start Your Day?

January 14, 2010 drewrozell 5 Comments

IMG_3159-1

Just before sunrise. 1/13/10

How do you start your day?

Certainly there are an infinite number of potential responses to that question.

So let’s see if we can create a couple categories into which all potential responses could be separated.

Do you start your day DELIBERATELY?

Or NOT? (Best I could come up with  in the moment.)

While there’s not a right or wrong way between the two, I think there’s a better way.

Each day when you wake up, you start with a fresh slate. What you created in your life up to that point does not matter. What you struggled with the previous day or for the last couple decades is irrelevant.

The only thing that matters on this new day are the thoughts you choose because the thoughts you choose today determine what you create tomorrow.

When you take that in, I think that’s really awesome news, right?

Of course, taking advantage of this clean slate requires something of you. It requires you to deliberately focus your thoughts. It requires you to actively put your attention on that which you truly desire to create. While this process is not very difficult, it’s a habit. And it’s a habit most people do not practice.

Most of the time we wake up and let our thoughts go where they may. We follow our thoughts rather than consciously leading them.  Again, we begin each day with a fresh slate, but if we mindlessly connect to the same worries and concerns we had the day before, we give up that terrific opportunity to create something better in our lives. In short, we give up our power.

This is why how you start your day is so important. Begin your day by deliberatively guiding your thoughts to places that feel good, and you will attract more of that throughout your day.

Roll out of bed and let the headlines  (or your e-mail) decide where your attention goes, and well, you get what you get.

The practice of directing your thoughts to start the day is not hard.

Before you get out of bed, allow yourself five minutes. Allow yourself to connect to feelings of appreciation. The objects of your appreciation do not matter. Make it easy. Appreciate your bed. Your pillow. The warmth under the covers. Maybe you can appreciate the person next to you or cat who’s hogging all the bed space.

Do not try to solve any problems. Do not try to fix anything that’s awaiting you during your day.

Just appreciate. Just connect from one good feeling thought to another.

Next, perhaps you can allow yourself to think about your day and imagine things going well for you. See your day and feel it flowing they way you wish it to be.

When you feel good, get up and move about your day.

You are now ready to bring in the good stuff.

And yes, you can go pee now, too.

Blog, Country Living, Drew's Photos, Freedom, Good News, Radical Responsibility clean slate, couple categories, couple decades, e mail, terrific opportunity

Light it up

November 17, 2009 drewrozell 1 Comment

My friend Maundy put out this message on her Facebook page yesterday:

Leonid Meteor Showers start around 1:00 a.m. Go ahead–years from now, you probably won’t remember that day you were a little tired, but chances are, you’ll remember the meteors.

While I was aware of the event, and considered getting up, I had not yet decided to rise from my bed in the middle of the cold night. Her cheerful message inspired me to make that commitment to myself.

I programmed my mind to wake me in the middle of the night. I stirred at 1AM and decided it was still too early. I woke again at 2 and from the warm bed, looked out my window at the bright sky. However, if I wanted to see any shooting stars, I’d need to extract myself from the current state of toastiness and comfort.

I began the negotiations in my mind, after all, I have seen hundreds of shooting stars in my life…

But just as quickly, the power of my decision took over. I rose from bed. I grabbed a flashlight. I put on my snowsuit, gloves, and hat. I grabbed a lawn chair from the garage, dragged my sleepy body out to the field began setting up camp.

I was immediately rewarded with a bright streak across the sky as I fumbled with the chair.

This is going to be awesome, I though to myself, gazing up at brilliant, clear sky, saying hello to my old friends… Orion, Mars, the Big Dipper, Pleiades…

As I lay down, the cold found the chinks in my armor. I listened to the quiet of night, picking out the sound of running water and coyotes in the distance. My eyes began to water from the cold and my excessive staring toward the heavens.

After thirty minutes I was ready to go back to my bed. I’d seen about a dozen meteors, but none matched the intensity of the early morning’s first offering. While I was not disappointed, deep down I had expected a little more.

As I headed toward my house, I stopped and looked skyward. I spun around a few times, knowing that there had to be one more out there waiting for me.

A moment later the sky exploded to the southeast. The meteor was brighter than any I had ever seen before. I watched it streak across thousands of miles of sky. An audible “Wholy sh..t!” left my lips… (Wholy is a combination of Whoa and Holy).

Stunned at the magnificent of what I’d seen, for the next minute I focused on the crisp vapor trail the meteor etched in the sky.

I returned to bed, my body cold from the outside. I had trouble falling back asleep. And yes, I feel a bit more fatigued in my body today.

But Maundy was right.

I will look upon that area of sky and relive my experience with the gods for years to come.

LIVING rocks.

Blog, Country Living, Current Events, Good News, Raves bright sky, bright streak, clear sky, leonid meteor showers, snowsuit, stars in my life

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