Crone in a Boat

Beaver Moon of November 2020

I remember being infinitely comforted by the idea, when I was a church-going 12 and 13-year old, that God will not give you more than you can handle. It’s scriptural. The verse is in I Corinthians, I believe (man, that’s going way back in my reading life)…and I think it talks specifically about “temptation,” which is a dubious concept at best. But still. As a youth memorizing bible verses at Awana to earn little patches like some acolytic girl scout, I remember thinking this was of some comfort.

Later in life, as a doula helping women to give birth, I provided similar comfort when I could assure them, unequivocally, that the moment during labor in which you believe you can’t go on, the one where you think you seriously cannot continue, is the one in which you don’t have to. That’s when it’s time to push. It’s uncanny. In an esoteric way, I think this felt like a spiritual truth to me—like some evidence of that biblical promise. I’m quite certain now that it’s simply evidence of the wisdom of the body, which is of itself a spiritual thing and as good evidence of the Divine as any I can see.

Pushing is, of course, its own variety of pain, but it’s the change you need at that point in your labor, and it means the baby is nearly in the world. Pushing means that the period of softening endlessly into the intense pain of the cervix dilating under the pressure of baby’s head and your contracting uterus is over. Now is the time to be active and to use your strength, rather than to continue passively enduring what feels, especially to a first time mother, like the highjacking of your body.

All of this also supports the idea that the way to go about facing a challenge, especially one that involves substantial pain, is to lean into it. What hurts the most in labour is the baby’s head pushing against the cervix—your uterus is doing this on purpose, to open a passageway from the womb to the air. It feels a bit counterintuitive not to resist pain, but the labouring mother who understands this knows to be that pain. To close her eyes, breathe, and lean into the thing that hurts the most, because it is the thing that is bringing her baby closer to her arms.

Why all this talk about limits? About pushing and trusting and enduring pain? Well, I have, rather unwittingly, joined a team of women who paddle surf canoes. It is with a surf/lifesaving club here in New Zealand. I have paddled canoe before…in Hawai’i. Waka ama it’s called here in Aotearoa. But this is different. It involves sprinting, just like regatta season on the long, six-paddler canoe with an ama (the outrigger part of the canoe that provides stability); only this is a double-hulled canoe, each side with only two seats, and we take off from the beach, vaulting into the boat and paddling our asses off through the breakers. We turn on a buoy, and we paddle in, trying to time it so that we ride a wave as far as we can (instead of getting smashed by it) and never, god forbid, letting our boat turn sideways to its propulsion.

This week, only my second week of paddling these boats, there was a large swell. One that made our 75-year old, hardcore lifesaving champion, triathlete coach Dave pause. Maybe he wouldn’t make us go out. The wind was howling, and the waves appeared to be building. This was on Tuesday. In the back of the boat, giving direction and in charge of steering, were two young women, Lily and Brooke, both teenagers. In the front were my new friend Pam and myself, both of us with adult children of our own. The entire time, I looked to Lily and Brooke for reassurance. And when I say “I looked,” I mean that I listened for their relaxed and happy chatter behind me, while I kept my head down and forward, just trying to keep breathing and paddling as hard as I could to Pam’s count. “One, two, three, four, five…” and so on.

We utterly exerted ourselves to get the boat out around a large rock and then continue to sprint toward the beach, swells lifting our canoe from behind and, if Lily timed it right, a good-sized one breaking, sending us skidding down its face. If Lily and Brooke weren’t afraid, I knew we would be okay. Just because I was terrified, it didn’t mean that we were actually in any danger, I reasoned. After our first go, which was pretty scary but successful, we waited on the beach while the younger crew of girls completed their circuit.

As they paddled toward the shore, their timing was a bit early and the canoe itself was turned slightly across the approaching wave, rather than aimed straight down it. Before we knew it, one hull jutted into the air and girls went flying as the boat capsized in the surf. The two men on the beach, both with rescue tubes trailing behind them, ran out into the water to help them, as they sputtered to the surface and tried not to get hit by the canoe being tossed around by the breaking waves. I just stood on the shore and watched with my mouth agape. I remembered thinking, “These people are hard core.”

The swell continued to build. Surely Dave would not send us out again. Dave took a moment to get the other girls sorted on the shore. Amelia’s foot had gotten stuck in the foot strap as the boat had flipped, and she was in a fair amount of pain, so her dad, the other guard, was checking that out. The next thing I knew, I heard shouting: “Okay, let’s go. Here’s a smooth!” It was to our crew that Dave was shouting. A smooth, it turns out, is a short window between sets of waves where it’s as safe as it’s going to get to paddle out. With only the faintest hesitation, Lily followed his command.

“Okay,” she said, let’s go.” We lifted the boat up on our forearms and started chugging toward the breaking waves. Pam and I exchanged nervous glances but did as we were instructed by our fearless young leader. Lily captains our boat with the certainty of an elder. She knows the sea and the equipment, and she doesn’t hesitate. Perhaps that is why I feel so safe with her steering and leading our little rig. As a lifelong surfer, I know that hesitating in the face of a big wave is the worst thing you can do. Never freeze! Lily never freezes. She seriously commands our craft, and she does it with confidence.

This time out the breakers were so hectic and large that we had to hide behind the large rock for a moment before continuing our trek, making our turn, and sprinting toward the shore. As the wave picked us up, Lily and Brooke took turns coaxing us, “Okay, pick it up,” one of them would say, and Pam’s counting would speed up. “Pick it up!” Their voices were a bight higher, more tense this time, and I’m pretty sure I heard someone say “Shit” and then “It’s okay,” which lit a fire under me even more. I didn’t feel I had much left, but I was propelled by fear, and I got somewhat of a second wind. As the boat lifted on the breaking wave, I heard Lily again.
“Lay back!” she shouted, so Pam and I leaned back, putting the blades of our paddles out into the water next to the boat on either side. “Lay right back!” Lily shouted again, her voice high and tight. We lay back, pretty much flat, our eyes squinting as whitewater surged up around us. We were screaming down the face of the wave, perfectly straight and with great speed. It was wild and fast and beyond exciting. The wash of emotion that came over me was of a variety I haven’t felt in many, many years.

“Waaaaahoooo!” I squealed as we began paddling again, very fast now upon our approach toward the sand. That squeal certainly had in it some gratitude for not being catapulted out of the boat as it buried its two bows into the water and went ass over end into the surf, but it was also celebratory…a wild exclamation of our victory. Over danger and over fear. It took all of our strength. All of our courage, and we had triumphed. Together. Waahoo indeed.

I think both girls and Pam were surprised when I swept them each into a hug and cheered us all on. I felt like a little girl, and they couldn’t help but laugh at my exhilaration. They too were thrilled and proud of us, but this wasn’t their first time at the rodeo. Plus, they probably had the wherewithal to wonder whether Dave was going to push our luck by sending us out a third time…he did not.

That was Tuesday. Let it suffice to say that Thursday was even bigger. The waves were actually breaking OVER the rock we could normally hide behind for protection if we needed it. On this day we practiced starts and while it was still terrifying, as we still moved (as quickly as humanly possible) through the danger zone, Dave didn’t make us paddle the normal distance, which was way too dangerous under such conditions. We did early turns and practiced our timing and riding in on the reforming waves. Afterwards, we carried the canoe up the beach, our legs wobbly from fear and also exertion, and someone mustered the one dollar coin it takes to have a warm shower instead of a cold one. We all enjoyed the fresh, hot water, chatting happily about our day, then piled on our warm, dry clothes, spilling out of the locker room and into our cars.

This week, as the Beaver Moon rose over the harbor, I reflected on my experience in that canoe. Just when I thought I couldn’t go any further, that I would expire or explode or languish in that boat, something shifted, and I found myself riding a wave with my teammates. Each time it was the same. One moment I was struggling to keep going, every muscle burning and my lungs heaving, and the next we were hurtling through space and water, digging our paddles into the sea to steady a careening boat. There was certainly fear, and a different kind of exertion as we lay back, tensing our feet against the foot straps and straining our cores to keep our seats, but there was also exuberance and joy.

I know I can handle this. I go back for more. This weekend I have my lifeguard refresher (my certification has expired—you have to be a certified lifeguard to compete—and yes, I have agreed to compete at this crazy sport). I have no idea how far I will have to swim tomorrow, or how fast, but I know I can do it. I am 49 years old, and I have been taking it easy for a long time. I have been yoga-ing it up, yes, but many years have passed since I pushed myself in this way. Since I asked my body to go its maximum distance. Since I faced fear and failure and even competition. I am no longer a Maiden, and Mother am I still but to men. I move with grace into my years as a Crone, and I do it without fear. This Crone is strong, and she is tenacious. Magic even.

I survey this business of my life. The ways in which I have challenged myself and continue to challenge myself. I have learned to lean into pain and to breathe through it. And I have learned to trust the rhythms that envelope me. I grow old. I grow in wisdom and in grace. ‘I’m a crone in a boat,’ I say. It gives me a giggle. ‘It is good,’ I think. ‘Very, very good.’