Tubing
As you may or may not know depending on who you are, My dad, brother and I had all planed to go inner tubing on the Esopus Creek this week. Dad’s using it as research for an article he’s writing for The Conservationist. Well that was yesterday so I figured since it was such a fantastic experience I’d write up a little blog post for it, and as my blog isn’t live yet, I figured you may want to hear it right from the horse’s mouth as it were. So here it is: Tubing the Esopus with Dad and Greg.
He was grinning broadly as he dropped us off near the grave yard. The ancient school bus (one of the “short buses;” resonance?) had clattered to a halt and we jumped out not sure what to expect. We had been consistently surprised by the reality of the experience since that morning when we arrived at FS-Tubing on the Esopus. It appears now that we were all suffering under the same misconceptions that the sport of inner-tubing was a lot like other aquatic activities which come with a built in buffer for noobz like us and lots of safety instructions. We were left guessing until the moment we were plunged into the cold Esopus current on our truck inner tubes. I felt like we had missed something. I felt like it was our fault somehow. Actually I felt as though we had experienced more candor and informative preparation than most patrons of FS due to our journalistic intentions. But, as I found out through the experience, that’s kinda what it’s all about.
Life jackets: check, inner tubes with a plank tied into the middle for your butt: check, water dashing over and around large rocks and submerged tree stumps: check, sanity… the jury is still out on that one. Our instructions: go out to the creek down this path, carry your tubes over your heads, and tuck in your life jacket straps, when you get to the bridge take a hard left, get out where you see the large rock with the word “out” painted on it in yellow. The irony of the instruction, “take a hard left,” became apparent as soon as we hit the water. The amount of control you can actually exert over the direction of your tube is minimal. About the only sure fire way to ensure you go in the direction you want is to dig your feet into the creek bottom and stand up, then walk over to the area you want to go in and get back in.
We were off. I felt a beautiful whisking sensation of being carried away by forces against which my own strength was insignificant. My trust in nature and the universe was reaffirmed in a way which could never be described. Then I hit the first submerged tree stump. Over the next hour or so, we were battered, bumped, flipped, smashed, bruised, beaten, and it was as my brother said, “shit-your-pants fun.” And it taught me something. I was rolling along with minimal control of my “vehicle” in an environment which actually had the potential of posing real danger. The only way to prevent a catastrophe was to anticipate it as best as possible and take decisive action as soon as possible. This seemed very relevant to my own life as of late. Life is a lot like the current of the creek. It is fraught with danger, beautiful, tragic, yatta yatta. And tubing offers you about the amount of control you have over your life. You can make decisions that will radically affect your future, but they require radical action. Flailing and screaming will never prevent you from smashing into that rock ahead, no matter how much fun it is.
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