Lately



Me and Tracy and Julia and Emery went to the river yesterday and got some almost one-on-one coaching with Mr. Hughes.

Today I have had 6 glasses of Cantelope juice.

I transformed my creative writing class today but making them write 3 tiny short stories about Trop. Trop being another teacher here who happens to be a master story teller. Well everyone was tired/in a bad mood for some reason at the beginning of class and by the end they were in hysterical laughter. SCORE ONE FOR THE ENGLISH TEACHER!

That's all for now....

driving away

okay, let's give this a shot. there is no coffee in this country, and so i went on a personal quest to find some. i went to the other side of Pucon, the more expensive side, and i sat down at a cafe and all the waiters laughed at me (they did) because I ordered every kind of coffee on the menu.

The cappucino had two inches of thick whipped cream on it which i ate too fast. i regret that. the cafe con leche was laced with SALT. who does that? the rest of it tastes like nescafe sludge.

on the other hand, i've been running some rivers. a few swims, one nasty one. but i must be improving, I haven't reached for my skirt in a few weeks. what i learned on this valentines day is that i can take a beating. The entrance rapid on the Palguin was obviously feeling hungry as it chewed at me and swallowed the gal who went behind me, and then swallowed her boat after they yanked her out with a rope. It worked me, worked me, and I'm hanging on thinking 'just wait, it will spit you out eventually right??' well it's a double drop. the hole is halfway through. it did eventually release me, i rolled up, wobbled towards the 8 foot drop and went off sideways, a deranged ballerina. then i take an easier but longer rocky section on my head and hold on thinking this (bash! bash!) is (bash!) getting ri (bash!) diculous! (bash!) I WANT A CREEK BOAT! my star is a frikken squirrel. all the time. Also, I wouldn't mind acquiring a skill set on the river as well. i'm sick of being upside down. on the upside i do have a solid roll because of it.i'm sitting at one of the nicest cafes in all of Pucon maybe all of Chile and i'm wearing a dirty white wife beater, should I perhaps be a trifle embarrassed? no, I'm moving too fast. drinking a lot of coffee (OR IS IT COFFEE??) who knows. really.

we spent the weekend in the Andes. David and I took the truck, filled it with expedition gear bags and put some boys in the back and bumped them up some washboard roads. we past the place where a few days ago we saw a comet rip across the sky.

the biggest falling comet, burning indigo, slashing the night in two, illuminating the sky. Speaking of, Yonton look what i've got everyone reading:back to the truck full of gear and boys (here is a visual)we hiked up up up, to find a land of blue and green lagoons. this we found to be the perfect place to eat chocolate (where isn't eh?) well, that and sometimes the hamburgers are a little sketchy. what are they, anyway, and what is constantly dripping out of them?

but you can't love everything about someone or some place, can you? i'm not sure. maybe you can. Spending valentines day on the Palguin hucking and shaking the boats dry from swimmers, watching the sky blow up with the comet, driving into the Andes on washboard roads, telling stories late into the evening, sleeping by embers, waking up to smoke.

killin the blues


there is no coffee anywhere and I'm starting to associate the taste of terrible breakfasts and Chilean nescafe with ridiculously early mornings, sun rising and dust settling over Choschuenco, boys footsteps pounding up rickety stairs, smiling in a second language.

In the afternoon, when classes are over, I jump into the pick up truck and we drive somewhere, the Rio Fuy, deeper into the Andes to a park and huck 30 footer with a landing softer than air, a series of swimming holes that is all sunlight and aqua. The truck rides are long and loud, jostling us around like Jiffy pop, we usually have a few of the kids in the truck with us and some playboats tied down in the back, and we give them a hard time and make them laugh and buy them ice creams, if we're lucky enough to find a hole in the wall place like we did the other day.

once again, I'm learning how to laugh in a different language, which is good, because laughter is the universal language, not math, and we stand in front of an old man with no teeth and squinting eyes and we're laughing, he's laughing, what a happy old man you are! we tell him. you have no idea what we're saying!! he folds over in laughter, takes our money and we leave with candy bars that end up tasting nothing like candy bars.

These pictures are from a day off, a Sunday we spent at the aqua and sunshine swimming hole, with everyone lying out on the rocks and the gutsy Palmer leading the charge of jumping off the highest cliffs, boys doing backflips, and swimming headfirst into a powerful little waterfall that took you down, down, down, 7,8 ,9 seconds, where everything is white and clear and foamy, and you're swimming for the top and swimming, 10, 11, you break through into sunlight in the areated pool.

Then the run up, scouting a waterfall the Demshitz runs that seems improbable because it lands in rocks and gore (but they run it anyway...) running around the craziest eco-hotel you've ever seen, a billion dollar resort made out of water and mist and wood, sneaking the kids in and running them around, an entire hotel made of moss, gliding up and down in the elevators, making them laugh and sneak, our own little adventure upon adventure, seeing them turn into kids again, then back in the truck, home via the ice cream and the old man who laughed.

Then home and the full moon hoisted above the cliffs of Patagonia, sleep like a trance, and start the next morning with the terrible breakfasts, the Nescafe that tastes like last night's vivid dreams, and dirt.

fall down with the rest of them



American Lit class at a little restaraunt in Choshuenco. Keegan goes and writes that the river is the cure of loneliness. And Jason reads this poem he wrote in 5 minutes and it blows me right out of the water. It ends with the lines: I want to fall down with the rest of them, I don't want to feel this unrest again.


Jason! I tell him, standing up out of my seat. I don't know what you're writing about but that is how I feel right now, exactly, about the waterfall today. I took a bad swim on the San Pedro and I'm shaken up, I'm shaking up, I feel like I've been beat up, I wake up with a new bruise every day flowering on my shoulder, my leg. I don't know if I need to run this waterfall today. I don't want to be back in a kayak at all. But I want to fall down like the rest of you. I don't want this jumpy feeling, this unrest.

Isaac looks up from his writing. He observes me. He is banging is pencil against his page making a racket. "So fall. " He says. Then back to his fidgetting, his writing.

So we drive into the Andes and hike into a 30 footer on the upper Trancura. Keegan sits at the lip holding his paddle to show me the line, Jason talks to me in the eddy and shows me just how to plug this one. Buck pulls in front of me, smiles, says I'll see you at the bottom! And is gone in a flash of green.

I head towards the lip, make a left stroke, tuck and fall. When I emerge there is cheering everywhere. Isaac is steaming towards me and shouting over the pounding white of the falls' curtain: "YOU FELL LIKE THE REST OF US!" yeah, I tell him. And I'm not ever going to feel that unrest again.
Palmer and I celebrating the aftermath


The 30 footer on the upper Trancura and our new after school fun spot.

hit the road again

so after we chased waterfalls on the palguin we came home and our base had been broken into, the boys' computers and wallets and things gone. These boys I have grown so fond of were reduced to tears and throwing things and we sat around the smoking fire pit and wondered what to do.

What did we do, we piled into the van in a terrific rainstorm and we set off into the heart of Patagonia, a roadtrip through the stocking foot of central American with a stop over at the San Pedro for hour upon hour upon hour of clear glass waves. Hour upon hour of bumping along dusty roads, Trop and I singing every Willie Nelson song we knew aloud, and finally we end up at our new home in Choshuenco....

the Palguin and after the Palguin

These are Palmer's shots from the Palguin. Remember the palguin with the all the water falls? my first creek and I never swam, ran the double the 16 footer and the 20 footer clean. Well, actually had some trouble on the double but came out just fine.

The entrance rapid after the 12 foot seal launch.



This is my and Palmer, my AP American Literature student, after we took out from the Palguin. See that smile? It never leaves her face, not after running a double rapid on her head. She is a brave gal.

Can you see the paddler?

colorful river academy


Zach, Emery, Stephen, Jason: this is my creative writing class, this time held on the balcony of our new hotel. we are jumping headfirst on how to be fearless writers and how to think in new ways and write in new ways.
we are so used to asigning words to meaning. we think of an idea and express it. what I am trying to teach them is that sometimes, in order to come up with something REALLY rad, you need to come up asign meaning to words. pair two words together and your brain WILL make the leap and make it make sense and usually derive something cool out of it.....
So how do we learn how to put words together without fear? How do we pair an unlikely verb to an unlikely ajective?
Oh, that's right.....I'd like to thank my cousin Margaret and her little boys Noel and Silas for the idea....madlibs. What better way to lose your inhibitions about writing but madlibs. I put together a New River Academy Madlib just for fun and it turned out to be a huge sucsess. I didn't even make it to class...I was sitting around the fire working on it and Tracy asked what I was doing and Palmer said OOOHHHH! let me help you!! and Nelson leaned over and asked, 'can I play the next time?' and suddenly we're all shouting verbs and adverbs and adjectives out and it's not even class. Here were the first two we put together.....
Welcome To New River
Welcome to Funny River Academy. Here at the academy we travel to magenta places across the globve and enjoy some of the best purple water destinations world-wide. We are also a fully fresh high school. Can you wrap your big toe aroudnt that? Over the volcano and through the hotsprings we go in search of the best deltas. We carry our text trees with uus as we hack with all our gear, we fabulously learn to pack pink. We swing the same clothes for up to 24,000 days! And sometimes we go decades without squeezing anyone but each other.....
Rules of the River
Here at smooshy river academy we always take kayaking moistly. Although we know how to squat picnic talble on the river, we are well-skipped on the hazourds. For example, we stay away from the children beccause childrfen might suck you in and trap you. Children are the worst. We also stay away from googling situations, when an obstacle blocks your boat but the wayer can continue to fly pas. Usually when you flip it's cozy, but sometimes you end up pooing your ear, and you get disoriented. But just remember to scrape and be flustered, give a solid butt cheek snap and roll on up! On a difficult or hair poop shoot, we always set safety. Scretary Tino will keep you safe and someon ewill provide you with a hiccup bag. We always have a fantastic time rocking together on rivers across the world. We can even paddle class 5 million! Would you like to join us?
(you can see the boys took this one in...their own...err...direction.....)

up down and all around

today was the best day so far. it was the worst day so far. it was an up down and all around day.

I paddled my first creek, first canyon first double drop, first 16 footer and first 20 footer.

David was a flawless leader. My heart only beat faster than usual at one point on the whole river. He knows when to point, when to speak, when to smile, when to scout.

The first rapid was a double drop. I was flipped inbetween the two and got worked. I thought about swimming. I let go of my paddle with one hand. I reached for my skirt. Then i thought wait a second, i don't know where I am, I think there is another drop a foot from me and I don't want to swim the drop, woman up, so I reached back up, grabbed the paddle and gave it one last heave ho and rolled up to hear Coach Tino and David shouting PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE GO LEFT! And I went left and plugged the drop, came up and that is when my heart beat was elevated, and Palmer, this brave 11th grader who went before me, also on her head, and came up totally unphased, asked are you okay? I nodded and breathed. She said are you hyperventilating? I nodded and breathed.

Then came the 16 footer, I hit the eddy right in front of it. Now this is a boxy canyon of smooth stone, shadowy and creeky. The eddies are tough to catch. David is nearby trying to give me some beta but I start getting pulled out of the eddy, the creek is flowing slowly but I lose my stuff when I hear the sound of a paddle blade scrapinga against canyon wall and I'm suddenly heading backwards to the drop. I'm not ready to run the drop but it's now and it's either backwards or forwards, so I turn around and BANG!

I'm over and at the bottom, deep deep deep, getting thrashed and trashed and I hold on for dear life and think wait it out lady wait it out. I wait it out. I roll up. David is hollering at me from up above to see if I'm okay but I'm too out of breath to holler back, so he comes rolling over the falls, looks at me, and laughs.

Next up is some boogy water, some class 3, fun stuff, a piton or two and then the 20 footer. David said, You run this and I' gaurantee I'll be cheering for you when you roll up.

The 20 footer is the most beautiful thing I have ever done. I tiptoed up to the lip, set up, tucked, and FELL. I had my eyes open. My mouth shut. I saw it all. It looked wett. A nice soft DOINK! landing and then I rise up and sure enough lo and behold he is cheering at me. "Perfect line coogan." he said. "That was a PERFECT Line."

There are pictures, they are coming soon.

So, that was the up, that was the all around. but where does the down come in? because when we drove home we were all laughing, exhilerated, shouting, happy, wet, proud....

....and then we got back to the base. And we looked around. And then we weren't any of those things any more.

But that's a story for the next time.

Sink, Style, Swim, STICK

An hour before I ran the Trancura I was sitting at a restaurant in Pucon and I got an email from Will. Out of everyone I’ve ever paddled with, I trust Will the most. There are many reasons why this is the way it is. He knew I was about to run my first class four river, and he reminded me to run a rapid to challenge myself and walk a rapid to humble myself. He also told me that he was leaving to paddle the Rusell Fork in Kentucky that afternoon. Will and I paddled that river together back in October and I ran the whole thing on my head. He wrote: “I’ll think about you as I paddle, going over, rolling up, going over, missing the roll, hitting the roll, coming up smiling.”

The Upper Trancura is our home run: we put in about 8 miles down the river and a few steps away from our base. When we got to the first class 4 rapid we dragged our boats up to the island to scout. It was long, big, and rocky with two ledge drops. The line, however, looked deceptively straight. “Follow the main current, then eek left.” Eli directed me. “Just make sure you go left at the ledge. Stay upright down the middle, then head left.” Some were walking. I decided to run it. I told David I was going to run it. “I’m glad you’re going to run it,” he told me. “Make sure you stay left at the ledge. Go left, go left, go left.”

I went right.

I didn’t mean to go right. It was my intention to go left. But I got lost in all that white and rock, and by the time I realized I should really get left, I was already at the lip of the ledge. I looked down and saw a big growling hole of white foam and a rock wall that it would spit me towards. I thought ‘I should go left.’ But it was too late to go left. So I squared up and hit it straight on. Eli told me later that he watched me go into the hole and that I looked quite calm and drove myself in with intention. Besides having gone off track, I punched the hole and did everything right. I wish I had done everything left.

Because the hole got me immediately and pulled me down. That’s alright, I figured, I’ll just roll up. I pushed my paddle out of the water and set up. Then BANG I hit flew into something and could feel I was jammed into a corner under water, my head was introduced rather forcefully to some rocks and my paddle was ripped away. I thought, looks like I’m swimming with all the kids watching. The second the top of my helmet resurfaced Coach Tino was THERE. Standing on the rock wall that I was caught against, one hand on my boat, one hand on my paddle, one hand on me and one hand banging on his helmet. Or so it appeared. A throw bag appeared out of nowhere from someone else. I wrestled/was wrestled out of the water and was able to see how far off course I’d gotten. I couldn’t possibly get back into the current unless I walked down to an eddy down below. Isaac, sitting on the other side with his video camera, was laughing. The students waiting down river were all cheering, smiling and banging on their helmets: was I okay? I raised my arms in glory, was I okay? Hell, I went RIGHT! I just swam my first class 4 and the safety system that got me out was immediate and flawless. Onward. The second maybe-walk maybe-run rapid is a big ten foot drop. The river is crushed through a smaller passage and then divided into two waterfalls. At the bottom of the falls the two currents combine in a swirling pile of foam. There is a lot lot lot of water to contend with. Eli said follow the green tongue, edge to the left of the boof rock and plug it. I decide I want to run it. I tell El, “I want to run it.” He says, “So Run it.” So I got into my boat, my little star, and wobble out from the eddy line. I see the rooster tail, head to the left, and zoom....POW! I was suddenly underwater and felt a big impact around me…I’m getting whipped around, my face is getting hit by my braids, my nose plugs, everything is swirling white. I need to roll up, so I push my paddle to the surface but there is no surface…I must have been pushed pretty deep. Then I feel some air with my knuckles and snap up hard. I am away from the base of the falls, I can hear everyone cheering for me from above. I’m so very pleased with myself that I leaned back and raised my paddle in victory and that’s when I realized I was sinking, because my skirt imploded. I thought very clearly, All that time I had with Tyler’s reinforced Armortex implosion bar skirts, I should have taken one when I had the chance! So the boat filled up with water and sinks down and now I was swimming, the current was grabbing me and was taking me back towards the base of the falls. I grab at a stick with one hand but soon the current has pulled me away from it. I claw at the slippery stone wall, thinking ‘you’re a rock climber, remember? Concentrate on holding on to this stone, CONCENTRATE’ no sooner did I have that thought than David was reaching for me, grasping my hand and and pulling me out....

How many booties do I need to drink? One for the swim? Trop swam in the same place. But for the imploded skirt? I don't think so, I rolled up! Anyway my thoughts are scattered but I'd like to thank Tino and Dave for rescuing me. That was fun now on to more and more rivers, more more more....

I really really want to be totally totally outrageous

Coach Tino watching one of the boys hit a loop...



This gal, Alex, is my mentee. Tracy d'Arbeloff is my other mentee....she took this photo

Am I driving the students crazy in my classes? All I want to talk about is words, language, spaces on the page, words, language, words, words.....I like talking about literature more than I ever even thought. I could sit on the picnic table by the river under the volcano and talk about it for hours and hours....but are they listening? what can keep them engaged? am I talking like a crazy person? If they walk away with just one sentence...is it enough...


the rivers are clear, warm, you can sit in the eddy and just look down and see a moonscape. We are a herd of technicolored duckinglings in the river....the hole we play on trashes me every single time I get in it....but the kids are nice here, they tell me with great patience how to stay upright for just a second longer....how to hold an edge....they're 14, rockstar kayakers, world champions and good teachers. Good teachers, most of them....

Sleep, so far, not much. the crazy dogs bark all night long. Matias tries to chase them away on all fours but they come back....keep coming back....nights are short, daylight till late, I wake up in sweat in the middle of the night....in an hour we are running the upper Trancura....my first river run (the other four days have been playing) and I have too many thoughts. I try and teach the students organization of thought and its importance but I can't seem to get my mind to slow down enough right now, the Chilean coffee is jetfuel and I'm running out of time, have to go catch a bus...

volcano

here´s the thing, I´m in chile!! i cannot understand this keyboard i´m having such a hard time! but the playhole is down just a few steps from the lodge. It looks like a mean one. Nobody but Dave and Matias could even make it in there. It´s alright though, there are lots of rivers around and once the truck gets fixed I´m sure I´ll get in.

In other news....the kids arrive soon, I am unable to take out any money, and since I didn´t bring a towel I am always dripping.

Pucon is brilliañt! Pictures will come soon....as soon as i can take out money....

We are directly in front of a volcano...

I miss you....

by the grace of everything

I made it with the kayak. First my flight to Chile was canceled and was rerouted through Peru which gave me a 110% of being lost in South America for the remainder of my life. Then through a series of fortunate events I didn´t have to go to Peru, but I did have 20 minutes in Santiago inwhich to go to immigration, get turned away for not paying the tax, pay the tax, back to immigration, luggage pick up (kayak has been sliced open but still in tact) through customs (barely) there was a small incident with fruit and I had to leave behind Julia, New River´s Spanish teacher, so I got by with my mangled college spanish...running like hell through the airport with two bags and dragging my kayak, and by the grace of everything my flight to Temuco had been delayed and the second I re'checked my luggage and arived at the gate they boarded.


I thought I´d use that final leg in my journey to make lesson plans, instead I spent what was left of my energy trying to convince myself not to barf. I made a ¨pro not barfing¨list. It had been too much sleeping medication, too much cake...

see, i enjoyed the Lan Chilean airline´s cake they served with the meal so mcuh that i voiced that to the other two people in my seating isle, and they immediately both gave me their cake, which was so awkward because to be honest, I knew if I ATE THEIR cake )sorry no grasp on this weird keyboard) I´d get sick, but what could I do? I ate the cake, and then I got sick. but at least I befriended my seatmates, a redheaded chilean girl named Valentina wearing overalls and now we´re facebook pals.

anyway, to make a short story shorter I didn´t puke and here I am in chile.



probably closing down....saying no more alcohol....

Well on this sunny blue day in my hometown of Boston I made it to the airport 5 hours early and checking through was so easy it was almost a let down. I was a complete lunatic about the kayak thinking that wouldn't it just be my luck to have to leave the thing at the airport and then be the official school shuttle bunny for the next few years. So I stuffed it full of gear and strapped the paddle on and wrapped the whole thing with bubble wrap, a ground tarp and entire huge roll of packing tape. Actually to say I did it is a stretch....I begged a friend to drive 2 1/2 hours to come help me and spent most of the night driving him crazy trying to get it to be under 50lbs, and we eventually did, actually he did, I didn't do much but raise the anxiety level in the room, and made him stand on the scale 10,000 times to prove to me that it was within the weight limit.

I had this whole elaborate lie about how it was a surf ski, because kayaks are blacklisted from air travel. I invented an identidy about being a world renound surf skiier going down to teach at the International Conference of International Surf Skiiers. Then the woman at the gate just looks at it and says 'oh look, a surfboard. Put it over there.' She didn't even weigh it.

So here I am, I'm listening to: that's the only love I get....so if you're calling....I bet you're in a bar....cause I'm always your last call...

I gotta go now, gotta read about Michelle Obama and her learn to be just like here.

coming clean

I lied to you.

From the previous post:

So, I take myself out to my favorite restaurant in Hanover, I order and settle back to reflect on the past 4 months of subzero temperatures and pattern-solitude.

I didn't really reflect. I never even intended to. I read US Weekly. Brangelina. (She wants more babies: doctors say it could be fatal.)