Hi all:

I hope you all had a fun and festive 4th of July. Our country is on the precipice of an intolerable shift and I had some mini-struggles about celebrating the holiday, but watching my neighbor’s fireworks show put me in a better mood about the resilience and joy of living in this Democracy. Spending the last few days hiking local preserve trails, SUPing, and kayaking has helped too.

A week ago, while driving to my cottage, I saw a sign for the Sheepscot River Race. I knew my guy would love to enter, compete, and push himself on his SUP. My plan had been to spectate from the land and maybe pop in the water for the first few minutes to see him off. I wasn’t expecting him to urge me to enter too. (Truthfully, I should have expected it. One of the great things about him is that he pushes me into challenging places that are ultimately fun and rewarding.) I’m not super confident on my SUP, but I am very confident in my Current Designs Solstice sea kayak. But I’m also not someone who loves racing and competition, mostly because I like winning too much and chances are 100% that I wouldn’t win. And I’ve never entered a race on the water before. These are all reasons I shared with him as to why I didn’t want to enter, but I do love an internal challenge and as I’ve said and written many times before, stepping into discomfort is a sure way to grow. I took a deep breath and emailed in my entry form and for the next few days vacillated between excitement and nervousness. I told a few friends about it thinking that would stop me from backing out. Yesterday morning rolled around, gray and foggy, but I was ready and determined. Then my phone pinged and an unknown number appeared: a group text arrived telling me that the race had been cancelled due to high winds and afternoon thunderstorms. I was actually bummed and that was an interesting reaction considering my uncertainty leading up to race day. But such good information on a gut level supporting my decision to take the scarier road.

We decided to paddle the course anyway, to get a sense of it for next year. We met a friend of my guy’s (a 75-year-old who runs road races every Wednesday evening and every summer and fall weekend, road bikes, snowboards, kayaks, and took up SUPing last August!). The winds were minimal and the thunderstorms never materialized. The only annoyance were the biting green heads who left me alone, but brutalized the two men on SUPs. It was a lovely six-mile paddle even though I didn’t have the experience of a race day.

Happy adventuring,