December 2003 Issue - Essay # 2
The
Element of Desire
By
Holly Chase Williams
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“The
earth, the air, the fire, the water “The
river is flowing; flowing and growing - Traditional Celtic chants - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Earth
may have been my birth element, my intended alignment, but my streams
have flown differently. One summer five years ago, I dreamed of water.
Great, sparkling pools in the moonlight, with a lemon moon and smooth
crystal rocks of ice, friendly to the touch. It was that summer that I
was diagnosed with diabetes. Ironically, though I grew up in the state
that boasts itself as the “Kayak Capitol of the World,” I did not
discover the pleasures of paddling until I went to Never
mind the fact that I hate sports. Never mind that my hand-eye
coordination is almost non-existent. I experienced more success during
my first five minutes in that boat than in my entire dismal career as a
failed volleyballer, basketballer, flag footballer, soccer player,
karate white-belt, or golfer. It seemed I’d finally come into my own.
For a girl who counted P.E. as the worst humiliation high school
offered, it felt like being handed the Grail. Or at least a sign saying,
"Hey You Popular Kids, I’m Not a Pathetic Loser After All, So Neener,
Neener, Neener. And Remember All Those Times You Whined to the Teacher
Because I Had to Be on Your Team? Well, Take That! I
remember summer days so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, as my
dad used to say, and gusty tailwinds that would blow the waves into
great pillowing swells, riding the boats along from behind, like
surfboards. I remember the no-tail Japanese cats that hung around,
hoping for tidbits, and the occasional fisherman, wizened and dour, who
would curse as I paddled by. I’ve noticed that fishermen and kayakers
also seem to be opposite elements, and I’ve been accused more than
once of scaring off the fish, a ridiculous notion. The
group of five bicycle policemen who rode past at
8:25 a.m.
every morning, however, were friendly and never
failed to salute me. Their blue and white uniforms always looked crisp
at that hour. It was a magical summer. Never again would I have friends
from so many different countries gathered together in one city. Like
Chris from I
still miss “my” Fanfare. I remember the smooth heat of the pink and
powder-blue hull, the toughness of fiberglass and carbon Kevlar under my
fingers. She was a very expensive boat: light in the water but stable,
for a tippy diamond-shaped racer. Chris’s father, the scion of a
British banking family, had personally flown it to But
this is not all about me. A racing K-2 needs two people, and despite our
girly color-coordination, my partner and I in our matching orange and
purple windbreakers were nothing to laugh at on the water. Our coach, my
partner’s husband, was the Japanese Women’s Olympic Team co-trainer
and he worked us hard. One of my least favorite exercises was called
on-and-off. We
started with ten easy relaxed strokes, then ten as hard as we could pull
(or rather, twist.) Then it was 20 on, 20 off, and so on up to 50 at
which point we had to do 50 on and then 50 on again before descending
back down to 10. Once, in the middle of all of this, I didn’t remember
to steer and ran us straight up a bank, something Julia has never let me
forget. Anyway, by the time we finished with on-and-off, we would both
be “bloody knackered.” But
one day, while doing this exercise, we were raced by a rowing eight (skulling)
who happened to be practicing in the next lane. We beat them by a
boat-length. Julia was “dead chuffed” on that occasion. I was just
plain dead. Although
we signed up for two marathons that year, one in Tokyo and one in
Fukuoka, both were cancelled, perhaps because gaijin names had appeared
on the registry. (Though we had loyal friends among the boating
community, xenophobia is a recurring problem in Years
later, I did get a chance to show off at Sitting
here, writing this now, I can feel the water tugging at me. It is an
ache in my heart that won’t go away. I need to be on the water, need
to own a kayak again, to have a mess of them growing in my garden like
Julia does. I long to put a roof rack on my new (used) car, to once more
roll the names and makes and brands lovingly off my tongue like men do
with automobiles: the Dagger Infrared, the Supersonic by Perception, the
Prijon Samurai… My
need makes the writing incomplete. Or perhaps the writing fuels the
need. Nothing will satisfy except the real thing. It’s dawn now, and
the sky is growing lighter. In just a few hours I will begin my journey
back to the water. I must.
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Author's Biography Holly Chase Williams is an Besides writing and kayaking, the elements in her
life that bring her the most pleasure are her adopted Shepherd/Border
Collie mix, Katy, and her fiancé, Jeff (wrongly classified by the way as
a Fire person.)
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