Paddling My Own Canoe

And why did I always come alone to Moloka’i? I know why, but the telling is hard. Daily we are on trial, to do a job, to make a marriage good, to find depth, serenity, and meaning in the complex, deteriorating world of politics, false values, and trivia. But rarely are we deeply challenged physically or alone. We rely on friends, on family, on a committee, on community agencies outside ourselves. To have actual survival, living or dying, depend on our own ingenuity, skill, or stamina — this is a core question we seldom face. We rarely find out if we like having only our own mind as company for days or weeks at a time. How many people have ever been totally isolated, ten miles from the nearest other human, for even two days?

Alone, you are more aware of surroundings, wary as an animal to danger, limp and relaxed when the sun, the brown earth, or the deep grass say, “Rest now.” Alone, you stand at night, alert, poised, hearing through ears and open mouth and fingertips. Alone, you do not worry whether someone else is tired or hungry or needing. You push yourself hard or quit for the day, reveling in the luxury of solitude. And being unconcerned with human needs, you become as a fish, a boulder, a tree — a part of the world around you.

I stood once in midstream, balanced on a rock. A scarlet leaf fluttered, spiraled down. I watched it, became a windblown leaf, swayed, fell into the water with a giant human splash, then soddenly crawled out, laughing uproariously.

The process of daily living is often intense and whimsical. The joy of it, and the compassion, we can share, but in pain we are ultimately alone. The only real antidote is inside. The only real security is not insurance or money or a job, not a house and furniture paid for, or a retirement fund, and never is it another person. It is the skill and humor and courage within, the ability to build your own fires and find your own peace.

On a solo trip you may discover these, or try to build them, and life becomes simple and deeply satisfying- The confidence and strength remain and are brought back an applied to the rest of your life.

(emphasis mine)

There are many alternatives I’ve found. No one system is the ultimate answer. If one route is blocked off there is another way to go. I’ve learned to live without things and alone. The ability to live in a variety of styles, city or country, with people or without, in different languages and cultures, with enthusiasm for the small luxuries, gives me power over the future, whatever chaos the world comes to.

There is a sensuous joy in being alone — delight in the simple animal pleasure of blowing my nose with one knuckle, peeing in the moonlight, and trying a Tahitian dance step with only myself to snicker. There is a smug ironic satisfaction in finding an ingenious solution to a problem which was caused by my own inadequacy or stupidity.

Men and women are more alike than different. Women too need to feel the coyote wildness, the pleasure of muscles moving in coordination, the sweat and the weariness, and the uncertainty of what the end to that effort will be.

The pretrip physical conditioning, or the constant maintenance of it, must improve each year to offset the aging process. When I was forty-one I could get by on youthful vigor. When I am seventy-one I shall have to be able to do seventy-one pushups. Vive moi, viva me.

Always I come back from these trips feeling like a skinned-up kid, feeling like a renewed, recreated adult, feeling like a tiger. All that basic nature, all that use of animal instincts, arouses some very earthy desires. The most delicious comment about these trips was by a sailor-oceanographer who understood the sea both mentally and physically. “A woman who would do a thing like that,” he said, “is worth going to bed with.” A classic remark——but it said more about him than about me.

How rare and lovely to wake up only when my mind and body are ready. No sudden sound awakens me, no traffic or alarm clock or people, only the end of sleep. The cool sea air comes in the open window, the birds sing, the waves slosh across the ledges and the clouds float over the peaks. Light rain drips off the eaves. The down sleeping bag is so light and warm—«like sleeping in a cheese souffle. I smile and stretch, and finish reading the last book, Charles Seib’s, The Woods.

I’m a reader, not a writer; a looker, not the creative artist, but how I do appreciate those good ones. There are books that belong here, so that their creators can be here vicariously to enjoy this place. Do writers ever feel the places that their books are? Do the words transmit the understanding and the enjoyment of the reader back to the author? What books should be here in the cupboard, what pictures on the wall? I shall bring Hayakawa, Robert Capon, Torn Neale, and John Graves with me next time.

I had to go back again. To be that terrified of anything, that incompetent, survive by that small a margin — I’d better analyze, practice, then return and do it right.

I was, at work now, sitting at the desk in my’skirt and stockings and heels. The wounds were healing and the bruises fading. What did I learn? The gear would have to be tested and tried in all combinations before any more trips. A boat was not yet my element the way the water was. I had missed seeing the life of the underwater world. Fear was more a barrier than the problem feared.

Before 1962 I hadn’t known enough to be frightened of this coast. In five years the three trips had taught me how difficult it could be, but I still wanted to go back. It wasn’t because of the “challenge.” I didn’t feel daring and I didn’t think my character needed to be improved by conquering something, but now I knew the magnificence of the place, strong and fulfilling. Was there some masochistic satisfaction in the beatings I had taken? I thought not. It was simply that the tender power of Moloka‘i was a far more vivid and compelling memory than the physical pain.

At home, asleep at night on the wide bed by the fireplace, I would waken from a nightmare of being jobless and alone in some mainland city, trying desperately to get back to Hawai‘i and the children. Reassured by the moonlit wooden beams overhead, the deep authority of the winter surf sounds outside, and the softly burning coals of the fire, I would think of Moloka‘i, how it would be in that light and with that surf. I would pad down the hall. The children breathed quietly and safely in their rooms. Some new idea of rigging or gear or timing for the next voyage would come to mind before I drifted back to sleep.

(emphasis mine)

my library had only three choices: a pamphlet on Hawaiian birds, a series of oceanographic articles, and a paperback of the lyric poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. It was too dark for bird watching, I was too wary to concentrate on science, and too emotionally vulnerable for Millay.

What I really needed was a super anthology for seagoing back-packers that would include include philosophy, humor, travel, fishing, and hiker’s gourmet cooking, with Hawaiian history, fish, animal and plant information. That would mean collaboration by Bertrand Russell, Farley Mowat, Sheila Bumford, Ballard Hadman, and Trixie Ichinose, plus Gavan Daws, Vernon Brock, Alan Ziegler and Heather Fortner all in one book — a four-ounce waterproof paperback, dehydrated.