MY REACH

The Second Book

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My first book,  My Reach: A Hudson River Memoir, appeared one year ago this month. In this year of publication, I have read to kayaking groups, and Hudson River enthusiasts, devoted library goers, and AARP members. I stumbled through an NPR interview and spoke to local papers. It’s been a lot of fun, being in the world, telling the story of writing my book.

What I never fail to mention in my talks is that when I set out to write the book, I knew nothing about kayaking and nothing about writing a book. People are in awe that I just plunked my boat in the water and stroked off toward the far shore. But no one says, wow, you sat down in a room by yourself and wrote every single word of a book? That, for me, is the bravest thing I’ve done. I gave up writing this book dozens of times—it was just too hard (the file I kept the manuscript in is labeled: Keep Trying). I say that it took me seven years to write this book, but really, it took me a lifetime. So when I hold my book and read from it, I think, miraculous, with all sincerity.

After I read, someone from the audience inevitably asks: what’s the next book? The next book?  The question is a kind one—implied is, “I liked this, I could read more.” Or maybe I am flattering myself—maybe the audience is simply polite. But my response is, “really, I have to do this again?” One book seems plenty, like people who decide that one child is just right. But when you write a book, apparently people think you should write another. In fact, I think I should write another. The problem is, I’m not.

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Paddling in Good Company

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Mid-way through the fall I learned that mine was not the only book to be published this season about paddling down a river. Four other books carried writers into print this fall, from the Charles River in Massachusetts, to the rivers of the Carolinas, to the Altamaha in Georgia. I love these sorts of convergence. Certainly there are many paddle down river books but why five in one season? What has drawn us all to float and think—about rivers, about the environment, about life. Because if one thing unites these books is thinking about the world—paddling, whether in a canoe or a kayak, invites reflection. What is intriguing are the ways these books overlap, observations echo (those great blue heron; those sturgeon), words repeat ("drifting" "My") and number of pages to tell the story align (221 it is!).  In some ways, this could be because a river is a river (though this isn’t exactly true) and paddling is paddling (again not true) but it seems we all turned to rivers for ideas, solace, inspiration, love. Rivers formed this country, and if I can conclude one thing it is that being in and on a river shapes how we see the world, relate to the world.  I want to say they made us better people, though that sounds really cheesy. What I mean by better is more aware of our own thoughts, biases and desires, more attentive to the world, more appreciative of life. I’ll stop there before I write something foolish like: paddling is good for the world, not just for the soul.

 

Over this break, I’ve read the books of my four river companions. Here are some observations.

 

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Indian Point

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IMG_2707 One spring, I loaded up my kayak with sleeping bag and food and pointed south on the Hudson River. I was traveling with a former student, Emmet, and we intended to take a few days, camping on islands and on the banks of the river, to make our way from my village of Tivoli to Manhattan (I write about this adventure in my upcoming book, MY REACH). This is the freedom of a river, to head out and see what you can see. And I did see many marvelous things on my journey, and lots that I wish I had not seen. Day four I passed the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Instinctively, we scooted to the western shore, giving the plant a wide berth.

From water level, the towers loomed above me and the entire structure felt imposing. There are layers of red brick buildings smack against the river. Not a window in sight, as if whatever was contained inside shouldn’t be seen, and should not see out. I’d passed some large industry on the river—Trapp Rock up by Poughkeepsie, for instance, but nothing that felt ominous like the Indian Point plant. There are many reasons to protest nuclear power. In my life, the stories of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are enough to convince anyone this is a risky source of energy. There are many reasons not to want a nuclear power plant so close to a major metropolitan area—9/11 is enough to show how vulnerable we can be. And there are many reasons not to want a nuclear power plant on the Hudson River. The plant rests on a small earthquake fault. And, the plant uses billions of gallons of water t o cool its towers and then spits this warmed water back into the river, altering the ecosystem. In the process, millions of fish are sucked into the plant and killed. But I had not thought about any of this with much care until I stroked past the plant low in my boat.

Boatapproaching Floating in a kayak on a big river I often feel tiny, especially next to tankers or the barges that shove north and south at all times of day and night (in this photo, a tanker is emerging around Magdalen Island--that little dot is me). But my river view is an important perspective, it’s the same view a beaver might have, or a great blue heron wading by the shoreline. In a kayak, there is an intimacy with the water, whether that water is clean or not, the sights beautiful or not. And I did not like being intimate with a nuclear power plant. It took experiencing the chill of Indian Point on a cool rainy spring day to make me care about shutting down the plant.

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