The Dominant Doe Goes With The Flow

Because I like to control things, and because I dislike indecisiveness, my hunterly friends call me a “Dominant Doe.”

(Apparently if you hunt doe, and are able to pick out the “dominant” one in the herd, you will be able to predict where the herd will head when they decide to high-tail it out of your gun’s range, thus giving you a better chance of shooting one dead.)

**shudder**

Whatever.

I like just like being called a “Dominant Doe” because the alliteration is groovy and it sounds a lot better than “Controlling Bitch,” –lack of alliteration notwithstanding.

But I don’t want to talk about hunting, or bitches. I want to talk about kayaking.

And how much I love kayaking and how peaceful it is out on the water, and how quiet, and how lovely it is to float along, dipping the paddles in every now and then, moving the boat around to get a better view of a turtle or a water lily or a house on the shore.

This past Saturday a bunch of us paddled 10 miles along the Chemung River as part of an outing called River Fest.

(this is me and Fred wearing one of my buffs which he wore for the picture then promptly removed because he said it made him look like a cancer patient, which I had to agree with.)

In some places the river was deep, in others shallow to the point where we had to get out and portage the boats to the deeper water, and at other points the water got riffly and fast and a little scary.

When I found myself approaching those scary, fast, wavy parts I watched how the kayakers in front of me were negotiating the water.  Much to my surprise, they did it by lifting their paddles out of the water and just letting the water take them where it wanted to take them.

So I did that too, even though it felt weird and strange and wrong not to steer and guide and maneuver the boat with the paddle.  The best way to get through the rough water was to just go with the flow, apparently.

So I learned that sometimes it’s really not smart to be the Dominant Doe.  On the water, at least, it’s best to go with the flow.

Good to know.