Fifteen minutes from now, after the Safety Talk is over and the passengers have been assigned to their raft guides — who (myself included) are loitering under an oak tree nearby, looking scraggly, tan, and slightly hungover — the squadron of rafts will push off the beach, floating calmly toward today’s first rapid, “Meatgrinder.” The passengers are tense and nervous. Some of them crack jokes just a little too loudly. Others whisper anxiously, shifting their feet back and forth like spooked horses. 

The Lead Guide begins her spiel. It’s half-Ted Talk, half-stand up comedy. She starts with the two most important safety tips for our trip today: 1) Never Stand Up in the River! (this is to prevent “Foot Entrapment,” a leading cause of death in whitewater rafting) and 2) Never Let Go Of Your Paddle. This second rule leads into the Safety Talk’s first one-liner of the day:

“If you don’t keep your hand on your T-Grip,” (the “T-Grip” is the club-end of the paddle) “you might give someone a case of Summer Teeth. Summer Teeth. Some’er here, some’er there!”

She gesticulates emphatically. The crowd roars. It’s a classic raft guide joke. Ever so slightly, a little bit of the tension leaks away. 

Next the Lead Guide begins to talk about paddling ethic, explaining that as long as all the passengers in a boat paddle at once, in sync, like a Trojan Warship (more laughter), then the guide will be able to control the boat safely, and the scary rapids will go smoothly. Of course this is a setup to another one-liner I’ve heard in the Safety Talk a trillion times:

“If everybody paddles at different times, do you know what that raft is gonna look like? A drunken spider. Just a crazy drunken spider flopping down the river.”

Scattered chuckles. Groans. 

(Ouch. Not as much of a reaction as the “Summer Teeth” bit. Must’ve been a sloppy delivery. It’s not the first time I’ve seen “Drunken Spider” tank, though. Note to self: consider canning Drunken Spider next time it’s my turn to give the Safety Talk.) 

Finally the Lead Guide segues into the last third of her Safety Talk, What Happens If You fall Out Of The Raft Or If The Raft Flips Over. There are unsettled shifts in the crowd at the mention of Flipping; you can tell the passengers have been anxious about it since they arrived. The Lead Guide goes through every possible rescue scenario in turn: 1) If you fall out of the raft, you can pull yourself back into the raft using the D-Rings and Perimeter Straps like this — ; 2) Always swim with your feet facing downstream, so you can kick off of oncoming boulders; 3) If you are under the raft after it flips, then (uh), get out from under it. The Lead Guide pulls out a “throw-bag” (a crude device used to reel passengers in like fish) and demonstrates its many uses by throwing the bag at a meek but smiling middle-aged man, who twitches, surprised at the throw. Then she shows how to pull people up from the water’s level into the raft by grasping her volunteer by his life-vest’s lapels and rolling haphazardly backwards into an awkward coital cuddle on the raft’s rubber bottom, emitting more guffaws and laughter from the crowd. 

And finally the Lead Guide arrives at the last bit of wisdom in the Safety Talk. It’s an old aphoristic bit I grew up hearing from my raft guide parents. An aphorism I have since applied to dozens of scenarios outside of rafting, and one which I still repeat to my friends at times, especially my depressed friends, the bluesy ones, the tired and frustrated and glum ones. It’s an aphorism to cure despair. 

“The number-one rule of getting rescued,” the Lead Guide pontificates sagely, “is to participate in your own rescue.” 

The words idle in the air a moment. A few passengers laugh, unsure. 

“That’s right. Participate in your own rescue. If you fall out or if the boat flips, don’t just float paralyzed and helpless. Try to swim back to the boat! Get your ass back there!” 

The shocked crowd chuckles. 

The Lead Guide repeats: “Be an active participant in your own rescue.”

The crowd is sort of stunned at the passion the guide is channeling. There is an awkward moment where nobody says anything. A downstream breeze lifts off the river, brushing cool air against our faces. The sun is climbing higher in the sky; we are all getting hot, ready to jump in the water. 

The guide has good reason to shock her audience, I have to admit. It’s true what she’s implied. You’d be surprised how often people freeze up when they fall in, allowing the current to pull them away from the raft, or how often passengers panic in the water, screaming, clawing at anything within reach. Not infrequently while rescuing somebody back into the boat have I been pulled into the water myself. Sometimes swimmers go completely still, semi-catatonic, frozen in cold fear, unable to grasp the throw bag I’ve thrown them or unable to swim toward the boat — literally scared stiff. I’ve seen swimmers almost drown their guide even as they’re rescued, clambering over their guide to get air, pushing their guide underwater. This latter scenario is the scariest. 

On the other hand, the swimmers who do “participate in their own rescues,” who do grab the throw bag, who do swim toward the boat, who do spring into action when they should — these are the passengers who are able to laugh about the experience later. Which is to say: these people are able to move past their trauma in a healthy way. It’s a poignant contrast. Every swimmer experiences the same trauma — falling out accidentally or getting ejected forcefully, cold waves hitting their face, gasping for air — but the passengers who take agency in their peril, who take an action, any action, to save themselves, are the ones who feel good about the experience later, who even grow from the experience, who allow the day to be more exciting and a better day via their brushes with doom.

So whenever I’m consoling a friend, or if I am feeling despair myself, I remember this aphorism: participate in your own rescue. It’s the most important thing. Apply it to anything. If you’re depressed, seek counseling. If you’re lonely, introduce yourself. If your government isn’t treating you well, then go march, demonstrate, vote! If you fall out of the boat, swim back to the boat! If someone throws you a rope, grab on to it! Participate in your own rescue. 

The aphorism lingers in our thoughts while the Lead Guide divvies up the passengers into groups of 6-8 and introduces them to their guides. Today I have two couples — one couple from Dallas, another from San Francisco — and a family of four from Oakland. A totally random bunch, as usual. We climb into the boat together and I kick us off into the current, making introductions and jokes as we drift, answering any questions, critiquing their paddling techniques. The sun is out and it is a perfect day for mayhem. We will spend eight hours together. When its over, we will be a tight-knit group of Trojan Warship paddlers. And looking around at their faces now, “Meatgrinder” distantly gurgling, waiting, I note how random it is that all of us are meeting here today, and how, out of this chance encounter, any one of these faces might get the opportunity to rescue the other. And what an opportunity, what an honor, that is. %

(Appeared as “The Art of Getting Rescued” in American Whitewater [Spring 2020] and anthologized in Boatman’s Quarterly Review [Fall 2020])