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	Innuendos
First Solo Half of those who try solo whitewater canoeing never come back.Which way will I go? Mara Kahn

I’ve always loved being in water, and fearlessly so. Diving into deep blue oceans of it, swimming through steep waves of it, frolicking along its white-foamed edges. But being on water, now that’s a different story. So when my fervently whitewater boyfriend couldn’t take it any longer and informed me that I was coming with him next weekend for my first whitewater canoeing au solitaire, I gulped. I balked. I invented a dying cousin in Dayton.

It makes no sense, Luke reasoned. And he was right: I’m perfectly at home plowing naked and vulnerable through massive ocean waves that no one has any business taking on, so why wouldn’t I feel safe in a sleek canoe atop a swift little river? Decked out in a wetsuit and helmet, no less, and armed with a paddle?

Let me count the ways. I have never been inside a solo canoe. I barely know how to paddle forward on an air mattress, let alone how to steer a rockered open boat through foaming rapids. On the few occasions that I have paddled at all, it was from the bow of a tandem tank with some I’m-the-captain-do-as-I-say dude in the back, yapping instructions while I absently complied.

Make no mistake: I can guide my own body perfectly, instinctively, through sea, lake or turbulent stream. My arms and legs know exactly what to do: when to charge, when to pause, when to sweep, dive or plunge. But the thought of piloting a responsive boat that can flip in rock-strewn rapids at the wrong turn of a chin had my stomach churning.

"Too bad," he said. "The trip is set. We’re meeting Bob and Bonnie in Wisconsin next Friday. You’re going to love it. You’ll be begging to come back!"

OK, whitewater-fanatic boyfriend, just promise me one thing: When I wash up on shore, clutching my state-of-the-art paddle, you won’t laugh. And you’ll give me a decent burial. "Agreed," he said. "Just trust me. We’re going to start you out real easy."

Our first morning in northern Wisconsin dawns warm and golden. Surely it’s an omen. Yet even after a hearty breakfast, I’m feeling tentative about this solo business. Now, I love a good challenge as much as the next chump, but I like taking on something new, and potentially embarrassing, without an audience on hand. Yet the paddlers I had met only the night before would be with me every stroke of the way and—I am absolutely certain—gawking at my ineptitude. Plus, no lie, I have a throbbing headache and my back feels like just-set concrete after a bad night’s sleep in the campground.

I’m not going, I say. A day of reading, relaxing and wandering around the surrounding forest sounds awfully good. A shock of disbelief waves across his face, angst really. "You’re breaking my heart," he whispers. The problem is, he’s completely sincere.

On goes the wetsuit, up goes the zipper, out goes my false pride. If I can’t do this one thing for him after he outfitted me, scrounged me a boat, scored me a paddle and loves me as much as his blue Dagger, then I better bag this relationship pronto and head for dry land. OK, OK, I tell him, I’ll go. Relief floods his voice. "That’s my woman!" he says. "You’re doing the right thing!"

Hustling to load the second canoe, we’re only 10 minutes late to our rendezvous on the banks of the Wolf River. As I strut around in my sleek black neoprene, suddenly I feel confident, animated, excited to take on this river in a brand new way. Straddling the foam canoe seat, legs tucked tightly into thigh straps, I’m a graceful horsewoman on her bright yellow steed, a warrior ready to do battle. As the flotation bags are tied in, I go over the basic strokes in my head. Then I strap on my helmet and seize my paddle.

"Uh, Mara? You can come out now!" My baffled boyfriend is shouting at me from mid-river, just downstream. But from the moment I shoved off and dipped paddle to water, the boat won’t do what I want it to do. In fact, with every gallant stroke, I seem to be going, well, backwards. The trouble is the wind has picked up, pushing me back into a tangle of overhanging willows. All eyes are on me as I flail through the overgrowth, making a graceless entrance into the current. And what happened to that gently riffling stream of just last week? Swollen by late spring rains, this meandering river rated for novices has suddenly turned into a NASCAR speedway.

"Mara, it’s deeper and faster than we expected—but not a problem," smiles my intrepid beau who’s starting to look suspect. "Just stay relaxed, follow my route, and you’ll do fine. And whatever happens, hang on to your paddle!"

Did he say relax? I have never felt so tense and awkward in my adult life. We’re in fast flatwater and I’m still having trouble getting my rollicking little boat to track straight. ("Rudder! Rudder! Don’t lift your paddle so far out of the water!") Yeah, yeah, buddy, only guess what? My entire body is turning into one massive, gnarly knob of stress—something about having three sets of eyes on your every bumbling move—and we haven’t even hit our first rapids.

When we reach those first riffles, the muscles in my back and face go into red alert. One set clenches while the other spasms, and suddenly I’m thrashing and gashing my way through what seems like a five-mile set of frothing waves with seething boulders popping up everywhere. Hundreds of them: giant ones, hidden ones, hissing ones. I somehow manage to steer around them, landing on top of only a few, my paddle frantically dipping through dry air. Somehow I get through my first killing field unscathed, but not before realizing I have my teeth clamped in a death grip around my tongue. "You have to stop doing that, Mara, you’re going to bite it off." Actually, it’s my boyfriend’s head I’d like to bite off. As we fly downstream, he’s barking out orders, and either I can’t hear him over the wind or honestly can’t do what he says. I keep missing the eddies, ending up tangled in overhanging branches. Oh, ignoble sport.

With our third set of rapids approaching, Luke yells at me to get to shore. But I’m not quick enough to catch the eddy, and I keep barreling downriver. In a flash his canoe is in front of mine, banging it toward land. "Get to shore. Now!" He’s livid, his face flaring under his tight, squirrelly-looking helmet, and I’m glaring, scowling mad. His whacks against my boat feel rude and aggressive.

For long, ludicrous moments we’re yelling at each other above the wind, mostly him reminding me of my stubbornness and me reminding him how clueless I am on this river. And how I’d rather be taking on these rapids feet first in my skivvies than in this blasted canoe. It would be a hell of a lot more fun. And besides, what’s the big deal; this next set looks just like the last one that I bounced and bungled my way through. Wrong. These prove to be tougher, and as one particularly nasty-looking boulder rushes toward me, WHOMP! I crash into it sideways and dump into the frigid river.

The utterly marvelous thing is that just after hitting water, I relax. The refreshing liquid envelops my tense body, and finally I feel a part of what I am doing, at one with the river. At last I can truly feel the current, its power rushing over my body, under me, through me. Lying spread-eagle on my back as Bob tows me to calm water, I proudly clutch my paddle and beam a huge smile of satisfaction to the cloud-scudded sky.

With a cry of delight I clamber back into my sweet little trickster of a canoe and continue downstream, whacking my way through the next set of rapids and the next. It isn’t pretty—not like my friends who are winding their way through the boulder gardens like graceful water birds—but I keep plugging along, never again surprised by a dump.

Still, three hours later, dry land never looked so good. As I strip off my gear and sit contentedly in the afternoon sun, I realize for the first time how gorgeous the Wolf River really is, how lovely its lush, fern-filled woods. And although this trip only confirms that I would indeed rather be in water than on it, I feel some small pride for sticking it out.

Moreover, Luke is so incredibly happy that I actually got on the river and tried, and I am so happy to be off the river, that we forgive one another's lunacies in a wild embrace. Will I be back? Let me say this: If this is what river running does between a man and a woman—lifting their spirits and enlarging their sense of self—then bring it on.

—Editor’s note: Is it just us, or does “Luke” sound suspiciously like canoe writer Larry Rice?