Kayak Quotes

“Writing is always a restorative process. It's like paddling a kayak. When you're writing, you can't do anything else. You're in the space you're in. So, in that way, it's enormously centering and restorative.”

“I don't think people would climb mountains or jump off bridges with parachutes or kayak Class V rapids if those things didn't offer the brief and horrible illusion of imminent death. They would just be complicated, time-consuming endeavors that we'd steer well clear of because they got in the way of real life.”

“We know summer is the height of of being alive. We don't believe in God or the prospect of an afterlife mostly, so we know that we're only given eighty summers or so per lifetime, and each one has to be better then the last, has to encompass a trip to that arts center up at Bard, a seemingly mellow game of badminton over at some yahoo's Vermont cottage, and a cool, wet, slightly dangerous kayak trip down an unforgiving river. Otherwise, how would you know that you have lived your summertime best? What is you missed out on some morsel of shaded nirvana?”

“Every single iceberg filled me with feelings of sadness and wonder. Not thoughts of sadness and wonder, mind you, because thoughts require a thinker, and my head was a balloon, incapable of thoughts. I didn't think about Dad, I didn't think about you, and, the big one, I didn't think about myself. The effect was like heroin (I think), and I wanted to stretch it out as long as possible.Even the simplest human interaction would send me crashing back to earthly thoughts. So I was the first one out in the morning, and the last one back. I only went kayaking, never stepped foot on the White Continent proper. I kept my head down, stayed in my room, and slept, but, mainly, I was. No racing heart, no flying thoughts.”

“His name was Ed. His nickname was Scrambled Ed. On leaving school he had taken a year out to decide what he wanted to study at University. The year passed and he still hadn't decided but went to University anyway. 'Academic' is defined as 'of, or relating to, institutionalized education and scholarship'. The same word, at the same time, also means 'having little practical use or value, as by being overly detailed, unengaging or theoretical'. The latter definition seemed the most appropriate for Ed's university career which was a mash up of drinking, diving, surfing, kayaking and having his heart-broken. All washed down with a few pints. After three years of that he was awarded a second class joint honours degree which he put in the recycling bin and went in search of something that would make him feel better.”

“Maybe freedom really is nothing left to lose. You had it once in childhood, when it was okay to climb a tree, to paint a crazy picture and wipe out on your bike, to get hurt. The spirit of risk gradually takes its leave. It follows the wild cries of joy and pain down the wind, through the hedgerow, growing ever fainter. What was that sound? A dog barking far off? That was our life calling to us, the one that was vigorous and undefended and curious.”

“Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.”