In the river, you forget everything. You forget the world. Who cares about papers—all those diagrams, the calculations. Who cares if your heart is breaking, if you’re on the verge of losing your job. Or if you will go back, a few hours from now to a life that’s bursting with decisions to be made. Water is the least of your worries, it is the rocks, the jagged edges that can rip you apart, or the hidden mounds that can, without warning wham your body into limpness. You watch, anticipating the swirly gurgles with a mixture of fear and feral bliss. You’re an animal who wants nothing short of conquering this elemental, this water creature.
The river is a selfish bitch. She’ll pull you, kill you if you’re stupid enough to go there only for the ride. This is an exercise in struggling, fighting for your life.
The first thing they teach you is how to fail. Jump! The guide, your sensei, orders you. And there you go into the depths of coldness. Two seconds down, and then you rise, your head breaking through the emerald surface. You learn how to find the river’s north, to align your body to it, to drift with it until you, helpless fawn, can be fished back into the raft. It’s like slipping with the enemy, slip into its skin, honey, that way you’ll have more chances of coming up unscathed when you fall.
It’s an addiction. A chance to be brave, to conquer something other than your fear of shopping or heartaches. The pebble eyes of the river look over you, struggling with the rapids, and smiles as you inhale the beauty of your day—life filtered into the act of rafting through the Davao River in search of the perfect time and place to dock in calm waters.
