Get In the Boat. Stay There.

It was the first time I'd seen a wall of moving water bigger than my house. It was the first time I was plunging headfirst into that wall of water bigger than my house. I didn't start my day thinking about liquids. That wasn't planned. I started my day by falling over the edge of the Grand Canyon. That wasn't planned, either.

I do not recommend taking a shortcut down the canyon. The fall was due to a patch of ice and not because of any idea to save time on my part. I was where I was because I grew up in a family that was afraid to take chances. This included driving around a curb at a speed of more than two miles an hour, shouting "Watch your fingers!" at anyone shutting a car door, and eating gravy made out of milk because, well, I don't know why but my mom was pretty sure that would kill us. I didn't want to come to the end of my life and think, "I had a fulfilling life because I once took a chance and ate cream gravy."

After landing on a ledge, two hikers peered over the edge at me. Their eyes could have popped out and bounced down the rocks to join me, if they didn't lob into the hikers' mouths which gaped as wide as the canyon. "Are you okay," one called down. "Fine," I said, getting up and shifting my backpack around, trying to make it feel like it still fit after crashing through rocks and juniper trees. "Your leg was behind your neck." one called.

I was glad I didn't know that. It might have altered the way I felt.

Hance was not an easy trail, even without ice. Most trails have switchbacks, going back and forth, back and forth, kind of easing you down. Hance just goes down, down, down. Knees hurt. Toenails hurt. Legs hurt if you made the mistake of using one as a neck pillow earlier in the day. Couldn't wait to set up camp along the Colorado River, eat cardboard that passes as backpacking food, take off my boots and fall asleep to the sound of rapids in the distance. With a Charley horse in my eerily limber leg (who knew I could put it behind my neck like a yoga master?), I reached the bottom of the trail and heard the magnetic sound of the river. I kept going toward it. Dropped my backpack and kept going toward the river. Charley horse or no, I headed to the legendary river. A flotilla of gray rafts and carnival-colored kayaks came around the bend. I began to run to see them. I wanted to see these river runners who seemed like the most free people on the planet, people who are guided down the rivers by the flight of the great blue heron and the scream of the eagle, and by the current that teases boulders and could grind a river a mile deep in the desert. I watched them float by.

A red kayak and one raft broke away from the group and floated up to where I stood.

"Want to run the rapids with us?" the man in the kayak said.

My mind said, "You will die," but my mouth said, "Yes!" Another hiker trotted up along the strand of the river. "I want to go,too!" she said.

"We're from Idaho," the kayaker said while he dug out lifejackets for us. "We're on the river for 21 days."

I didn't want to tell him that I was from the flatland and pretty much never did anything but was trying to overcome that drawback by stepping into the boat. The man rowing the raft situated us at the front. We put into the river. The rapids were heard but not seen. The roar grew though they still weren't in sight. The other hiker blanched.

"Let me out," she said. "I want out."

They let the counterflow carry the boats back along the bank so they could drop her close to where she got on. I was usually the one who wanted out. I was the one who backed out of most of my life because of panic. But not this time. Not again. I was determined to meet the rapids.

Finally they came. I was sorry I hadn't saved my new found courage for a later date. The wave was as high as my roof back home. The water looked as solid as a wall. And, as gravity is my witness, the raft went vertical. Pretty sure it was gonna flip. Instead, for the first time in my life, I came to what looked like an overwhelming obstacle, crashed through it, and came out on the other side. My grimace turned into laughter as we took on wave after wave. Baptised into another world.

Sometimes we do something life changing, but our lives don't change after all. If you're lucky, you catch that moment and cling to it. I became a swamper who cooked, cleaned rafts, and grunted equipment up and down the Colorado River, then a guide, then a ranger, where my guide was the current, the heron, and the eagle.

But I had to get into the boat first. And I had to stay there.