Embrace Your Mediocrity

After four years of high school sports every single season, I decided not to be on the softball team my senior year. I was free after school for the first time in my life since 7th grade. I had been an average athlete, and my varsity status could only be attributed to being at a small school where JV kids were moved up quickly to the empty spots left by senior graduates. Regardless of my mediocrity, I really enjoyed being in sports and I spent most of my after-school life doing volleyball, basketball, softball, and even boys’ soccer one season. I was terrible at soccer, seeing as it was the first time I’d ever played the sport and all of a sudden I was on the boys’ varsity team since there wasn’t a team for girls.

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After all of that sporting, season after season, I wanted a chance to have my own time for once, and I wanted to spend some of that time in the ocean in my final year at home before leaving for college.

I grew up in a tiny, beautiful, forested, seaside town on the central coast of California called Cambria. It set the beauty standard for me for the rest of my life, and I spent hundreds of afternoons of my life biking, tidepooling, and beachcombing by myself along the water after sports and on the weekends.

Without a sport in that final season of senior year, I finally had time to enjoy something I called “wavehopping.” Other people surfed the break along Moonstone Beach Drive that was a 10-minute bikeride from my house. While I had pictures of surfers decorating my room from my Surfing Magazine subscription and my dad and I would watch surf movies now and then together, I simply wanted to be immersed in the water, ducking under the waves the second before they crashed, boardless.

Not wanting to go alone, I asked my friend Anne to accompany me and she accepted. The water in Cambria is cold enough to need a wetsuit, but we didn’t have that luxury. We acclimated to the water temperature each time and over time. We went out in our swimsuits, very gradually, and had a blast being right in the fun zone for hours until we couldn’t feel our appendages anymore. Surfers looked at us oddly now and then, and what we were doing gave them a snicker.

I lived in a co-ed dorm my freshman year of college, and a friend down the hall planned to work as a youth counselor at his dad’s camp at Catalina Island Marine Institute once June rolled around. A bunch of us friends applied too and were accepted, and our summer job that year entailed looking after a weekly-changing group of kids as they moved their way through all kinds of outdoor activities in a camp on the shore of the dazzling ocean.

For three hours each day, the kids were in classes that we counselors didn’t attend with them, so we had a large daily chunk of time to spend in the Pacific. We each had a choice – either use every ounce of that time learning how to scuba dive, or take the more casual route of snorkeling and windsurfing whenever we chose to. Most people picked the former – what a uniquely free opportunity to learn an amazing skill. I’ve never been able to breathe through my nose, and being underwater already takes courage for me, so I immediately passed on the scuba idea. Snorkeling and windsurfing my way through that summer was a memorable, dreamy thing, however mediocre it may have seemed compared to scuba diving.

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My sophomore year of college, I went through a year of training with UCSB Adventure Programs, designed to teach students how to become volunteer guides to lead paying customers on trips. I’ll never forget the beginning – the first time we students all sat in kayaks in the UCSB lagoon and paddled around goofily, learning the basics together. Most didn’t mind the idea of pushing the limits to the point that they could risk flipping over. When our instructor paddled over to my boat and threatened to capsize me, I begged him with wide, horrified eyes not to do it.

I later learned from experience that lots of capsizing would ensue over the year in order to teach us how to get back in the boat or help someone else to. Especially when we were learning to kayak roll – we went over and over and over until we nailed the roll every time without having to pull the spray skirt and exit the boat.

Over our training year, we were taught how to properly kayak, kayak roll, rockclimb, and backpack. We were given instruction in the pool, in the ocean, on Gibraltar Rock, up Mount Whitney, on the Colorado River, and in the classroom. Our instructor, Wayne Horodowich, taught us so much beyond form and function. He delved into psychology; he put us in situations that would require us to dig deep and make wise choices; he taught us the art of team building; he put us through ropes courses and mind challenges; and he had us journal our thoughts throughout the year-long process.

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I learned from Adventure Programs that I didn’t care for rockclimbing at all, and I eventually co-led kayaking trips and enjoyed teaching kayaking enthusiasts how to roll in the pool before they set off to oceans and rivers far away. I never really thought of myself as the “leader type,” especially since I would have been scared to do some of the drills I was dreaming up in order to perfect the skills to make the kayak rollers solid and experienced in whatever capsizing situation would eventually come their way. Those folks left the pool with abilities far beyond the skill set of their “leader.”

Adventure Programs aside, when I wasn’t studying, my college life was always intermixed with the ocean and the beach. I ran on the beach. I lived a few blocks from the beach. We hung out at the beach. We biked along the trails above the beach. The beach was our life. UCSB hovers over the ocean, and so does the little town right next to it where all the students live.

My senior year of college, I wanted to surf. I had been on the beach for so many years but hadn’t wanted to go out in the water and surf by myself. But the pull to go for it was strong. I didn’t have money for anything but food, but I wanted to somehow find a surfboard I could afford. A shaper showed me some beautiful longboards he’d made that were way out of my price range, but pointed to one of his first creations that he’d sell me for $100. I bought it and began loving surfing. Some of my housemates bought his surfboards soon after, and just like that, I had company out in the water.

You’re probably imagining real waves in your mind. I didn’t surf anything big enough to be called a wave. I happily surfed little swells that gently made their way to the beach with a mild “cshshsh.” That was the most I wanted. Nothing big, nothing intimidating. Comfortably small.

After graduating from college, I became a bike tour leader for Backroads. I had spent my life on my bike, and Backroads is the ultimate company to go with if you want to see incredible angles of the world on your own leg power. Thousands of people applied to work for them that year, and the field was narrowed to 50 applicants who would prove their skills during a weekend wilderness trip in the Point Reyes woods above San Francisco. I made the cut, and at 21, I was the youngest guide they had ever hired. My mom joked that I went to college to become a bike-tour guide.

What a summer it was of biking with people through Bryce, Zion, the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, and the California wine country. Some days we covered 117 miles. Somehow, we leaders managed to prepare three near-gourmet meals for the guests every day. The days began pre-dawn with bike mechanical checks, and they ended in a tent after cleaning the final dishes and pans from dinner and prepping for the next day’s meals.

I loved the adventure of it; the stunning views we passed from the seats of our bikes all day; the competitive drive we had to muster in order to maintain a position as the lead biker in a pack of fantastically fit customers. I’ll never forget the spontaneous thunderstorms that drenched us in the canyons; the relentless Going-to-the-Sun Road up a majestic mountain in the Rockies; the diamond earring my brother gave me for graduation that I lost while diving into an alpine lake.

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At the end of the summer, I received a letter. It was from Tom Hale, the owner of Backroads. I had gotten average rather than stellar reviews from some guests on trips I had co-led, and he couldn’t keep a guide on staff who was average. I had also never completed a bike mechanic course that had gotten cancelled midway through my final quarter of college, which was a prerequisite of being a guide for them, and I hadn’t practiced enough to catch up to the knowledge the other guides had. I called the owner to talk about all of it. I could barely hold in the humiliation I felt. After I hung up the phone, I cried. Hard. I hadn’t even realized I was mediocre until then. That was the hardest part – I had been oblivious to my own relative inadequacy. I respected the owner and the company he meticulously and professionally built, so there I stood, face-to-face with how I had failed at something I had hoped to succeed at. I still feel shame about it today, and it’s hard to write about it.

When I had gone off to lead bike tours, a lot of my friends had gone off to be river guides for a company called Whitewater Voyages. I knew how much they all loved it, so that’s what I decided to do next. I didn’t have much money, and the starting point for river guiding involved attending a one-week, $750 guide school on the American or Kern River.

I liked to write, and a friend who was guiding for the company told me that the owner wanted to write a guide-school handbook but didn’t have the time. He suggested that I ask the owner if I could do a trade – guide school in exchange for producing a manual from meticulous notes and recordings taken throughout the week.

The owner happily accepted the trade, and asked if I would mind attending two guide schools – one on the American River and one on the Kern River. That way, the manual would include all of the instructional nuances of both rivers that his company rafted.

What a dream – before I knew it, I was floating down a river, collecting every bit of information in every way I could from the various guides instructing from the several rafts of newbies, teaching how to read currents and maneuver large crafts made of inflated blue plastic.

I loved every minute of living on the water, camping on the side of the river at night, and preparing food out in the open on long wood tables. I loved being in the warm sun, hopping off now and then to bob in the crystal water, swooshing through the exhilirating rapids, and preparing a compilation of material that would someday aid all guides in teaching future guide schools.

I became a guide on the Kern River, surrounded by close friends, spending our days actively out in some of the most beautiful and exciting nature. We lived in swimsuits and life jackets – casual, carefree, bronzed skin, toned muscles, and bleached-blond hair – and lived off of leftover brownies and garlic bread once we got back to the guide house before the next trip set off.

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On days I wasn’t on the trip schedule, I sat at a little desk in the guide house and transcribed all of the audio recordings I had taken during both guide schools. I compiled all of the various notes I had taken into a flowing body of work – everything from how to give a safety put-in talk and how to tie various kinds of knots for different situations to how to shop and cook for 30 people on a multi-day trip.

I loved this new life on the water and I made extra money as often as possible by “cheffing” the trips – being the one to buy all of the food and delegate the meal preparation. All of us guides lived in the guide house or in little trailers outside of it. There were about 25 of us, and we spent all of our time together on the water and off of it. It was a blast. It was all of the fun of college all over again, without having to study. We talked about the world together; we philosophized; we played games; we dressed crazily and danced; we did talent shows; I had them do 10-minute writing assignments, as I called them, on one topic at at time – writing as fast as we could, stream-of-consciousness style for 10 fleeting minutes, then reading our wild results to each other. We were like one big extended family in brightly colored, damp river shorts.

It was blissful except for one thought that stuck in the back of my mind – a bad swim. We had a lot of time to hear each other’s stories, and the more experienced guides had more stories. They all said that the longer you guide, the odds for having a bad swim would catch up to you. “Everyone eventually has a bad swim” was the sentence repeated over and over. At some point, every guide would go under and not resurface for a long time. We were guiding Class IV rapids (Class V is the highest rating for intensity), and there were plenty of places you did not want to fall out and get sucked in a “hole” of churning water. Who knows when it would release you.

As you’ve probably inferred by now, I have a fear of water. I don’t know why. When I’m in a lake, I don’t like thinking about what’s under me. When I’m in the ocean, I don’t like big waves. And in a river, I certainly didn’t like the idea of not coming up for a long time. I still have a vivid memory of all of my brothers and sisters trying to get me to swim out to a dock in a lake when I was about 8 years old, and I just couldn’t do it.

I’ve never known why I’m different from other people. I asked my mom about it a few months ago and was surprised by her answer. “Well, you did go to a swim school for kids who were afraid of water.” I did? I have no recollection of it. All I can remember is growing up in Texas and loving swimming in anyone’s pool who invited me.

But there’s another little piece to it. Perhaps the root comes from a time when I was a baby. My big sister and I were in a hot tub with her friends. and she didn’t notice that I slid down below the surface. At some point she saw me looking up from the bottom and pulled me up. I don’t know how much time elapsed; it might have only been a few moments.

Back on the river, while some guides flipped boats for fun and guests begged for more, I prayed I wouldn’t flip and I hoped the people in my boat would never ask me to do it.

My second summer on the river, the thought of a bad swim began to weigh more heavily on me. I loved this job, this way of life, this fun. I also knew the power of the water; the unpredictability of a hole; the risk I took every day. Some days at the top of a rapid, I hoped my crew wouldn’t look back at me (the guide sits at the back of the boat, using a paddle as a rudder to guide it) because I had tears welling in my eyes. Can you imagine having a guide like that? Other guides found huge rapids exhilirating and fun; I found them more frightening by the day. I began to guide a little less and make up the money by cheffing for other trips or driving the raft bus more. I was no longer having the fun I wished I could have.

Then one day sealed the deal. A guide from the raft company in front of ours on the river was running upriver along the bank toward us, shouting if we’d pull aside and help him look for a 16-year-old girl somewhere in the water. The volume of the river was really high that day, in flood stage, and the rapids were more calm since the rocks were deeper under the water than normal. On the other hand, the trees on the banks that were normally out of the water were now submerged, acting as human “strainers.” If there’s anything that’s nearly impossible to escape from, it’s a strainer under the water. When thousands of pounds of river water are pushing someone into a tree, they have to somehow propel themselves high up before impacting the branches, or they will end up submerged and unable to save themselves from the water pressure pushing them into the obstacle.

In a lazily calm area of water, the guide from the company ahead of us had decided to flip the boat for fun and let the guests cool off as they meandered downriver in the mellow water. Sadly, there was a part of a tree underneath that he didn’t see, and a girl from his boat floated into it when they flipped and she never came up. It was the big trip of the year for her and her dad, since her parents were divorced. It was the one week they got to spend together.

We searched and searched for some sign of her for hours, but we knew she had to be underwater somewhere, stuck. Drowned. I can still see her father standing on the bank of the river, looking out over the flat water in unfathomable shock that he was now alone. The guide was kneeling at the father’s feet, saying, “I’m so, so sorry” over and over.

That was my last day as a river guide. I had no desire to put myself in a place that could swallow a person whole, even in calm water.

Kayakers worked to find the girl for hours the next day. They finally did. They pulled her body from the river and her dad had to deliver the news to her mom that she was gone.

When winter came, I worked in a snowboard shop, as a ski lift operator, and as a late-night barista in a casino in Tahoe. On the lookout for something more creative or cerebral, I ended up getting work as an alternative energy researcher and writer from home.

Months went by and I happened to check the UCSB Adventure Programs schedule of trips offered to the public. I remembered that often in the springtime, Wayne would lead a kayaking trip along the Na Pali Coast in Kauai. The trips Adventure Programs offered were usually very affordable, compared to prices of other outdoor companies. From what I remember, the Na Pali trip cost $800 with flights, kayak rental, and all other fees included. I didn’t have extra money sitting around, but it seemed like a price I’d never see again, so I went for it. It was the first thing I ever charged on a credit card.

I will never forget bobbing up and down on huge Hawaiian swells out on the surface of the deep ocean, looking across at the stunning coastline and looking down at beautiful sea turtles below me. One of us would lift up on the crest of the swell while the other would be 15 feet lower in the trough. It was intoxicating, and at the same time I felt a constant sense of relief that these voluminous summer swells weren’t crashing, just rolling.

We only mingled with the surf when timing our beach-landing through the shorebreaks on isolated Kalalau Beach. It’s unforgettable – you’ve probably seen it in movies and ads. Once our kayaks skimmed up to the sand, we spent a week “living” on the beach, lying in hammocks tied to trees, swimming in the water, rinsing in the waterfall, and sleeping in tents zipped tight against night-roaming cockroaches. Aside from our little group of eight or so, the only other people we saw roaming past us now and then were a bronzed, blond, naked family living off the land. You’re only allowed there with the short-term permits we had, and you can only get there by boat, kayak, or on foot along a strenuous 11-mile trail. The naked family apparently decided to make it home while they could get away with it.

I loved that permanent-bathing-suit life. It suited us all well.

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Over the next few years, I traveled to Chile a few times to raft down the Bio Bio and Futaleufu Rivers. Those are extraordinary memories of more isolated beauty far removed from the rest of the world. While I wasn’t a guide anymore, I loved every minute of being on the river again, and especially loved being guided by someone else in charge. It was worked out as a semi-trade – a chance to raft down rivers with Bio Bio Expeditions for a huge discount in exchange for helping with meal preparation. I don’t recall them needing me for a whole lot; more like they ended up gifting me with ongoing, unforgettable experiences.

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I ended up back in Santa Barbara, working as a research editor for Islands Media, which published Islands Magazine – the dreamy magazine that used to be in every doctor’s and dentist’s office. My office hovered over the ocean and looked out over the Channel Islands. After work, I paddled with the women’s outrigger team on stunning sunset jaunts in the harbor and along the coast. A few years elapsed and I traded outrigging for surfing small waves two blocks from the room I rented on the Mesa.

All along, I’ve always had a thing about islands. In answer to some questions from our yearbook class in 1996 about where we high school seniors would one day be in 20 years, I said I’d be living on an island with my husband. Almost exactly 20 years to the day of saying that, my husband and I moved our family to stunning Orcas Island. I was originally thinking tropical, but I’ll settle for this!

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Island life has always been in my mind, actually. In college, I took a class called The Anthropology of Romantic Love on the Island of Mangaia. One day out of the blue, the professor said, “By the way, I’ve been to almost all of the islands in the South Pacific and if you ever want to see the most beautiful one, go to Aitutaki.” I wrote that down and never forgot it. It became my bank password for the next decade. Photos of Bora Bora, Tahiti, and Fiji adorned my walls in my 20s. A year ago, we booked a local house on Aitutaki through Airbnb just 20 steps from the water for less than it would cost to stay at a Best Western. I’m not sure how dreams come true, but I’ve learned from experience to keep dreaming bigger and bigger.

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It’s Coronavirus times now and school has been closed for seven weeks. Aside from the kids doing their schoolwork at home, quarantining means enjoying all of the sparkling magnificence around us. With that ridiculously lucky luxury comes the equally luxurious opportunity to ponder what things we can do with our lives – things like bucket lists, dreams, challenges, new horizons.

I began asking myself what I could dive into; what I haven’t done that I want to be doing at some point in life; what I could be working hard toward rather than being on a personal Corona-pause. How I could use this time to become mentally, spiritually, or physically stronger.

On the latter note, what options do I have to be more active? Fitter? At my peak? And even more specifically, why am I not the waterperson I’d like to be here on the island? Unlike Santa Barbara, there aren’t all that many people out doing active things here. So diving into a watersport would mean being on the water by myself. When we moved here, we heard a lot of stories about things that went wrong and currents you really have to know well. Being solo on the ocean means encountering that water fear again. Without help if I were to need it.

Actually, it all started a bit earlier, when I kept dwelling on the thought that my arms just hang in black bags – my down jacket – all winter long, whether I’m outside or in. They don’t do anything until summer. They don’t even raise above my head. That’s scary for someone who wants to be active all the time.

I did some Zumba for a month to move everything again. I did a CrossFit introductory class. But what I’ve really always wanted to do is stand-up paddleboarding.

Just moments after settling on that thought while out walking, I came across our town’s most skilled paddleboarder and chatted briefly with him about his thoughts on acquiring a board. That’s always how Orcas Island seems to work. The next person I happened upon was a woman who always has a paddleboard or two on her car, and she’s one of the only other paddleboarders I know here. After talking with her for just a few minutes, she offered me a try on her inflatable demo board. I had no idea she’s a rep for a company. And just like that, I was out paddleboarding for the next few days, giving myself a chance to ease into the solo nature of it slowly and wisely – as unflashy and mediocre as I need to be.

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I share this long-winded story to say that sometimes, even if there are patterns of mediocrity or even fear in your life, you may have to let go of the limitations that keep you from embracing even that mediocrity. If you want to do something, you can be stopped by the idea that you might not be good at it. You can be stopped by the idea that other people don’t think you’re a natural. You can be stopped because you don’t look the part. Or you’re awkward. You can stop yourself by overwhelming yourself – thinking about the expert you want to one day be and realizing how long it will take you to get there. Or knowing someone who’s already an expert and comparing yourself to them. Or seeing an expert on YouTube and thinking they’re smarter, more creative, cuter, or shapelier than you. Thinking about how few people support you. Or how no one supports you. Thinking about how great some people look on social media doing it and what a dork you think you’ll look like in actuality. Thinking that it feels hard. Or it is hard. Or you’re so far behind compared to other people doing it. Or that you’re scared of it.

Regarding social media, I’ll never forget many years ago when my old wave-hopping friend and I got back in touch. After telling me some hard things she had gone through in life, I asked her why she never reached out to me earlier. Her response has shaped my life significantly: “Because your life was perfect. You wouldn’t have understood.” I’ve not been one to post photos of me or my family much on Facebook, so she must have seen the few that I put up back then and assumed everything in my life was great. I think we all make similar assumptions. If she had only known how hard some things were for me in ways she couldn’t see in photographs.

From that moment on, I decided to expose myself now and then – to tell the world when things aren’t great and to open up my vulnerabilities so they can help someone else not feel alone. I’ve done it many times here on this blog. I spent this past winter writing a book about our marriage and the myriad difficulties we’ve had. I know that it will help someone out there, and until I figure out how to publish it, I may send it to select people who are in need of comfort.

When you’re tempted, as I am, to assume that the people you see on social media have everything perfectly together in their lives, and that you might as well not even start down some road you want to pursue because you’ll never have it all together like they do, remind yourself this: We are all in this together and everyone has their big challenges, their big obstacles, their constricting mindsets to overcome. We all like to post our achievements, our proud-parent moments, and our pretty times so that we have people to share our happinesses with. But sometimes the best thing we can do to encourage each other is to express our fears, our failures, our faults, and our foibles. The unpretty times and images actually help, relieve, comfort, and provide common ground. Our difficulties can actually build each other up, if we will choose to share them.

There are so many ways you can stop yourself with judgment in life, but how about you join me in stepping into the things you can do right now, because – simply – you want to. However lame, mediocre, dorky, unskilled, or unpretty you may be at them. Wanting to live out the life you want to live out is all the reason you need to move forward and do it.

In an age of ultra-marathoners, circumnavigators, uber-crossfitters, ice canoers, pro parkour-ers, skyscraper acrobats, powerbockers, waterfall kayakers, YouTube channel high-earners, El Capitan freeclimbers, and Avenger superheroes, we’re accustomed to seeing the inspiring, the extreme, even the superhuman as the norm. But what if mediocre is “all” I’ll ever be? I can work with that.

Despite fear, I still somehow feel so at home on the water. Some of my favorite memories are in water, and I am embarking on making more, one quiet, solo, unremarkable, soul-satisfying paddle stroke at a time…

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What are you gonna do with this time you have?…