The Poster

I don’t know how long the poster had been hidden away in that basement desk, certainly several years. It was rolled, enclosed in a cover and like new when my daughter discovered it.

"May I open this?" she asked.

"Certainly," I answered, not giving it a second thought.

Several days passed before I noticed it hanging from a wall in her room. My gosh, what an incredible photograph, I thought as it caught my eye. It pictured a kayaker popping up and out of a drop located in some wild gorge in Mexico. His bright red boat and yellow paddle jacket shone against the backdrop of an enormous, multi-plumed waterfall as a tributary plunged from the cliffs high above. "What an exceedingly beautiful and wild place that must be," I said to myself. And then I began to think about the photograph...and moreover, the paddler.

There is a race of giants among us. They are few in number and come from several different places on the globe. They are the Hillarys, Norgays and Messners of our sport and seek out the Everests and K2s of whitewater. Theirs is an ethos that few of us fully understand--even those of us who push the limits and sometimes stand on the edge. These giants are compelled to enter those ineffable realms where the natural conditions are so outrageous and overwhelming that few of us can even imagine that such places exist. Do I envy them? Certainly, but in an admittedly vicarious way. Do I admire them? Immensely.

As my gaze returned to the poster, I looked at the beautiful rainbow that framed the paddler. Certainly it was the radiant product of the mixing of spray and sunlight in this primeval place, but in my mind’s eye I saw...an aura.