tales from the basketcase: how I became a kayaker
A basket has become, over the years, the clearinghouse from the days of film. It’s stuffed to bursting now, and I like it that way—reach in, pull out a handful of photos and get a random tour of 1989 or 2001 or anytime in between: roadtrips and proms and ill-advised boyfriends and dares. Every now and then I’ll pick one, share it and tell you the story, if it's worth the telling.*
*Unless it’s me in grade ten, in which case you’ll have to imagine the hotroller addiction for yourself.
I only felt naked until I reached the bottom of the long, two-lane stairway that led from the streets of East Vancouver into a pitch black, the underbelly of the underbelly. There stood a linebacker of a woman wearing nothing but black leather assless chaps and a dog collar. She surveyed the influx of fresh pickings, a cigarette heavy with ash hanging limply from the corner of her mouth.
(Kate’s Tail RETREATS, QUIVERING NERVOUSLY, BETWEEN LEGS.)
I was green not only with cake makeup and neon wig but for being, as had just dawned on me, a verrry sheltered female.
+++++
THREE DAYS PREVIOUS.
Close friends of ours brought us out with close friends of theirs and as we talked jokingly of sugar and spice my friend said actually, I prefer discipline and I giggled and waited for the punchline and her friend said I’ve got a corset made of thumbtacks or somesuch and I spat out whatever was in my mouth and bingo! Enlightenment courtesy of Vancouver’s thriving BDSM scene.
The whole lot chimed in with oh yes, we swing and oh yes, we have a secret closet and oh yes, I wear a bra made of chainmail and I ride him like a pony, no really, we have a saddle and I sat there gaping stupidly like in the movies when it occurs to Expendable Girl #4 that she’s inadvertently welcomed a dozen vampires into her house right before they suck her blood and TAKE HER INTO THE REALM OF THE UNDEAD.
(familiar kinksters, not to offend: I can see you grinning from here.)
+++++
The Scene: giant, subterranean bunker of depravity (CROWD ROARS).
The goth metal compounds upon the sea of black leather and the rubber and the dungeon props making me wish it wasn’t all so… serious and all. So I weave through the crowd to the DJ booth grinning solicitously like I’M A-OK WITH ALL THESE HERE SHENANIGANS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE! and they all sigh affectedly like they let one of THOSE in again and I may as well have a PLEASE BE PATIENT, WE ARE TRAINING JUNIOR CASHIERS TODAY button on my apron at the grocery store checkout.
The Crowd: THWACK! THWACK! UNNNGHHH.
Pollyanna: Tee hee! Ahem. Like, uhh, Hi?
The DJ: (GLARES)
Pollyanna: Hee hee hee.
The Crowd: THWACK! (CHEERS.) THWACK!
Pollyanna: Ohmygoodness. (SHIELDS EYES WITH EDGE OF WIG)
The DJ: (GLARES)
Pollyanna: So you know, I could really c-c-cut a rug if you’d just play a little s-s-superfreak.
The DJ: (GLARES)
The Crowd: (WOMAN SPREAD-EAGLED ON POOL TABLE SQUEALS AS PARTNER 4 OF 5 EXCHANGES STUDDED PADDLE FOR CAT ‘O NINE TAILS)
Pollyanna: Oh. Tee hee. Hee hee hee!
The DJ: (GLARES, POINTS AT EARS, FEIGNS INABILITY TO REGISTER THE SQUEAKING OF PIGLETS)
Pollyanna: …or uhh, some Girls on Film or maybe some…
The Crowd: THWACK! YES, MASTER, RUFF RUFF! ME BAD DOG! THWACK!
Pollyanna: Heeheehee …ahem, err, uhh… you know, Young MC, maybe?
The DJ: (GLARES)
The Crowd: (GRUNTS DECISIVELY)
Pollyanna: Lovely to t-t-talk to you. Enjoy the rest of your, um, evening?
Pollyanna: (SCURRIES INTO WELL-LIT CORNER WITH SOUTHERN ORIFICES BACKED AGAINST WALL)
There’s no better place to explore the edges of one’s own sluttishness than in a room in which sluttishness is not only tolerated, but mandated—with a sign out front that says FETISHWEAR ONLY. NO STREET CLOTHES ALLOWED. On most Sin City nights, the code calls for either lingerie or leather or rubber or nothing. And so on most Sin City nights, you’d find me at home in front of austen-era, ankle-baring scandal on BBC Canada instead.
But not this night. For Halloween the rules are loosened to allow for the requisite slutty french maids, slutty kitty cats, slutty she-devils, slutty cowgirls. And so Justin and I finally succumbed to the All You Need In Life Is A Good Spanking campaign like cats to a bubble bath. He as William T. Riker (the only freshman-friendly man-costume that requires neither perineal waxing nor liquid latex ultrashine) and myself as, naturally, a slutty alien.
The play-by-play would only serve to either titillate the already-inclined, or inspire our fellow Less Nesmans to exclaim things like BUT THAT LOOKS OUCH and BUT THAT BIT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE YANKED and WELL THAT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT SORT OF ‘HEADMISTRESS’, ISN’T IT?
Sometime after midnight the hardcore whackers and whackees came out to play and my mood shifted from Gee, I Thought This Would Be More, You Know, Playful to Okay, There It Is—The Farthest Outreaches Of My Vanillahood. Two steps at a time we bounded back up the two-laned stairway into fresh air, breathless with fascination and exposure.
Painted green and smeared and drunk we hustled through the streets with our backpacks until we reached the right stretch of sidewalk, unrolled our sleeping bags and slept on concrete, curled up in the lee of Mountain Equipment Co-op.
And at 7 AM the next morning with hoards of other bargain-hunting adventurers we stormed the warehouse for cheap rental gear, scrambling to beat the crowd for the best boats and sprayskirts and paddles and wetsuits, stomachs churning on the fumes of beer and greasy eggs, fists full of claim tickets.
Three minutes later—despite the pipecleaner antennae and platform boots made of duct-tape—we were kayakers.
And from there we saw underwater fireworks and white sand bridges and flirtatious seals and giant kelp forests surrounded by white peaks and gods made of rock and ice.
We paddled through blizzards, the ocean dampened with snow, our decks buried in white as we sliced soundlessly through mirror-water. We’d disappear for days at a time, holds packed with beer and goosedown jackets, and come home soaked to the skin with bonfire.
We passed barges loaded with old-growth cedar and douglas fir, trailing the scents of fresh moss and chainsaw, logs wider than cars creaking and shifting in a mass funeral procession. We were charged by cranky walruses and saw scrawny black bears gorging in shoreline berry patches, got shat on by bald eagles, chased whales. We recovered football-sized mussel shells and pristine otter skulls, surfed mechanical-bull swells, picked through gullies filled with devil’s club in search of safe sleep.
Starfish with a hundred legs sunbathed just beyond the pass of our rudders, thriving to mythic proportions as everything does in places with fantastic names like the Broken Islands and the Sunshine Coast and Desolation Sound. And Sin City.
+++++
We may be hopelessly prissy, relatively speaking. But that night of firsts was a tonic, a counter to rampant sameness.
To witness people living their desires unapologetically—to be surrounded by authenticity—was very, very cool, and made my world immeasureably bigger. Not long after, I bought my first pair of properly torturous stilettos, which now live buried under a mountain of outgrown onesies, wishing they'd been bought by somebody else. But even owning them makes me MISS NASTY, occasion or not.
I'll drink to that. (RAISES JUICE BOX)
Here's an idea—do you have a basketcase too? Share a random slice from one of many past or pre-parenthood lives, linking to your story and photo in the comments, and linking back to here in your own post if you like. I'd love to see it, unless it actually involves you in assless chaps. Or maybe even more so. I can't decide. Surprise me. Or maybe don't. I can't decide.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 in tales from the basketcase
Reader Comments (39)
You make it sound so appealing... Kayaking, I mean kayaking. Of course.
Really, I am jealous of all that nature you got to see. The wildest stuff we have seen has been scuba diving. And this post made me miss it. Some day, some day.
That is the most fascinating tale of how you became a kayaker! I love the places that you can explore with a kayak. It feels like you can find little worlds about which no one knows and enjoy all the flora, fauna, and wild life in peace.
Those pictires of Barclay Sound are great. I only got to see the area from the decks of a ferry and a cruise ship, but it is truely spectacular. The whole inside passage route is full of wonders.
wow, first of all, what a freaking awesome idea. i too have a basketcase, and the stories flow directly from photos. i'm so glad (for me) that you are sharing these! i love your stories. your words. your photos. put them together and wow.
and wow. yes. here in my town there is a huge scene much like you described and i felt much like you, a bit of an onlooker, with my toes on the edge of my own comfort. but watching nonetheless. all the shiny rubber, the pain perceived as love and control. the pure wonder it invoked in me through my peripherials.
and lastly. i love how this leads into the big sale and kayak gear and all the journeys, where the kayak leads. from one kayaker to another i say 'keep them coming'. i love your kayaking stories, your photos, they remind me of my other life. one that feels so distant now. your kayak stories are different from mine, from a different body of water, a different mountain range, and yet i feel that i am with you through your words. witnessing not flirtatious seals but the birth of a baby dolphin. these are things that make us who we are.
thanks for sharing kate.
"Three minutes later—despite the pipecleaner antennae and platform boots made of duct-tape—we were kayakers."
Refreshingly simple when you want it to be isn't it?
Great piece! Reading your line about which stretch of sidewalk to put your Mountain Equipment Co op gear on and bed down for the night was nostalgic. It had me yearning for the times I trekked on some amazing trips and did just that.
Your ability to paint a picture with your words never ceases to amaze me. (I don't comment very often, but, I am always reading.) I don't even like kayaking, but, you make me want to go...
~G
"the outer reaches of my vanillahood..." oh sister, you made me laugh.
love the photo. i snorted.
i think i'd have felt more comfortable in the assless chaps than the kayak, personally, but my god, i love the image of you two sleeping outside MEC in your costumes. two worlds colliding... ;)
boy, I want to go kayaking RIGHT NOW. Is it offensive to kayak in a, like, lime green wig????
Love everything you write. xo
this is why i would buy anything you publish :)
And now I'm all nostalgic for Vancouver. Great. Like I need another reason to miss that city.
We were never Kayakers, but we did kayak occasionally. I'm looking forward to introducing my boys to that world.
What a great story!
I used to live near the mec-store and my time in Vancouver is the closest I ever came to becoming an outdoorsey person. Your description of nature in BC made me long to be back there and your night in sin city sounds just priceless!
You'll be thrilled to hear that Sin City is still alive and spanking. In fact, I recently was contacted by a girl I had a "date" with when we were 19 in 1997 (went to the Lotus, watched the linebacker women in plaid flannel buy drinks for the frilly-dressed femmes, had one pink-tinged cocktail each, and went home, chastely air-kissing each others' cheeks.)
In the intervening 11 years since our "are-we-lesbians?-probably-not" night, she's achieved Sin City Poster Girl multiple times (slutty nun, slutty dryad, etc.), and I have traded in my vinyl-bra-and-hotpants for the kinky black kayaker's sprayskirt.
Your fantastic writing makes me grin.
I wish I had the pictures, or could somehow find a way to get them from daguerreotype to computer (you see, I'm much older than you). But it did remind me of my freshman orientation in college, where they took 600 or so fresh-faced teens, many of whom had never been to the big city before, and organized a mass trip to a popular nightclub for all 100s of us. ON GAY NIGHT. And I was all smiles and fist pumps thinking "Woot! I love the city! Down with my old oppressive homestead!", but now thinking back it was probably hilarious and rather shocking to witness. I should've taken many more pictures of slackjawed classmates.
We became kayakers because of the possibilities of exploring it would give us. I am not sure we will ever go. I am not sure we will ever get any further than those small trips "just up the coast", but the idea that we could is often a comfort and the dreams of what we might see is (at least to me) often an adventure in itself.
I was not expecting this post to go from Kinky Mama to Nature Mama.Good twist.
I was waiting for this.:)
I'll have to tell the story about the fake bomb we made...
Wow- what a kinky turn that was! Kind of Eyes Wide Shut thing going on there and then right into magical beauty! Hmmm.. I'll have to check the basket and then check in! great idea.
You have tied together your slutty alien costumed experience of an S&M bar and the pristine landscape of those pictures so perfectly here. :)
You are endlessly inspiring on so many levels, Kate.
I'll be taking your challenge, soon. More recent (mountain) adventures up over at my place...
oh kate
i gotta basketS of photos and a hell of a lot fo stories, pre-kids, Los Angeles style 1990's. I am afraid I may get arrested (or investigated by child services) if I shared.
And like you and J, often the next morning would find us roaming desolated shorelines with spears in hand, watching seals skins fall off and getting face to face with sea lions, as we tried to sswim and weat out all the E.
love
mb
oh yes a mad pile of photos, luckily no assless chaps, film ran out that day. lol great idea though kate. especially to relive preparenthood daze. ;)
cheeky :)
I grew up in/on Puget Sound, but the only time I've ever been kayaking, I fell into Lake Michigan.
I'd love to go again, though.
I wish we had wild tales to tell of the pre-children days. Both of us were such homebodies and had no idea the freedom that we were squandering. Oh to know then what we know now. If I could send one message back to my then-self it would be, "Either get out and live it up or start having kids now! Don't put it off *and* stay home all the time!" At least we are both homebodies so the kicking ourselves is mutual.
I would give a pair of assless chaps to have such a basket, but sadly I am so whitebread that even with a green slutty alien outfit I would not have been allowed through the hallowed gates of Sin City.
Is it wrong that this is one of my favourite posts of yours, ever? This first time I read it I didn't even need to click on the picture links; I could see everything so clearly through your words.
I just wanted to say, again, I truly love your writing - it's fantastic. Thanks for this mini-short story.
You have convinced me to try kayaking. Already stuck my little toe in the other topic of your story and I think kayaking wins out for activities I'd pursue. We are moving from Colorado to either Vancouver or Detroit sometime this Fall. I have already looked into kayaking lessons and gear. If Vancouver becomes the relocation desination, maybe I'll see you out on the water someday...
Ok, you are definitely more explicit than I am, but I have a closet full of stuff too, including some spike heels with ankle straps. And some handcuffs.;)
So everyone else is talking about kayaking...just to be clear, I don't exercise, and I refuse to go to the woods. So here we are, no assless chaps, but some fun things?
http://nomatterhowsmall.blogspot.com/2007/07/vibrafest-ptii.html
my basketcase involves stealing a box of acid, pot, and upppers from my upstairs neighbor. Too bad my little sis then stole it from me!
Love your writing! Every workday I take a peek at your blog while pumping. Is that TMI?
peobosf - that's when I read, too! (Guess what I'm doing now) Double TMI.
rawr!
i would have been right next to you, wishing the earth could open right up and suck me into it.
i love me a girl who goes for adventure, of any kind. :)
kate, your writing is such a fantastically vivid escape. even if it's at your own expense. ha.
Delurking to say, love your blog/writing. Do you have any novels in the works? Anything published I can go to for an in hand read?
No kids - YET - but I've linked to a little story about gypsy stuff dumping and how my old habit of using unsuspecting family members for long term storage came back to bite me in the ass.
http://racheljonat.blogspot.com/2008/06/trouble-with-gypsys.html
PS. Vancouver is horrid today. Looks like March.
the image of your cute little face in that bright green attention grabbing wig weaving your way thru a sea of rubber and whips...hilarious. but i think the best part is that you crashed outside a outdoor store to score all the things you needed to really live.
the man and i used to avidly seek areas for maximum downhill mtb pleasure. mammoth, tahoe, once to whistler pre-babies. ah, the speed, the challenge, the cold cold beers and stolen soaks in resort hot tubs. the drunk tent sleep (ahem) and subsequent second day of riding that lasted a lot less than the first.
no pictures, because i am lazy and have them on a cd somewhere, or (like an old archaic thing) they are actual photos (gasp).
we even rode in western australia on an extended stay in that stellar country. i miss my kona. this might motivate me to get back on.
Love the basketcase! I got hit with a meme recently and decided, instead of six random things about me it'd be six random pictures from my life, with appropriate narration...coming soon.
Meanwhile, what a great tale you weave here--we all get our thrills in different ways...kayaking sounds so much easier and less momentary, though! ; )
More! More please! (Please M'am, (sic) may I have some more?) Another lurker coming out. I haven't commented before because ... commenting can be scary. I cannot wait for your book! Truly, you have berries! (This would be a compliment according to my husband). Your blog brings me to tears and makes me laugh and makes me think (no small feat!).
Cheers from another of your fans!
PS: didn't I see you at Luv-a-fair?
"soaked to the skin with bonfire." sweet glorious jesus, girlie, you got some mad skillz, you know that? damn.
what is it about right now, this age, these small children that keeps taking me on these little trips of nostalgia back to the early days with my own husband, before marriage, before kids, when we had endless hours to spend with each other, out in the world, with nothing to be responsible to except ourselves? i love my life now, but if i could just take a day, here and there, back there, oh, would i...assless chaps and all...
Kate, you've just received the Brillante Weblog Award. Stop by Loose Ends for the full story. Given recent events, you may be a bit wary of internet surprises, but no worries, I think you'll appreciate this one; at the very least it's harmless.
Thanks again for the inspiration to post something worthwhile. Here's to helping me find some meaning in my downtime. http://cadalily.blogspot.com/