"I was thinking about this the other day. You tell me like three things I need to do to roll back upright. I then flip over, do none of those things, and expect you to flip me back up. That must be so frustrating for you?" he said, his faded cherry colored helmet dripping beads of water onto the tightly stretched Snap Dragon spray skirt. I doubled over in laughter, standing waist deep in the murky green harbor water. The hills, mountains, volcano, all cast in a haze of seismic activity. I had never thought about my job like that before. Teaching people to kayak was just another in a stream of jobs I found myself doing day after day. Teaching people to kayak I could see might be frustrating, that is if life had not taken the bright shiny glistening first place medal for frustration. I pulled my wet matted blond hair back, twisting a hair band tight around the excess forming a small pony tail. "Never thought about it like that, hard to get frustrated when you are getting paid to be patient" I replied, getting to the truth of the matter. I get paid to be patient.
I never thought I would teach kayaking. It was not something I had dreamed about. It simply paid better than waiting tables, and the owner was a good guy. My first classes went well, I found it to be easy work, just patience was all one needed. The key to a good class, and a good tip, was to put on a show. Whatever I was feeling that day would have to be put somewhere else. Hungover, sad, frustrated, angry, were all emotions that went to the back of my brain for the next few hours. Each day the same, lake in the morning, river in the afternoon. The occasional decent paddler breaking the routine. Each night, a bottle of something rushing past my sunburnt lips, allowing me to forget where I was if not for only a few hours. I liked the work. The owner turned out to be one of the best bosses I have ever had. Fair, funny, and an all around solid guy, he realized my potential for teaching. Somehow it turned out, I was actually good at teaching. Repeat customers the sign of success. He never cared that every morning I showed up holding my head, sucking down Gatorade, trying to recover from a night of excess. He only cared that I was on time. Two years of teaching, not a single day late. I found myself falling into a routine of solid work, a few days of no clients, worry that rent might not get paid, then another few solid days of work just in time to pay rent. Miles of flat water were paddled each day, where I learned that even flat water can have easy lines. That with careful thought every eddy line could be avoided, every rock documented, every customer kept dry....
My thoughts interrupted now. "The volcano is erupting!!" I closed my computer screen and stumbled into the narrow brightly light hallway. I could feel a different energy in the house, an energy of quiet controlled panic. "We need to evacuated" they said. I threw my sleeping bag into my half full dry bag, and waddled down the stairs. My brain was too tired to comprehend what was going on. I looked out the window. Large coal orange rivers of lava boiled from the top, they slid down the steep sides of the volcano, eventually changing into vein like orange fingers. I felt no motivation to leave. The lava while close by seemed so far away, and besides what a way to go? Cooked in the eruption of Chile's most active volcano. Stood outside of the now dark house, dust shooting up toward my ankles with each step I took away from the house. I stopped after a few hundred yards and just stared. It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever witnessed in my life. How amazing it would be to just be a few miles closer, too feel the unbearable heat, to absorb the raw power of the seismic turbulence of the earth. How I became swallowed by the scene. It was just as I had dreamed my first night in Chile. It was a profound senses of deja vu. We left, evacuated to the top of a mountain, hundreds of others also doing the same as us. The mountain top was illuminated by two large flood lights, tents, sleeping bags, cars, all scattered randomly about, as though some one cast them as dice. I opened up my sleeping bag, and crawled in, escaping the frigid night air. My phone rang, it was my girlfriend. I assured her everything was fine, then dialed the number for my boss. "Hey its Jon, I am on top of a mountain and I don't think I will make it to work tomorrow, ya know, with the volcano and everything" I said, feeling a sense of guilt for finally not being able to make it to work. "Don't worry little Jon, " he replied with a slight chuckle, "I don't think anything will be open."
Sleep did not come easily, not because of the volcano, but because of the overpowering flood lights. In the morning I hitch hiked back home, and slept only for a few moments. Nothing was open in town. I had not eaten since the day before. Hunger forced me to search for something to eat. Only a small convenience store remained open. I walked in grabbed a six pack of beer, a two liter bottle of wine, and two bags of chips, returned home, and started to wait. The news said that a larger eruption was expected. I cracked the first of my six beers open. The bite of the beer stung my throat and rushed through my body numbing the world around. The T.V. flashed across my face, but I could not see what was on the screen. The empty can clanged against the wooden floor, followed by the explosive crack of another can opened. Some people drink to forget, some people drink to remember, I drink to wait. Just another way to pass the time in between the good parts of life.
The volcano did not erupt again. At least not yet. The fear and panic that spread through the town was quickly forgotten. Life resumed to a familiar normal. My girlfriend would come on the weekend. Our story is for another day, but I can not help but think that the volcano could erupt again any day. Would I really be ready? No. If I was meant to die in an eruption then there isn't a whole lot I could do. All I could really do is sit comfortably in a chair, suck down another glass of something amazing and wait for the lava to warm your body into another world. Siphons, federal police, dangerous riots, and now a volcano, what more can the world through at me? I now drink, waiting to find out.
