Gently, Down the Stream
Kathryn Conover
I remember my old coach saying to me, “You’ve got to have a little crazy in you to be a rower.” The winds stung like sticker bushes, pricking my pink cheeks. The dark gray sky canopied overhead. The sun, which should have been up a half-hour ago, was hidden behind. The darkness let loose hidden obstacles and harsh wakes in the water. To avoid the tree branches was near impossible, to steer the boat straight was out of the question.
I sat in the bow seat–the furthest from the coxswain and the first body through the storm. The nine of us were in the Dore–a fire engine red eight-boat. All of us were tense–I could feel it. We were deliberate with each catch into the water, careful to keep the boat as set and as level as possible. If any oar were to enter slower than the rest, the boat would heave to one side, dousing girls with ice water. The waves were two feet tall, rocking us each time we slid to the front to drop our oars in. With all the motion underneath the surface, pulling the oar through the water was like pulling a hoe through freshly mixed cement. Each stroke was agony. I was fighting the water rather than using it. My hands were pulsating and raw. I was afraid to look at my palms in fear of all the new blisters that had surely risen. I tried to focus on something other than the pain in my hands and my triceps.
I stared intently at the girl in front of me. I followed her every move. She extended her arms, leaned forward into a pivot, bent her knees, slid her seat to her ankles, then sunk the blade into the water, and swung back. Over and over, forward then back, I followed her, pressing my feet into the wet shoes attached to the footboards. The repetition usually calms me, as I listen to the simultaneous knock of the oar into the oarlock with each feather of the blade. But today I wanted out. Nothing was soothing or rewarding. A rogue wave splashed over the deck behind me, covering my butt in freezing cold Raritan river water. Every layer of clothing on my body was soaked as it clung to my skin.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said aloud. My voice got swallowed up by the gusts of wind swirling around us, its howl relentless and foreboding, channeled by the river’s banks. At that moment I couldn’t think of a single positive thing about the sport.
“Alright, let’s spin!” Coach yelled from her launch. Automatically, each oar dug into the water, stopping the boat.
“Ports back, starboards row,” the coxswain commanded. Her voice was hard to hear, even with the volume maxed out on her headset.
I extended my arms, dipping the oar into the water, then brought my arms back to my chest. I followed the other starboards and watched the boat spin in place. This time last year it would have taken us minutes to turn around. Now, it took us seconds. This team and I had grown so much together. We counted on each other to be precise and accurate, to show up every morning, and to give it our all. Rowing is a team sport. If we were rowing and someone wasn’t giving their full effort, we felt it. One person’s failure was everyone’s failure. One win was all of our wins. I felt important being a part of something so big and so powerful.
The coxswain read out our split, urging us to keep the pace and stroke rate. “Let’s do 22 strokes per minute all the way back to the dock!” She yelled. Back to the dock. Thank the lord. I pressed into the footboards with another ounce. The faster we got there the faster I could take a hot shower.
“C’mon, ladies!” A girl in front of me cheered. No one yelled back.
Days like this made sunny days that much brighter. The pain was still there in my fingertips and back, but the water reflected the sun in such a way that you didn’t mind anymore. You need to be crazy to do rowing, but rowing makes you sane. I was up at 6am for practice the night after I got sexually assaulted. Every year before college I was bedridden through all of winter from seasonal depression. Last year, I erged on Christmas. This pain distracts from worse pain, and makes sunny days feel extra sunny.
“Bow four drop out,” the coxswain commanded. I stopped rowing, bringing the oar to my chest and my butt to my ankles. The clouds had thinned slightly, allowing the sun to lighten up the sky. I watched the rain fall hard onto the choppy water. We were close to the dock, ending practice. I had experienced hell on earth before most people were awake, and I’d wake up and do the same thing tomorrow.
Kathryn Conover writes, “I am planning to graduate in 2023 with a major of Digital Filmmaking from Mason Gross School of the Arts. I am from Flemington, New Jersey. I started rowing as a walk-on my freshman year and I plan to pursue it all four years.
Conover wrote this piece in her Creative Writing Nonfiction course taught by Paul Blaney. Blaney selected the work for inclusion in WHR.