Jon Acuff and the Upper Tye River

Last night, I went to a local bookstore to meet Jon Acuff, my favorite blogger. In addition to the meet and greet, he gave a 20-minute presentation on changing life and career trajectories. Somewhere in there, he dropped a line like it was a well-known fact:

“Bravery is a choice, not a feeling.”

I wrote it on my yellow paper in ALL CAPS, because it was new to me.
People have called me brave over the years. (They’ve also called me crazy.) I’ve always rebuffed that label, because I don’t feel courageous. When I hear brave, I see deployed soldiers. When I hear courage, I think about people who leave big salaries to pursue social justice. When I hear audacious, I remember my college fiancée confronting a seminary president and cornering him in his problematic theology. When I hear cajones, I picture X Games athletes jumping hundreds of feet.
I’m none of those people. I don’t put myself even in their general categories.
Most of the adrenaline I’ve chased isn’t as dangerous as the uninitiated think it is. I’m in graver danger driving to the YMCA in the morning than when I’m hang gliding or bungee jumping. That said, even with my comparatively-mild exploits, I get tense and fidgety before crossing the threshold of no return. Then after the experience, I think, “That was awesome—but not as scary as I had imagined. I could totally do that again, no problem.”
That’s not what I felt Monday night—the night before meeting Jon Acuff.
A guy I’ve been wanting to get to know had seen some of my recent Facebook posts about my entry level kayaking on local rivers. Johnny has the gear, courage, and athletic skills to paddle whitewater I would attempt only in a commercial-size raft. Johnny thought I was ready to step up my river game and invited me to an evening run on a river I’ve only heard in context with some of the most experienced kayakers I’ve met.
Johnny’s faith in me meant a lot, even though I told my wife, “I’m scared,” before I left. That fear only increased as we drove into the mountains through cold rain and between flashes of lightning. It increased further, as the road snaked along the Tye River’s constant rapids. My heart was already beating rapidly, and then Johnny handed me a helmet with a face guard. Then, he handed me his extra paddle, a carbon fiber masterpiece capable of moving a lot more water than the paddle that came with my Craigslist kayak.
I had taken the liberty to invite one of the guys from my church’s river group, a guy who paddles at least weekly for much of the year. Mark can roll a kayak; I can’t. Mark owns at least five different river boats, a kayak trailer for his Subaru, and a life jacket that looks like the ones that rafting guides wear.
At the drop-in, the water was already loud and as frigid as you’d expect coming out of the mountains in April. Twenty yards from our put-in was a rapid at least as big as anything I had ever kayaked. The wave trains and drops proved almost constant for the next mile. Johnny coached me through each drop, each turn, each line.

Within ten minutes, Mark overturned. Five minutes later, he overturned again. Five minutes later, he was pinned between his boat and a rock under water for considerable time. Ten minutes later, he stashed his boat on the river bank and hiked to the road to hitch a ride to the takeout.
My heart was racing. I thought, “If Mark is getting trashed, what am I doing out here?”
I offered to leave with Mark, but he declined my offer. Johnny and the experts who had joined us affirmed my accomplishment thus far and cajoled me back out into the current.
I got wobbly a couple times but nailed some class II and class III drops. Then, I came to a situation I didn’t know how to handle. Our lead kayaker cut off my line, and I was speeding for a boulder. Despite the (counterintuitive) advice that had been repeatedly given to me for this situation, I panicked. Two or three seconds later, I was under water and out of my boat. I remember thinking that I was grateful for the face guard, as my helmet briefly dragged face-down just above the stony bottom. Part of me felt like Ironman under there in that helmet. The rest of me knew that things were about to get frenetic.

I surfaced according to protocol: feet up and pointed downstream, arms back-paddling to steer. Johnny’s facial expression told me this wasn’t a safe place to swim. His emphatic yells of “Get to shore! Get to shore!” were met with frantic obedience, as my body felt more like it was getting sucked downstream rather than floating on a fast-moving river.
Johnny saw me get into the relative safety of the trees and took off after my boat. Paddle still in hand and spray skirt dangling from my waste, I started running along a deer path that followed the water. It was obvious that others had needed this same trail. It felt like a scene from The Last of the Mohicans until I passed someone else’s kayak stashed in the woods. I slowed only once I saw my yellow kayak leaned upright against a tree.
My fellow paddlers explained what I had done wrong but offered me to rejoin them for the rest of the “float.” I asked if the rest of the trip would get any trickier than the what we had just run. Johnny and the dude in the lime green kayak didn’t think so. But the guy who had been kayaking whitewater since I was in the third grade said, “Well, there’s that big one at the bridge.”
That’s all I needed to hear. I tapped out. I thanked Johnny for the invite, told him I’d catch him after his run, climbed up to the road, and then jogged the serpentine asphalt back to my car and some dry clothes.
Vacationers back in the parking area told me this was the highest they had ever seen the water. Johnny revealed that the water was running 25% higher than what he had planned. Mark found the online river gauge showing that this narrow river had been running 1,150 cubic feet per second—roughly ten times the biggest whitewater I had kayaked last Saturday.
I don’t know that I felt courageous at any point on the Tye River. Until my ungraceful exit, I just kept focusing on the frothy, incessant rapids. You could make the case that my adventure was cut short. I wouldn’t argue, but I left with both contentedness and determination to some day finish. I told Mark that I got what I came for: a story.
I told Johnny that (1) I was grateful for his confidence in me, (2) I didn’t consider the attempt a failure, (3) I felt a sense of accomplishment for making it as far as I did, and (4) I wasn’t done with the Upper Tye. I felt something akin to accomplishment for having navigated as far as I had, to have my inner voices drowned by the roar of water smashing into rocks.
For the first time in a long time, I felt courageous—not because of any confidence I felt while thrashing through the George Washington National Forest. There wasn’t much of that. I felt bold because I had made a series of choices to say yes to what was next, to throw my back into the challenges, and to face my fears.
My brave choices led to a feeling of bravery, not the other way around. I just wouldn’t understand why that order makes sense for another 24 hours.