"Getting There"

 

Getting there is usually more than arriving. When you reach a goal, a milestone, a peak, an achievement, etc just arriving there is not it at all, the process of "getting there" is. It is like achieving skills I guess in some ways, once you have them it doesn't seem as great as was the learning aspect. Take bracing for example, learning properly inevitably means you are going over a few times. This can do two things, improve your roll and improve the next brace so you don't have to roll. The good thing about all this is that there is always something to learn and most certainly with kayaking it is a lifetime of education. I like....love that. I enjoy the thrill of it all and the ability to seek it all at my own pace.

Now having said all that, with seasons I beg to differ. Yes I know waiting for the coming paddling season just makes me scheme new ways of getting out in the elements and learning new skills to achieve that end. That is fun. Dreaming about the many upcoming paddles where snow is not an obstacle or the obtrusive cold, makes for arriving, much more pleasurable than "getting there", for me. Cause I just want to paddle mostly. However time and work tend to get in the way and contradict each other especially when weather does have to be factored in.

I guess because of all this, to increase ones time on the water you have to learn how to be able to be there in less than optimal conditions. So again this season it is back to stretching the limits, poking thru possibilities, looking over different shaped horizons, stepping out of the box and reaching for the water's surface whether above or below it! I will look forward to the process, not necessarily always the outcome, which I will have an eye on. I want "to arrive" but I want to "get there" first.