“Dagny!” Chris waves me over with his tanned, calloused hands.
I finish broadcasting the soapy gray-water from the hand wash buckets into a pile of ponderosa pine needles. I look around before heading down the beach to meet him, hearing his words in my head,
“A good trainee always has their hands full no matter which direction they’re walking.”
I am a good trainee. I always have my arms full. With a stack of five buckets and a two wishy-washy bags already in tow, I swing by the kitchen on my way to the water’s edge to grab a few blue and black rolled up camp tables. I place the deconstructed camp items at back end of my 16-foot, gray Avon raft and continue another ten feet down the riverbank to where Chris is standing.
“Do you feel comfortable with the big rapids we have today?” He asks me with a firmness to his warm tone.
I shrug, playfully. I’m still too young to understand the full consequences of mishaps in whitewater settings. Chris smiles knowingly at my nonchalance.
“Can you tell me which rapids we have today?” He asks, changing his tactic.
A full cheshire smile creeps up onto my face until the whole thing shines like a bright moon in the summer sunlight. We both let out a short, knowing laugh. I have no idea where we are. I never do. After several trips together, Chris is beginning to understand that my sense of direction is poor at best.
“You should start making a practice of looking at your map each morning” he gently chides. “Someday you’ll be leading boats down here, and you’ll want to know exactly where you are. We’ll be going through Bailey today, and the water level is coming up from the rain so it’ll be pretty meaty. Let’s talk a bit about what you’ll want to do when you get there.”
We spend the next 15 minutes drawing diagrams in the sand.
Chris creates a miniature diagram of the river, makes sure I understand which direction the water in our imaginary Main Salmon is flowing. He then places rocks in distinct locations to mirror the real version of the rapid awaiting us downstream. He explains to me the direction of the current, and brings in a mini-physics lesson to help me understand how that current will change in force and direction throughout the rapid. He reminds me of my strengths as a young boater and celebrates them. He highlights my strong back pull and helps me locate the features in the rapid that will indicate to me exactly when, and how to use the strength to my advantage. He reminds me of where I’ve struggled in my technique lately helps me mentally prepare a damage control plan in the case that I should mis-stroke, or make an error reading the water.
When I look nervous, he reminds me of a phrase all river guides know well when it comes to mistakes on the water:
“There are those who have, and those who will.”
His eyes twinkle when he says it and finishes with “If you’re feeling nervous, just rig-to-flip this morning!”
Once the lesson is over we both return to rigging up our boats for the day. I use two extra straps on my load just in case. I am both assured in my ability to learn as well as feeling prepared and supported to make a mistake. I push off the beach that morning, young, strong and seventeen with courage floating through each one of my cells.
I’ve been thinking a lot about attachment theory lately1, and how our early experiences in a new setting gives us a very specific point of view for everything we experience downstream.
If we start out our guiding career feeling supported, well-mentored, and our mistakes were seen as opportunities for growth—it’s likely we’ll view guiding as an expansive learning experience that is worth sticking around for. We probably have no issues leaving the guiding community when it no longer serves our best interests.
If we start our guiding career in a variety of other ways—we might feel ambivalent. There may be a major push-pull element of constantly trying to prove ourselves on the crew, or in the next big stretch of rapids, or by adding in a slew of other behaviors like drinking, drugs, and sex to gain a certain amount of social status or at least numb out the discomfort of our lack of belonging. We might stay intertwined in a volatile work environment well beyond what is healthy for growth in other areas of our lives.
At worst, we might come to a point where we feel like we’re in a confusing and toxic relationship we cannot pry ourselves away from for fear of not finding something else better out there somewhere.
In traditional attachment theory, none of these states are ‘fixed.’ Just because someone has secure attachment as a child does not mean it remains unshakable as an adult. If someone endures an extreme trauma from a trusted person who was supposed to protect or love them—it is very likely to shift their attachment style in their adult life. Confident, secure people who are comfortable with intimate relationships can become withdrawn, fearful, and develop fitful rage when someone comes too close to their wounds. The bright side to this—it also means that people who grew up in insecure attachment environments are able to learn and earn a secure attachment as an adult. Just because you had an unreliable or absent parent, or experienced some abuse behavior somewhere along the way, does not condemn you to being an unreliable, dismissive, or harmful adult. Many people with less than ideal upbringings can—and do—show up as present, loving, and vulnerable people2.
Lately, I’ve been looking at the parallels between traditional attachment theory and the guiding world. Just because we start with a healthy and supportive outfitting company does not guarantee we’ll always guide from a place of security, assertiveness, compassion, or kindness. When guides start out at companies who woefully undervalue them, this does not sentence them to a career of insecurity, fear, or ass-kissing to be valued.
As for me? I fall somewhere in the middle of this mix.
As I’ve been combing over stories and memories from my guiding career, I couldn’t be more grateful for how my career began. SilverCloud Expeditions was the kind and loving family I needed. There was structure and clear boundaries. There was room to be fully human and make big mistakes, while also not having those moments define me as an entire person. I was cheered on heartily when my skills reading water improved. I was included in holiday business cards and told I was valuable on a regular basis. I was never expected to be perfect, just hardworking.
I had other reinforcing experiences, too. At Wilderness River Outfitters my ability to learn difficult whitewater was never questioned, and I was trusted to boat alone and troubleshoot my way out of my first few low-water seasons. They trusted my camp-kitchen skills at a young age and their overall laid-back approach helped me unwind some of my type-A tendencies. I learned to trust that no matter who the guides are, it’s the Middlefork of the Salmon who is actually doing most of the work.
At Pangaea River Rafting, I was taught that safety and fun were not opposing forces. My laugh was bolstered and celebrated and echoed through those canyon walls regularly.
At Idaho River Adventures, I was caught, loved, and believed after a very difficult season with a company where I felt severely mistreated. I learned that good mentors are quiet with their strength and wisdom.
At Hughes River Expeditions, I found my family in a crew. A band of pirates who made me feel like every single piece of me was lovable. Even, and especially the rough edges. The feeling was mutual.
Anymore, I view attachment safety as our ability to ask for help, and to receive the help we are asking for. I believe it also reflects in our ability to hear someone else ask for help, and to be able to help them kindly and skillfully without our own fears, wants, and needs becoming the central focus of our helping.
I fall squarely in the camp of ambivalent. While I started out at a company that was kind and loving and supportive and there are shining moments since then that have undoubtably help sculpt me into who I am—many of my experiences guiding have left me confused and uncertain how to ask for help well. Depending on who I was working for, and at what chapter of my guiding career I was in, I never got consistent messaging.
Some companies praised me for it, some would help without my asking, or ask me if there was anything they could help me do outside of my guiding career. Other companies would punish or scorn me. Some companies were flat and un-rippled on the surface, only for me to later find out that they had very loud and hurtful opinions about how I navigated the guiding space.
It’s been confusing.
And as I’m putting myself more prominently in settings outside of guiding, I realize I don’t always know how to get my needs met in a healthy way. I find myself misstepping at how to give and receive love. Even when I do get it, I find it even harder to trust and rely on it.
I am working hard on not just destroying or sabotaging skillful support when it floats by. It sounds easy on the surface, but when you can’t recognize healthy support, many interactions feel a lot like swallowing mouthfuls of cold, aerated water where you sputter and say all the wrong things.
Anything that isn’t solely relying on yourself feels like drowning.
My grip on shifting my relationship to guiding is much like a total greenhorn heading into a rapid they’ve never seen before around a blind corner. My knuckles are tensed and white, and while I know whatever is around the next corner would be a hell of a lot easier if I just let go a little bit, I’m terrified I’ll entirely lose control. I try to remind myself I don’t have to do this alone, but it’s a hard thing to remember when that’s not the environment I spent most of my adult life in. Sometimes I got the help I needed, other times I got punished. It’s hard to trust that pattern won’t continue.
Lately, as a counter, I have been trying to remember that seventeen year old girl. The one who landed in a lucky position working for a company that felt like home. I am working to call back her courage and sense of trust. I am carefully mixing it in with the bittersweet medicine of wisdom I’ve experienced since then. It’s a hard ratio to get right. Bitter and sweet. Trust and wisdom.
Most importantly, as I navigate new spaces, attachment theory rings like a bell in my heart over and over and over again, reminding me that just because I’ve had a boss flick soap in my eyes, or sling ice cream and ginger cookies at my face3, doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve to land in places that feel solidly like home again. It doesn’t mean I don’t deserve safety and consistency.
I am working to loosen my grip, remind myself my mistakes are not my wholeness, and that my next downstream destination gets to give and receive love, fluidly.
This has been December’s issue of “Every Rock On the River.”
Every Rock on the River: The Archives… is a monthly Pomegranate & Magpie substack segment that are memoir-style essays from my 15+ years as a backcountry whitewater guide. On the third Tuesday of the month I share a new piece of my story.
the idea is that if our caregivers (and environment) are providing a secure attachment, infants will feel comfortable enough to explore new people and new environments and also want to connect with that caregiver upon return. This relationship dynamic has lasting implications for someone’s entire life. In the case of guiding, our care-giver role is our outfitter, and our fellow guides, and in some cases, the whitewater we are navigating.
For those of you who don’t know a ton about attachment theory, I want to clearly state that while this relationship is often based on the big and small behaviors of the caregiver, the temperament of the child (or guide in this situation) is also contributing. While it is important for caregivers to understand that they are the majority party responsible for this relationship to be healthy, there are also factors that are out of their control.
Not all of these baselines are set and many of them shift in adulthood in both positive and negative ways. Sometimes with healthy environments they get easier & more secure—while in other environments they’ll become more insecure (trauma, abuse, etc).
I LOVED the book Poly-secure recently to articulate how these wounds can form and how to heal them, whether or not you’re interested in polyamory.
Both true stories. I’m sure I’ll get to telling them eventually.