Doing the Wrong Thing

9-5

 Now, with belly full and mouth warm with Indian spices, I feel in a place of writing.

I feel I need to verbally capture an experience I had this weekend, am experience of gliding watercraft powered by my own newly muscled arms. The experience of venturing into previously forbidden territory, the feeling of exploration that gave me that Conquistador’s high. The feeling of unlocking a little known secret.

Kayaking is a wholly joyous experience for me, to the extent of uncontrollable giggling in the aftermath of a capsize, my own capsize, head sticking out of the water hiding my flailing limbs that cried out in a panic that directly opposed my laughing face. Once I was out of the water again and my body’s small amount of visceral terror [alligators - spiders - snakes] had subsided, I realized that I laughed because a capsize had been my worst fear for the day.

My worst fear, realized, and it was no big deal.

I have emerged on the other side of a weekend positively filled with kayaking as my friend called me up in need of a kayak companion - and who am I to say no the whims of the universe? Such is how I found myself in a small plastic boat paddling up the river next to dolphins under the Matthews Bridge, such is how I found myself swimming with barnacles under a dock. Such is how I found myself this weekend. I found myself stiff with sore shoulders and arms, slightly burnt and more than a little bronze, feeling like a warrior goddess of the deep.

I was unprepared for the emotional response that grew strength and blew through me after such a seemingly slight event, but Tuesday night found me sobbing into my husband’s arms. It seems like with every passing week a little bit of conventional-Keri is chipped away in the process of becoming the Keri that I want to be - the Keri that wears sweat-soaked tie-dye bandanas and lives for the outdoors - and in this process a little more of my tolerance for “the system” goes with the debris of old-me. The result of this is that I feel alien around some of my friends, definitely around my family, I feel insidious hippie-thoughts creeping in during otherwise normal activities...

As somewhat of a tangent, I have felt myself incredibly drawn to the song "Doing the Wrong Thing" by Kaki King. I love instrumental songs that still carry a load of emotion, especially when given a title to guide the thought trains while listening. 

Doing the wrong thing. What can that mean for my life? Doing the wrong thing - this phrase resonates within me strongly at the moment because I am slowly understanding that my life will never be the cookie-cutter life that everyone in society wants me to have. I will never be a good girl that sits quietly and never has an opinion, I will never be the perfect mother or wife or American Citizen (TM) that says the pledge and watches football on the weekends. I hate the mall, I hate commercials, I hate plastic life.I want a yard full of chickens and cloth diapers on the line to dry, I want naked babies and wooden toys. AKA, as far as my family and culture is concerned, "the wrong thing."

All I can think of is getting outside where there aren't any corporations.
No one trying to sell me anything or make me feel inferior,
no one trying to convert me into being another plastic American.