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Esta Doutrich

Esta Doutrich

Category Archives: canoeing

Just mostly tired

16 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by Esta in 3 am moments, canoeing, the wilderness

≈ 5 Comments

The other day I was talking with my Mom about people who write their lives out on blogs so you never have to wonder what is happening.

You always know were they are and what they are doing.

“Well, that is definitely not your problem”, she said.

Which is true, I guess.

I won’t say I’ve been neglecting my blog, because it’s not neglect when you only have an agreement to write only when you can.

I feel nothing would be relevant or make sense.

But that’s what I always say.

And maybe that’s why unconsciously I’ve pulled away from many of you.

After so long, it’s not really the thing anymore to write facebook messages asking for prayer when something traumatic happens. That was sooo last year, when it all was so new and fresh.

I can’t really write about daily life, as I’ve said before. And I can’t really discuss current topics since I don’t really know what’s current and trending. Is it still the thing to makes those cute little flowers for your Sunday cardigan or was that soo last year, like my frantic prayer requests?

I am still in Slate, just in case you didn’t know 🙂 And will be until fall for sure, though beyond that is unknown.

And I drink tea out of bowls now.

Um, so the black flies are back.

Also, I joined 11 other Slate Falls community members in an 180 km walk for prescription drug abuse awareness two weeks ago. We made memories to last a lifetime and I did my share of crying and laughing. It was amazing.

 I still canoe once in a while. And I help cook for potlucks and still remember how to clean fish from last summer. Imagine that! 

 I’m really tired a lot of the time and jump every time someone bangs on the door. Or when the phone rings. Or when someone gasps or yells my name.

Did I mention I’m tired? 

But I have lots of stories to last for many years and memories to savor someday when I won’t have think about the phone ringing or jump when someone yells through my doorway.

And I’ll probably smile and wish it all back.

Creeks

08 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, the wilderness

≈ 7 Comments

 

This picture was taken this summer on a canoe trip that left us lost for an entire day, going over all the wrong portages and paddling the wrong creeks in the hot sun. 

Life Lesson of 2011 Meets Picture. Sometimes I need aesthetics like I need salt and vinegar chips on a road trip.

Stalled, but at rest. I think.

26 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, nursing, silly fears, slate falls

≈ 3 Comments

I am supposed to be writing from Slate today, but I’m not, due to complications of various natures.

Complications that are frustrating, but nevertheless have hints of Divine Intervention.

I should be up there by the beginning of next week.

While I am living up there I will not be giving specific updates on here. Due to the size of the community and the field I am in a blog is simply not the place for that. I will continue to post, but nothing too specific about daily events and occurrences. For that type of update, email me and I will put you on a group email.

For now, I am relaxing and soaking in my last quiet moments before the ride begins. Like I said, Divine Intervention.

And, every evening, this is my soul food.

180 hours in 50 days

04 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, friends, laughter, nursing, slate falls, the wilderness

≈ 7 Comments

“Take care, kid”, he says. Worry wrinkles crease between his eyes.

“I’ll try”, I answer and walk out of the gas bar.

It makes me feel little.

I’m the girl covered in grease, pulled up at the rest station with the car hood up, clothes sticking to her back, and yes, that is a tattooed biker helping her diagnose that strange noise under the front axle.

He had a nice tattooed wife, although at that point I wouldn’t have cared if he was alone, wore an eye patch, and carried a 44 mag, as long as he offered to help.

In the last 50 days I’ve driven over 180 hours—70 of those hours alone.

In reality, I only suffered two significant breakdowns, at least car related, which is almost a lifetime record.

I guess God isn’t really calling me to be a mechanic, or marry one, like I had begun to suspect.

50 days ago I was leaving Slate Falls, while the rain filled the potholes, and I prayed to make it out without getting stuck.

Since then I managed to graduate, feel the Mississippi heat, sip sweet tea in Virginia, canoe the Ontario wilds, stick my toes in the pacific, and hike the Idaho Mountains.

Possibly I’ve been home a total of 14 days. I’m not exactly sure.

Now, 50 days later, I am packing again for Slate Falls. (yes, indeed)

This time for at least 6 months.

Guess what?

The emotions in the last 50 days are even more varied. (no, duh)

Guess what else?

I think that is okay.

This month has been insane with learning to love all the ups and downs and “yes, Lords”.

 More than anything I want to be dramatic in my determination to grow, even if it means loosing all the answers and the things I protect myself with.

And if God takes that to mean leaving me stranded on the road by myself or calling me to work in the far, cold north for a while, than so be it.

If that didn’t make any sense, just leave it.

I tried to quit coffee cold turkey yesterday and this morning woke up to realize the great stupidity of such a thing, translated into subtitles by a throbbing headache.

So much for all my haughty snides about coffee addicts.

Next thing you know I’ll have to wean myself down to one energy drink a day, sipped while laying in a tanning bed and reading Karen Kingsbury.

All’s fair in Love and Loud Opinions.

My side of the lake or tunnel or world or whatever

19 Thursday May 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, nursing, slate falls, the wilderness

≈ 12 Comments

Maybe if I had time to worry about the new look in headbands and how much I jogged last week, I would. And things would be different.

There I would be. Chic and trim, jogging with a vintage tie back holding my tousled hair from caressing my rosy cheeks.

Then I would go home to write long entries in my red journal on the beautiful analogies of life and how the sun shone though the daffodils like gold and the newest relationship drama.

No daffodils here.

And my red journal sits untouched while life writes all over me and it’s not in calligraphy either.

Maybe if things were different I would have time to type out blog posts and take pictures, like I want to.

Instead I drink copious amounts of coffee and occasionally wonder how long I will live.

I worry about missing blood work and the med cooler that blew off the dock and running 5 different errands while trying to find the high-risk prenatal who just disappeared and meet the plane on time.

I almost run over the police with the medical truck on the way. And then the tire goes flat.

I feel so strangely disconnected from 95% of my friends.

Sometimes I check Facebook and everywhere there are pictures of new couples , and people bantering back and forth via wall posts and the trail of status’s buzzing about coffee shops, v.ball games, and the weather.

And I feel like I’m peering down a long tunnel, trying to remember what was on the other side.

This side of the tunnel is nice, mind you, and I have no problems filling my days with unique little dramas.

Like flushing an entire toothpaste tube down the toilet.

No lie.

The Amish missionary had to take the whole toilet off its base and turn it upside-down to get the delinquent thing out.

Now people ask if I’ve always tried saving water by brushing my teeth in unlikely places.

And the ice left, finally.  

So there are things like canoeing, fishing, falling in the lake,

and getting hooks stuck in my head.

         

Campfires under the moon and outdoor tea which I drink by the pints, along with my coffee and too much sugar.

And smoked duck. There is smoked duck in heaven, surely.

Though this is not heaven, and everyday I am reminded of how beautiful people can be—and yet how far we can fall into the blackness.

And how mangled lives get when souls are empty–how broken their bodies.

And I fall in love with what my life has been and what it is now. What else can one do, you know, when the contrast is so stark?

There are children all over the world starving and mothers dying too young and floods and earthquakes and rancid TV shows and most of us know heartache without taking a college course on grief.

The worse I see the world, the more I am determined to remain in love with my life.

Not just the moon on the lake and the wind in my hair moments—but the mornings when I wake up exhausted from the bad dream and the afternoons when there are too many kids yelling in one exam room.

There is so little hope to go around these days.

No one seems to be happy.

I have hope.

And that in and of itself gives me reason to be happy.

Even if I cannot remember the last time I cared if my eyebrows looked nice or worried that I’d offended someone in a texting conversation.

Drama Rapid

06 Sunday Mar 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, silly fears

≈ 3 Comments

It has been brought to my attention, as they say, that some may assume that Esta is having a life crisis, due to the last post.

Can I clear that up?

(Also) I have canoeing fever at the moment.

“Freak out” in my world does not equal depressed, despairing, sad, or horribly traumatized.

I can trot merrily through life, and have sporadic moments of “AH!!!!”, without life function being drastically altered.

Actually, it’s fairly common for me. As the eldest brother always reminds me,

“You just gotta feeeel, Esta. Like seriously, chill.”

I am placid about as often as Justin Beiber rips apart a wild bear with his hands.

As much as I try to “just chill”, still I blaze awkwardly through life, spinning emotions like disco lights, looking like I’m always teetering on the edge of drama rapid.

So what may look like white water to you is just a kiddy pool that Esta dips her toes in when she gets overheated.

And so, really, I’m fine, happy, alive, and kicking.

Surrender is hard, like learning the J stroke was hard—in that every time I paddle I have to remember how it feels. And it can be frustrating, because you learned this already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will keep trying, possibly getting soaked in the process, but who cares since I always end up with water in my canoe anyways.

 And so life will hum, oh-la-de-dallying along, even if Esta is wrinkling her nose a little at her silly self.

I just ate way to many little Japanese candies while writing this post.

And I have no idea how disco lights got in there or Justin Beiber for that matter.

Does that help?

When you want to run into the wild

20 Wednesday Oct 2010

Posted by Esta in 3 am moments, books, canoeing, life dirt, realized dreams, the wilderness, unreasonable hope

≈ 1 Comment

Of my Top Four Passions—

Christ,

People,

Travel,

and Wilderness

—the first and second always trump the third and fourth.

I feel the tension deeper sometimes, like now, when fall blazes and swirls yellow leaves around cattail skeletons.

The best of all seasons never lasts long enough, at least here in Canada. It’s the texture in the drying out and dying of everything that makes it so haunting. I’ve never been able to fully absorb fall before it disappears underneath the snow and ice of northern winters.

It has become even harder since moving south into the city.

Life is ironic. Ironic in a funny, aching way.

I have talked to so many girls who just love the city. Girls who think living in the city would be a dream come true. They love the people, the bustle, the color, and the millions of adorable shops and stores hidden everywhere. And, truly, I have become more like those girls the last four years. I do love my city. I do love the people. And there is something to be said about being able to ride the street car to your favorite used bookstore, tucked beside a convenient little coffee shop. Yet, if it wouldn’t be for The Call, I would not be here.

No way.

It is worth it, yes. A million times over.

But it still aches.

Because my “dream” life, if only orchestrated by me, is very different.

I cannot, and never have, describe to you the feeling of  coming alive that happens when I paddle a canoe or sit by a camp fire. Its as close as I ever get to what C.S. Lewis describes as what he thinks heaven will be like. A sudden, clear,  “Ahhh, so this is where I have always belonged. Now everything makes sense”  kind of emotion.

It is moss and tall white birches and blankets of tangy pine needles. It’s fierce red leaves and silence and the call of a whippoorwill. Its bare rock and paddles and a cedar strip canoe. It’s the smell of wood smoke and the sound of a snow machine, and the way the snow squeaks when its cold.

I love it. I have always loved it. I have never grown bored of paddling, or hiking a ridge, or sitting quietly by a lake.

I mean, what I would absolutely love, would be one of these.

 

 Pretty much like this on the inside

 With these

 

And my dream—a cedar strip canoe

 

Crazy, eh?

I choose to belive though, that by Grace and a Greater Plan I can be more than content while still carrying my longings honestly.

———————————————————————————-

And if you love the wilds too, here are three great reads to take you there.

   Nahanni Trailhead: A year in the northern wilderness

 

 

 

 

   Wilderness Wife 

 

 

 

  The Spell of the Yukon. (Poetry)

Paddles and bull moose

30 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by Esta in canoeing, family, laughter, sleeping, the wilderness

≈ 6 Comments

“Remind me why I do these kinds of things with you?”

And he laughed and said it was in my blood.

 He wanted a weekend in the wild, paddling a canoe, and invited me along. If there is wilderness and canoes I go. So I went.

We drove three hours north, chasing the water and the Canadian shield, with a disposable camera and a trunk full of gear. We tied the canoe on the roof, realizing we had forgotten half of our tie-on equipment at home, and laughed, since the September wind was already blowing strong. “Hope it stays on”, he said. “It better”, I say, and my speedometer quivers at 120 kl./hr. We choose a lake three hours north and had a rough map, drawn by one of the local men, showing snow machine trails and old railroad tracks.

It was late by the time we pulled into the clearing and saw the bay below, still calm. 6:30 pm. Less than three hours until dark and it had started to rain. We raced the western clouds and the wind, flipping the canoe down and me piling gear out of the trunk while he packed it, tightly, filling in all the corners. We watched the clouds and winced as they rolled closer.

I climbed into the front, he shoved us off, and the water swirled behind our furious haste. The lake was nine miles long and we wanted to get away from the few seasonal cottages that the road access had brought to desecrate the otherwise lonely shores.

“We have to hurry”, he said and I smiled as the canoe leapt with our synchronized stokes and marveled at the blessing of my life and the way we both speak canoe.

We crossed to the middle and turned down the wide channel that stretched as far as the mist would reveal. An hour later the clouds opened and the waves fought our progress and the darkness rolled in around the pines.

Finally, we knew we had to find camp and so followed the bank for the next thirty minutes until, though the rain, we found a tiny bay and pulled the canoe up the rocks.

The ground was too uneven down by the water so he walked to the top of the ridge and found a spot just big enough to fit the tent. While the darkness came steady, he snapped brush and leveled ground and I carried the sleeping bags  and the tarp and the backpacks up the ridge and hung the food bucket in the tree away from the bears.

Throwing rope, tied around large rocks, over tree branches in the dark is one of the more finer of my skills. I came very close to knocking myself completely unconscious.

By the time everything was set up it was pitch black and the rain was soaking even the dry undersides of the pines. So we decided against a fire and, instead, climbed into our tent for the rest of the night.  We sat, wet, cold, and laughing under the light of our lantern, that swung and sent eerie glows across the vinyl roof. He changed out of his wet clothes, but I was too hungry and so decided to wait until after I ate. We ate our supper/midnight snack and laughed and talked the way you do when there is only miles of empty bush surrounding you and everything is dark. It have been a successful first day, we reasoned.

And as we sat the night matured, and the supper was almost done, with just the last Mars bar to go, when, from the darkness a few feet behind our tiny tent came noise.

 Crashing.

And then loud, right in our ears, “NEAAAAARRRRUUUUH UH UH.”

We looked at each other, eyes meeting, as it came again.

 “NEAAAAARRRRUUUUH UH UH.”

  Right up close. Right there. We looked at each other and out of both mouths, simultaneously, came a gasped “Moose!”

And we didn’t need to say anything else, really. We both had lived in the north, both been raised by a moose hunter and his stories, and we both knew that September was the heat of the rut and that moose in the rut are no pretty tourist sight.

 But that was a cow. With a bull in the rut, any noise can be taken as a threat and we had heard stories from our parents and heard of them jumping in a canoe to escape when the noise had caused a bull to come fast and angry. But that was a cow and cows are fine. Unless of course a bull is with her, Dad said. So we turned out the lights and sat, silent in the darkness. The snapping brush came closer and we could hear her breathing, hot and heavy, in the night. She crashed and grunted her way, slowly, so slow around the tent. And we sat, with two layers of plastic between us and her 800lb aliveness. After an half and hour she moved off enough that the snapping brush was more distant and we could whisper.

I climbed in to my sleeping bag, still in my wet clothes, not daring to wake the forest by digging in my garbage bag-lined pack. Still we could hear crashing and was that more than one animal? We couldn’t tell.

 There was no point in thinking of our canoe as an escape if a bull did come, like Dad advised. It was too far down the ridge to be any use.

Finally, I decided, I needed to relax. Daniel will listen and Daniel will pray. I’m just going to plug my ears and go to sleep. The cold ground wrapped around my sopping clothes and I smiled at how nature never fails to give me a buzz.

A hour or so later Daniel awoke in the icy blackness and this time he knew it wasn’t a cow. If you have never heard and large bull moose “work out”, rent a National Geographic from the library or something and you’ll remember.

What Daniel heard and recognized was the THUNK of logs as they get picked up by a bull moose’s rack and throw like chopsticks, the SNAP of branched and trees being crushed by body and antler, the THUMP as the bush floor is churned and dug by hoofs and antlers, and the trademark THRASH, THRASH of antlers being rubbed up and down tree trunks, stripping the branches. Bless Daniels heart, he didn’t wake me, knowing how terrified I would be.

The bull came closer and closer and Daniel lay still and prayed. Finally it came too close and suddenly saw us, letting out a large “UUUUUURRRRRRAAA”.

“We’re dead”, Daniel though to himself.

But, after crashing and blowing for a while he slowly moved off. And that’s when I woke up.

As soon as I heard him my heart sank. He had his cow and now any noise we made was dangerous, not just slightly risky.I lay, cold and wet, and scared out of my mind, and Daniel patted me in comfort. Finally the crashing grew more distant and I again made the choice to sleep rather than to worry.

Two hours later he was back and this time both Daniel and I were wide awake, staring at the outline of the moon on the roof as we heard him come again, loud, closer and closer. He came and still came and when he snapped branches 15 feet away I thought my heart might stop altogether. I had to cough and the tarp beneath us crackled with every movement. I could hear his grunts and heavy breaths and once again two sheets of plastic stood between me and an animal who weights anywhere from 900-1500 pounds and carries rack of antlers twice his width.

I knew that all the trees around were poplar and had no branches until 15 feet up, but I remembered that my grandmother, Clara, had climbed a smooth tree with no branches once, when she was lone in the wilderness, and she thought a moose was coming. Grandpa was gone with the gun and when he came back he didn’t believe she had actually climbed that smooth, branchless tree. “Well, if Grandma could climb a smooth tree to get away from a moose, so could I.” I reasoned.

Somehow that didn’t really reassure me.

 Dad used a stump to hide from an angry bull moose, I remembered. But that held to comfort since I knew there were no stumps within 100 yard. Dad and Mom had used a canoe to escape a bull, even though he had swam out into the water. But, again, I remembered that the distance between the breathing beast behind me and my canoe was vastly unproportioned. Daniel had pepper spray along but we both knew that would be like trying to stop a train with a toothpick.

 So I let Daniel pray in a whisper and reminded myself that I loved adventures like laying, wet and cold, in the wilderness with bull moose standing 15 feet behind me.

Again, slowly he moved off, and the rest of the night is a blur. Every time I woke up I could hear something crashing, but most of the time it was farther off and I was too exhausted to care about being trampled or gorged anymore to stay awake. I woke up at 700 am and could still hear the bull in the distance, doing his little bush work-out.

I woke up Daniel at 730, when the crashing was almost silent, and we, as silent and hurried as we have ever done such, carried everything down to the canoe. Once it was all off the ridge and in safe distance of the canoe we packed it all up and pushed off into the mist. We wanted to, right before we left, smash brush and take our paddles against the trees like Dad taught us moose hunting, to bring him running, but we decided we had enough bull moose for the time being and so just slipped away silently.

 

 We canoed the swamps and creek-like fingers the rest of the morning and found enough moose sign to tell us we were not dreaming. (the third picture below is what the ground looks like after in encounters a bull moose)

We ate a wonderful breakfast on the rocks, and built a fire, and looked at the fall colors  and talked, and explored,  and generally did things that one normally does on a canoe trip to make up for the bizarre night.

 

And when we came home we had a great story, and Dad couldn’t get over how lucky we were, and Mom reminded us how much danger we really were in,  and I had spent the next two days with a sore throat and achy, fevered bones from my cold, wet night.

But it was all wonderfully worth it and I would do it all again in a flash. Even though I probably will never sent up my tent so far from my canoe in the middle of September.

 

 

Summers end

01 Wednesday Sep 2010

Posted by Esta in canoeing, friends, laughter, life dirt, realized dreams, the wilderness, unreasonable hope

≈ 2 Comments

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”- Wind in the Willows

And so summer ends. 

With the sun glinting off wet paddles and dancing through the waves and the laughter and the eyes of good friends.

How perfect for it to end on the water, in a canoe—where I always feel more alive than anywhere else. How perfect that it ended with friends, on the water, in a canoe.

The water gurgled, and we tipped canoes, and jumped into the river to float lazily in the sunshine, and looked for the best way through the rapids.

We laughed at Krispie’s distressed expression as her canoe found the rocks like a magnet finds a nail, and at Johan as he traumatized our fellow campers with his striking rendition of a donkey, and at the way it took three men to make a pot of coffee.

The girls looked like flopping hippos all weekend as we tried to climb back into the canoes, while the guys seemed to always jump back in with an easy elegance.

We jumped off rocks into the river bruising our knees on submerged rocks, and then argued as to why some hit bottom and some didn’t.

We sat around our camp fire and talked and told lame jokes and insulted each other.

We cut up huge piles of carrots and peppers and ate with appetites only the water can create, feeling like we had never had tastier food.

And always when we looked around we were surrounded by friends, and the sparkles in their eyes.

Its the Complete. Perfect.

End to the summer.

The summer that came at first like glimmer of warm hope.

 I looked at it, distrustful of its reality after a winter of barrenness. After a darkness where I couldn’t see more than a candles light in front of my clumsy feet. And I walked and stumbled in the darkness, some nights laying where I fell in front of the enemy and felt doubt like waves, icy cold lap at my face. When all I could do was raise my head enough to look behind me and see others fighting on my behalf, and then lay it down again. Limp. Limp from clinging frantically to the cross, clinging to nail scared hands, cling to the crazy idea that hope somehow would come from that bareness.

I had no idea how crazy true that theory was.

The summer that blossomed in to a miracle of freedom.

The summer that took Esta from the way she was and turned a lifetime of lies inside out, upside-down, and opened up a whole new world she never dreamed was there.

It came softly at first, until the sunrise that dawned after a night of clenched fist, and I watched it from the porch and suddenly saw the truth and stepped into the freedom that He offered. Stepped into unreasonable hope that was so overwhelming, it didn’t seem possible.

He gave me the desire to laugh for no reason at all, and I did.

And when we feel like our insides are blow apart, they often are, and the healing of them is the paradox of love and an empty tomb and unspeakable joy.

Life is beautiful. Painful, messy, beautiful.

I dance in freedom I never dreamed

And I cry tears of thanks for a worth

I never thought I would own

And I have more worship in my heart

Than I know what to do with

Overflowing with gratefulness

For a heart given the gift

Of brokenness.

It been a lifetime in coming.

“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.” -Wind in the Willows 

I'm Esta

/Canadian nurse living in Oregon/ Occasionally I write about depression, womanhood, faith, and other super abstract ideas, while trying not to take myself too seriously.

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I don’t want to write something touching about it being almost a year since you died.
”If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”
It has been five months since physical illness left me unable to get off the couch and triggered panic and anxiety that was unexpected and debilitating. It has been a month since I said goodbye to my cousin/friend @matthewgingerich for the last time. Our grief is raw enough that it feels impossible to be engaged in witnessing worldwide anguish as well. It is overwhelming to hold both personal and collective suffering isn’t it, especially in an age of information? I’m confident that we are all held and sustained, no matter what suffering we face, in His enduring love and goodness, and I rest in that.
It’s been a while since book recommendations have shown up here. And both of these are a little outside of genre for what I typically highlight in this way.
“I think it started with my father. He took me for long walks and explained things to me” ...
I’m a nurse not a teacher. Not by nature, skill, or learned vocation do I thrive as instructor, but here we are another year completed.

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