Rowing for a Reason

More than 2000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” But...would we be human if we didn’t try?

In 2002, my wife Mandy and I, newlyweds at the time, built an 18’ rowboat in a Maine garage with plans to take her from the headwaters of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota clear down to the Gulf of Mexico in south Louisiana. We spent 3 full months rowing 8 hours a day, dodging barges and tankers, and camping on sandbars and muddy banks. We met unbelievably generous fishermen and selfless townspeople but were also faced with drunk deckhands on leave and leering river rats with pistols in their hands. On Halloween we rowed
into New Orleans soaked with rain and sick with a stomach virus. There was a scant 93 miles left to go. And we never put the oars back in the water.

Last year a few weeks after celebrating my 40th birthday I began to suffer from overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks which culminated in a nervous breakdown and episodes of depersonalization that landed me in an observation room at the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital. Obsessive doubts over the direction of my life and racing thoughts of time (and of my time) vanishing brought me to the brink where I was struggling just to cope with normal day to day activities.

Rivers have always been a place of calm for me. I decided I had to go back. I needed to put our boat back in the water and complete what I walked away from more than 16 years ago.

The problem was our boat had been out of the water and sitting on blocks in the yard for more than a decade. The wood planking was rotted; the frames were coming loose. With the help of my wife and young children, I began rebuilding our rowboat for another shot at the river, a chance to demonstrate to them and to myself that past failures and present struggles are never beyond your power to reconcile.

This summer the family and I plan to return to New Orleans, a little wooden rowboat in tow, and put the oars back in the water once more, to step into the same river again.

I am currently at work on a memoir, Chasing Twain: a Rowboat, a River, a Reconciliation, about this experience. I have found the project to be amazingly therapeutic. To have a focus beyond my anxiety has helped keep my attention outside of my own head and on making an impact in the lives of my children and others I am working to inspire. I meet with a counselor weekly and take encouragement from  ADAA website’s “Stories of Triumph.” Both have helped me to process the existential fears that fuel my anxiety. I am no longer ashamed. I am no longer withdrawn. Because I know I am not alone. I know that overcoming my challenges is like rowing a boat— if you take it one stroke at a time and center your thoughts on the moment at hand you will arrive. Even if it takes 16 years to get there.

You can follow along with our journey on Twitter: @ChasingTwain or though my website, www.TrapperHaskins.com.

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