River Rafting Opium Adventure

I was in China in March 2007. I had the opportunity to see and do things that I would never be able to see or experience anywhere else in the world. There was one pivotal point during my trip, when I was in GuiLin China, when I realized how fucking amazing my life is. This is what my story is about.

I had met Alison, a photographer from New York and her friend Yvette from France, in a cafe in GuiLin and I was excited to meet girls like me, my age, and spoke English. I love the people of China, but it gets draining trying to communicate with a series of gestures and smiles. I really need to learn more Chinese.

Alison was tall and blonde and had an aire of a world traveler about her. She was very friendly and smiled a lot. She had a faint New England accent. She spent the last six month throughout China, and was teaching English to be able to pay her travel expenses. Yvette, was smaller, dark hair and wore glasses, and was a little quieter. They had only met earlier that day, and she was traveling alone.

Alison and I hit it off right away, and she asked me if I wanted to join them on a raft tour that night on the JiLing River. I immediately accepted, and left the cafe with them. We tracked down someone willing to take us out on their raft, which is very easy to do in GuiLin. The raft was about 5-6 feet wide and had a 2 rattan lounging chairs bolted down to them. During the day, I had noticed that these rafts had umbrellas covering the seated area. But it was near evening now, and there was no umbrella to block the night sky.

I grew up in Los Angeles, and the idea that there were more than a dozen stars in the sky was inconceivable to me. The night sky in GuiLin was breath taking and perfect, and I had never seen anything like it. I finally understood the idea of a star actually twinkling, except this time there were thousands upon thousands of tiny little lights twinkling in the black sky.

Alison, Yvette, and I talked on and off, but for the most part we just enjoyed the night and the ride. The water was calm and we glided along the water effortlessly. It was nice to spend time with people who didn't feel that it was necessary to talk endlessly about nothing.

Then our guide spoke to Alison in Chinese and she became eager and turned to us and said, "Hey girls! Wanna try some opium?"

Let me just say...wow! After a quick exchange of money and reassurances that we were going to be safe and everything would be fine (which foolishly hadn't even occurred to me at that point), we started on our opium river rafting adventure.

And then it happened. I was laying on back staring up at starlit sky and I became fully aware of myself, "Holy fucking shit. I'm on the other side of the world, on a river in China, high on opium." It was the first time in my entire existence that I realized how happy and lucky I am to be the woman I am.

I've seen and done a lot of things in my life. I have been lucky enough to love and be loved passionately more than once in my life, spend my life with a man I love and adore, have perfect and healthy children, and a career I am proud of and enjoy. Most of this gets lost in all the noise of everyday life. And here I was, lucky in life again, because I had my first moment of clarity, floating on a raft on the JiLing River, high on opium with a female photographer from New York and a girl from France. Sometimes the most perfect moments happen in strange places with people you don't know and will never see again. It was a perfect and beautiful moment that I wil keep with me throughout my beautiful life.