This post is dedicated to my yoga teacher, Augusta Kantra. I am grateful for your practice, your dedication, and for 10 memorable years of Saturday morning yoga. 

The Chickasawhay River in Mississippi

July makes me nostalgic for river trips. For seven years running, before summer jobs, college, and the real world lured away our children, our family would choose a long July weekend to paddle a winding river on the Gulf Coast. Our entourage always included close friends — other families and teens — craving adventure and a few days spent, round the clock in bathing suits. The daily routine went something like this: coffee at sunrise, paddle 10-15 miles, hold frequent swim breaks, set up camp on a wide sandbar in the river’s curve, and conclude with a gourmet dinner and campfire.

While the point of a river trip is to get away from electronics and into nature, there is an art to bringing the proper gear so that everyone is comfortable. That responsibility always falls to my husband Lynn. In part because he loves it and in part because a childhood spent in Scouting left him gifted in planning and logistics.

When it comes to outdoor equipment Lynn is something of a gearhead. He takes great delight in not only seeking out the finest new gear, but also in fiddling with a broken camp stove, patching the hull of a canoe, or outfitting the perfect kitchen box. Although, we’ve learned from a soggy experience, it’s best to replace rather than patch a leaking tent, almost nothing gets thrown away until it’s used up.

Like a favorite shirt or a child’s prized toy, it’s easy to get attached to camping gear. The old aluminum percolator smells like camp on winter afternoon. The grip on my wooden paddle evokes memories of teaching little girls to canoe. And for Lynn, a certain pair of pot grippers brought back images of childhood Scout trips – until they didn’t. (For non-camping readers, pot grippers are just what they sound like, a handle used to pick up a hot pot.)

Camp cook kits come without handles for easy storage. Pot grippers are a must for handling hot pots.

One of our go-to camp meals is pasta and chickpeas. Of course, after it’s boiled, the pasta requires draining, which is where pot grippers come in handy. On our last river trip, Lynn used his faithful pot grippers to carry the noodles to the river’s edge, where the appliance failed, landing the noodles in the sand. A few curse words later, we picked up the noodles, rinsed them off, and brought them back to the cook table where I promptly dropped them in the sand. Rinse and repeat, as the weatherman says. We all ate a little grit that night and laughed that it was good for our digestion.

Though not the night of the noodle drop, this is a typical kitchen set up on a river trip.

After the trip, I was sure we had retired the pot grippers. But a couple years later, during a camping trip in Tuscaloosa, the noodle drop repeated itself, only this time with potatoes on a gravel camping pad. Following a second gritty meal, it was time for those pot grippers to go.

Yoga has taught me there’s no use hanging on to something that no longer serves us well, whether it’s a thought, a relationship, a closet of unworn clothing, or in this case, pot grippers with edges slick from years of use. We can choose our freedom, walk down a different road, and not repeat our mistakes. Following the potato episode, I bought Lynn a new pair of pot grippers. Each time we use them, I’m reminded of our July river trips, but also of the lesson, sometimes you need to eat a little grit to finally let go.

New pot grippers for the kitchen box.