Bridget Crocker, THE RIVER'S DAUGHTER
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:44]Bridget Crocker is the author of The River's Daughter, and memoir.
[0:48]By the way, I loved this book so much, I really am obsessed with it, it was so good and
[0:54]I could not put it down.
[0:56]Bridget Crocker is a trailblazer in women's empowerment within the outdoor industry,
[1:00]a leading whitewater rafting guide.
[1:02]She has led remote river expeditions down many of the world's greatest river canyons.
[1:06]She is a contributing author to lonely planet guide books, and the best women's travel
[1:10]riding series.
[1:11]Her work has been featured in magazines, including men's journal, National Geographic Adventure,
[1:16]Trail Runner, and Outside, as well as Patagonia's blog The Cleanest Line.
[1:20]She lives in Malibu, California.
[1:22]Welcome Bridget, thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibi to talk about
[1:26]The River's Daughter of Memoir.
[1:28]Congrats.
[1:29]And having me is a real pleasure to be here.
[1:32]Oh my gosh, your book was so good, I couldn't put it down, I kept me up late, the ending
[1:40]killed me, I mean the whole thing, oh my gosh, I don't know, I have so much respect
[1:44]for you for so many reasons, and the book in and of itself was so good, but your life,
[1:51]oh my gosh, just really made me like sorry to gosh, just, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,
[1:58]no it's really touching me that the ending moved you, I mean I think that's the reason
[2:03]why this book is out in the world, because of that promise that I made to my father.
[2:07]So you know that that is coming through, and that love is coming through, it means
[2:11]a lot.
[2:12]You guys went through so much together, this is right up there with some of the most complicated
[2:17]father-daughter relationships in literature that there are, but that part where you end
[2:23]up and not to like have any spoilers, and obviously you should tell people about the book,
[2:26]but when you got to a place where he could apologize and you could forgive him and you
[2:30]learn more about him, and we're willing to just be like, okay, but don't mess it up this
[2:36]time, you know.
[2:37]Yeah, I think, and I think that, you know, I began writing this book, it took me 22 years
[2:44]to write this book, and it's, you know, I can just give a little intro.
[2:48]Yes, sorry, Bridget, what is Bridget, what is your book about?
[2:51]So sorry.
[2:53]For our listeners, our listeners and friends who are dying to know what is this book
[2:58]that kept zippy up late at night, you know, I grew up on the Snake River in Jackson,
[3:02]Hawaii, and this is a book about growing up, you know, in a troubled family and finding
[3:09]the nurturing and care that I needed from the river, from the Snake River, I learned
[3:14]to communicate with the river at a young age, and could hear the voice of the river,
[3:19]and, you know, that relationship led me into a career as an international river guide,
[3:26]and, you know, my main goal, it was my ticket out, my main goal was to get away from
[3:30]my family, and so I ended up moving to Zambia, you know, because they can't find me
[3:37]in Batoka Gorge on the Zambia River, and while I was there, I, you know, was able to
[3:44]travel and to see things through a different cultural perspective, you know, to learn
[3:49]things about my family, and to see us in context, in the context of our story, and that led
[3:56]me back to my family where I was able to work with my father, especially, to heal the multi-generational
[4:03]cycles of poverty and abuse that we'd endured. So, you know, it's a bit of a prodigal daughter
[4:10]story, and also just a healing in nature story, and kind of a rolicking, high adventure story as
[4:17]well. I wanted it to be fun, too. It's not just a slog. No, it's not a slog at all. You even
[4:23]have a little celebrity, celebrity infusion in the middle there with some drama, but there's so
[4:32]much to it. I mean, you got through so much in your childhood, but then the sexual stuff with guys,
[4:39]I just, like, you kept ending up in these situations, and by the time you took that guy's gun away,
[4:45]I was like, no, I can't have another, she can't have another bad thing happen in the situation.
[4:51]I'm like closing my eyes to see what happens next, but you handled it all. You show us how you
[5:00]gain so much strength. It all takes place with this nature background, and starting with your
[5:08]backup against the tree and being so powerless, and then ending with you in charge of the
[5:14]rivers and being able to throw the gun in the bushes. I don't know. I just feel like it was such
[5:18]a such an arc. Yeah. I thank you. I think a lot of that growth and strength, and it's a coming
[5:25]of age memoir. It's about coming into myself and my power, and starting out a kind of a deficit
[5:32]of being very disempowered. I very much credit my relationship with rivers and becoming a
[5:39]a river guide and having to kept in my own ship, literally, and being in charge of other people.
[5:45]But being able to rely on my relationship with the river, I trusted that, and that's what
[5:51]enabled me to have the confidence to be hurling myself over horizon lines, class four and five
[5:59]rapids, and be very successful at it because I had that connection with the river and was able
[6:06]to communicate. The river would tell me where to go, and I'd end up having great runs and developing
[6:12]my skills. And as that progressed, that confidence, then I saw where in my personal life, and in
[6:20]my professional life, there was a real disparity of how I was responding to threats. I was very
[6:27]competent on the river and responding to threats and able to overcome them, the obstacles on the
[6:34]river and off. But in relationships on land with predators, human form, that was, I was still so
[6:43]conditioned to go into fight, flight, or freeze, and to go into that cave inside myself and hide
[6:51]out and wait for it to pass. And I think the real crux moment is when I'm on the river, and one of
[6:58]my co-workers comes at me and sexually harasses me on the river, and my instinct is to go inward,
[7:05]but the rivers they're holding up a mirror, like, wait, this isn't who you are. What are you doing?
[7:11]And gives me that confidence too. And just like the pulling me forward into the next
[7:19]version of myself, which is what rivers do, constantly moving into the next version of ourselves
[7:24]and growing. So that's, I think, my main goal in writing this book is to show how do you do that?
[7:32]Like, when you're teaching someone to surf, you don't just say, well, just stand up on the surfboard.
[7:37]You know, you have to go through the steps of how do you stand up. So that was a big part of what
[7:43]I wanted to impart to readers is to show how do you progress and stand up.
[7:49]Wow. Well, you also, in many different instances in the book, stand up for other people
[7:55]in a really big way. And I feel like, particularly in Africa, when you were, you know,
[8:02]stand, you stood up to your dad for racism when you were like 13 years old. And then again, when
[8:07]you're in Africa, and defending it at a, you know, a beautiful, like sort of party situation,
[8:12]I think, where there were like people like standing behind you and just being like, no,
[8:16]which ends up getting, like, getting, like dumped in a pool. And you're just like outspoken
[8:21]when you see injustice and whether it's a man towards you, whether it's towards a group of people,
[8:28]you're just like, a badass. You're just like, I'm just going to stand up for it without any
[8:34]fear for myself. Like, tell me about about that and gaining that and how it feels to, to feel that
[8:40]empowered. I love that question. And I love being able to talk about this. You know,
[8:46]I think as someone who suffered a lot of injustice and being controlled, I could recognize that
[8:51]and other people very easily. And, you know, there's a scene when I moved to Zambia and I start
[8:56]working on, for this rafting company. And there's some real injustice that's happening, some
[9:01]incredible racism. And because I'm white, you know, I had, I had power to you to step in on their
[9:10]behalf. And I, you know, I see now in writing the book and, you know, just thinking about this
[9:15]deeply, like I wasn't, I wasn't enabled, I couldn't stand up for myself. But I felt that I could
[9:22]stand up for other people. And I think that that is like the basis of white savior is some,
[9:27]you know, where we're, you know, we have people who come in, and they're trying to constantly
[9:31]save others. And I just, I saw how that, you know, that inability to maybe stand up for ourselves
[9:39]more disempowered. Like, there's a place where we have to turn it back and just focus on ourselves
[9:46]and I wasn't able to get to that place. But I could see it, you know, in the world around me.
[9:51]Wow. Well, it's, I mean, I know it comes from not the best place, right? It doesn't come from,
[9:58]you have to go through a lot to have that.
[10:00]characteristic, but it is so beautiful. I mean, it's amazing how you do that. Whatever happened to
[10:05]Teresa, your aunt, was that in the book? Did I miss it? No, I feel like I need a conclusion to that.
[10:11]Like the last we saw her, you had parted ways at the restaurant and then we didn't hear from her
[10:16]again and I just wanted to know what the update was. We've been estranged, you know, for most of my
[10:21]life. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I didn't know if there was an update. I found myself wondering about all these
[10:28]characters and like, what's up with Danny? Where is he? Can I get like a PS? You know, I've lost to
[10:35]I've lost touch with him as well. Well, I know. Well, a lot of people are going to be really surprised
[10:40]when they read this book. The venue will be straight. I bet you won't be strangers for long. Okay. Talk
[10:48]a little bit about this being able to talk to the rivers, which I know is what starts the book.
[10:54]And then when you get to Africa, people think maybe this is like a curse that you're a witch
[10:59]or something like that and how different cultures treat what this ability to really hear from the
[11:05]river, what you need to get out of it. And do you really think it's the rivers or is it a part
[11:10]of your brain sort of a self-talk thing or do you think it's do you actually hear it like it's a
[11:15]sound? Well, I think, you know, culture is a reflection of landscape, you know, and so wherever it is
[11:23]that we live, the place that we're surrounded, you know, the landscape that we're immersed in,
[11:27]that that's going to be what's reflected in ourselves or thoughts in our culture.
[11:33]And I was so fortunate to grow up in Jackson Hole, which is the, you know, people call the
[11:38]Serengeti of North America. And, you know, I grew up in a very vast wilderness area.
[11:45]And when I visit wilderness areas, like there's a quality in wilderness, like real wilderness,
[11:51]where there are no people and, you know, I was also raised by backpacking guides who, you know,
[11:57]in wilderness areas. So there, I think it's hard for people who haven't experienced wilderness
[12:04]to understand, like, you can feel that it's alive. You know, there's a palpable quality in
[12:11]wilderness areas where it's alive. There, you know, everything's interconnected and you can feel
[12:18]that energy. When I, I have this ability to just sort of get into like a focused meditative state,
[12:26]where, you know, you're, when you're really in, especially in it. And I credit my ADHD with this,
[12:30]right? I can be hyper focused on things and that create that, you know, that brings the creativity
[12:36]and also the ability to focus deeply. And when I am able to focus deeply, I get, you know, messages.
[12:43]And sometimes I do hear a voice and sometimes it's more of just in, you know, kind of this
[12:49]tickling that happens, you know, behind my third eye or like, I can feel it in my body and that
[12:54]there's an idea attached to the feeling. And so there is a communication that's happening and
[13:00]being, you know, it's in the same way that you can communicate with your dog, right?
[13:05]There's, it's not, it's not unlike that or there's, you know, you just, for me, you know,
[13:11]be able to focus on the river and learning, you know, the sounds and, and the feeling,
[13:17]then that becomes a way of communicating. And, you know, like the opening scene where I fell into
[13:22]the river and was, you know, it had blanked on what I should do. And I hear a voice clearly
[13:28]yell swim when there are no human humans there besides my friend and I who didn't hear the voice
[13:35]and who never said swim. So yeah, you know, I get this from a lot of folks like, well, you know,
[13:43]people are curious like, how can I connect to nature more deeply? And I think the, you know, the
[13:49]answer to that is to just you have to sit still and listen and absorb it and like put your phone
[13:55]down and, you know, get, get away from all of the clamor of of human-made world and, and remember,
[14:02]like who we are and where we come from and really sink into that.
[14:07]I just love that you start with those pictures in your closet in the place when you're in your
[14:12]darkest moments and your curled up sort of escaping yourself and self soothing, honestly. And then
[14:18]you get to live out that moment. I mean, that's, it's just, it's so cinematic. Is this going to
[14:23]be a movie, by the way? It's the whole thing. It's so cinematic. Yeah. Yes. My film team's working on
[14:29]that right now. Amazing. It's really incredible. Throughout the things that you were dealing with
[14:36]from physical abuse to sexual assault, to poverty, to just this notion of you being sort of the
[14:43]only named person in your town with your same last name, like just this feeling other and to cope
[14:49]with all of this, you self medicate a lot with drugs and alcohol and that could be its own sliver
[14:57]of memoir, right? Just the immersion into that. Like you, you pepper it through everything. And you
[15:03]have a, you know, the thing at the end where you sort of wraps things up and where you are now with it.
[15:07]But can you talk a little bit about that and how you feel looking back or when, you know,
[15:13]what your whole relationship is to addiction? What a wild question for you to ask me today is my
[15:18]22nd sobriety birthday stuff. 22 is my lucky number. So there you go. It was meant to be.
[15:26]Here we are. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Yeah, you know, dealing, and I love that
[15:32]you brought in othering too, because you know, that is the thing that helped me to understand,
[15:37]you know, and see where other people are being other, you know, and to know that that deep loss and
[15:44]and that those feelings of grief that come with that of just of disconnection. And that
[15:51]that intense pain and grief, like is, is, it becomes unbearable. And so the drinking and the
[15:56]using is a way to, you know, numb that grief and make it go away. But it doesn't fix the problem,
[16:03]you know, and it just, it just spirals into its own problem. I also grew up in a family of addicts,
[16:09]you know, there's addiction in my family. And so it was the family culture and genetically
[16:14]and predisposed to it. You know, it was in some, in some times, you know, in a river culture,
[16:20]it's a way to connect to like it's a way for the guides to go off and kind of have our own moment
[16:25]or, you know, it's a way to have like a ceremonial thing that people are doing together,
[16:31]you know, and so sometimes it would be about that. But, you know, I can tell you that I don't,
[16:38]you know, doing the real healing so that I don't need to numb out to my feelings anymore. And I
[16:43]can feel them and process them in real time now is such a blessing. And it's, you know, just so
[16:50]much more content. And, you know, learning how to manage my nervous system. That was a big part of
[16:56]it too. I had such radical anxiety from growing up the way I did that my nervous system was like
[17:03]firing at this high voltage. That was part of what made it, made me a very successful guide,
[17:09]because, you know, there's an inordinate number of people with ADHD and with anxiety disorder
[17:15]who are river guides because things are coming at you so quickly and our nervous systems are more
[17:21]attuned to be able to respond more quickly too. But yeah, you know, to manage my anxiety. And now,
[17:27]you know, I run and I meditate to manage my anxiety instead of using drugs. And that has worked
[17:33]really well for me. So you don't take any depressants, not that this is any of my medicines. No,
[17:39]you know, when I first, I started having these like radical panic attacks when I was about 30.
[17:46]It all kind of caught up to me. It physically, you know, I've been ignoring, like, you know, the
[17:50]signs for my body. I had like my throat would close off, you know, I wouldn't be able to breathe.
[17:55]And I ended up at them in the emergency room several times with like, you know, thinking I was
[18:00]had a blocked airway or something. It was even hospitalized once overnight, you know, missed
[18:06]diagnosed with epiglottitis, which is like a kid's disease. So I kept in and you have like
[18:12]in the emergency room. And finally, I got it. And this was like in the, you know, this was like 1998 or
[18:18]something. I finally got a doctor who was like, you know, do you self medicate with drugs now?
[18:26]I'm like, what do you mean? And then, you know, he was like, you know, I want to try, we're going
[18:31]to try giving you some antidepressants. I'd like you to also see a therapist. And then, you know,
[18:35]from there, I started going to a 12 step meeting. And, you know, what I realized was like,
[18:43]the antidepressants also, they weren't doing the trick either. And like, you know,
[18:49]biologically, when you're in extreme fight or flight, like, we're supposed to run, right?
[18:55]Resistance to expel the adrenaline. And so I was like, you know, I think I'm just going to start
[19:00]running. And that's when I became a runner. And I'm telling you, it, for me, it's worked really
[19:06]great. When I feel anxious, like, go for run, I feel much better. You know, it's, it's pretty simple.
[19:10]And I, I took Anna to your presence for about six months. It made me feel insane. And I,
[19:16]it just didn't work for me very well. So this was, this is what I've been doing since, since then.
[19:22]It's, it's worked great. Wow. So how far are you running? Like, what's your running?
[19:27]You know, I, I'd like to run about four miles is kind of like my normal, you know, kind of
[19:32]sweet spot or even walk, you know, a fast walk. And I like to listen to music sometimes like,
[19:37]I'll drop my kids at the swimming or water pool of practice and I'll go on the track and just put
[19:42]on Beyonce and just, you know, like let the mind flow or I love to run to hand the Hamilton soundtrack
[19:49]is like my name. I get, I get super excited. I can really like get the aggression out. But yeah,
[19:59]even just do it.
[20:00]going for a hike in nature. Like I go for my husband and I like to take a hike after dinner.
[20:04]Usually we just do an evening walk and just on the trails out here around my house and
[20:11]you know just to be outside too is such a calming, it has been a calming effect on my nervous system.
[20:16]And you still live in Malibu? I do. I know that um you know you referenced the Woolsey Fire
[20:22]in the book but were you affected by this fire? Yeah, art you know as you know everybody in the
[20:29]community is affected and all of our businesses are you know still struggling to stay open.
[20:35]My home did not burn this time but you know so many of our friends. There were like 20 kids in
[20:41]my younger daughter's class who had lost their homes and it's just something that we live with in
[20:46]Malibu. It's part of you know it's like if you live in Florida you deal with hurricanes, we deal with
[20:51]fires and what's my husband grew up here. He grew up in Topanga and what's amazing is like all of
[20:59]the you know the people who grew up here they have this skill set that just sort of springs into
[21:03]action you know and you know my kids have that now. We all I've adapted and so we have these
[21:10]skills that and we work very well as community when there is a fire. I mean I'm sure you've seen
[21:16]that at their experience with the Palisades fire like how amazing the community is and after the
[21:22]Woolsey Fire remember thinking like saying to my husband like we can't live here like we have to move
[21:26]and he said we can't leave now we're gonna miss out on the really beautiful part of the community
[21:31]coming together and I was like well I'm really care about that. I just want to be safe you know
[21:39]but then you know as we did and I realized like I didn't know how to stay it was the real issue
[21:44]like I run I'm a runner right so I was like we gotta run we gotta leave and that in the book
[21:51]you see how like I run when you know and my husband does not he digs in and and I finally said to him
[21:58]like I you know the truth is I don't know how to stay and it's like well stick with me I'll show you
[22:03]how you know and we just kind of like you know walked through it and and he was right you know
[22:09]the beauty of that community coming together of our community and like what people the interconnectedness
[22:14]that happens that was the thing that I was always running towards looking for you know looking for
[22:19]connection looking for community and I had no idea like by staying and investing in a community
[22:25]you gain more community like it's a very basic simple principle but I it took me until I was you know
[22:34]like in my 40s to learn that but yeah it's I mean it's been one of the biggest gifts of my life
[22:41]actually to that sense of belonging and being part of being a valued member in a part of a community
[22:46]it's so crazy to me that like you're just another mom at pickup at your kid's school in Malibu
[22:52]and this is your story you know like people could make so many of the wrong assumptions about you
[22:59]like don't you just want to tell everybody or maybe that's why you wrote the book just to be like
[23:03]yeah no no I'm not you know well I mean part of it you know my husband's a lifeguard and so
[23:10]we're lifeguard family and so we're you know we're water people and I can sort of translate
[23:16]what I do into that world but there would always be this sort of like yeah you know I guide rivers
[23:22]and and we would we do these like incredible trips with our kids too and so our kids would come back
[23:27]from spring break and like you know what did you do like oh well I paddled 83 miles you know in my
[23:32]little kayak by myself you know on the San Juan River and at like 11 you know and people like what
[23:39]we would we didn't plan but you know so it would kind of start to seep out and you know and I
[23:46]do I feel like I am who people understand who I am and I can be fully myself and in my community
[23:54]and you know at first I wasn't sure how that would go and also people have such like ideas
[23:59]about what Malibu is because it's you know like it's sort of this archetypal place that people
[24:07]have in their minds it's it's you know very glamorous and it's very ritzy and you know it's it's
[24:14]uh everybody here's rich and everybody here is snob you know there are all snobs and I've got
[24:20]it I've got to say that that is not my experience at all I mean it is filled with very hard
[24:26]working people who know how to survive really extreme things I mean it's a place of extreme beauty
[24:32]it's very similar to where I grew up in Jackson like there's extreme beauty and and there's
[24:37]the culture of people who also um are very you know hard working loyal devoted people and very
[24:46]connected to this place and to each other and you know I I couldn't I just can't say enough
[24:52]beautiful things about you know the people who live here and uh you know and they've been very
[24:56]accepting of of me and my life and my lifestyle my history you know I've been very open
[25:01]uh but yeah you know there are there are people who don't know our story and you know our families
[25:07]had to like come together like okay we're in and it was a family decision like we're gonna put
[25:12]this in the world now and our girls are old enough that because my kids don't know a lot of this
[25:16]stuff either you know we it's not something that I wanted to burden them with when they were young
[25:21]so we're we're going through the book and reading it together and talking about it um you know
[25:27]they know of like a general sense of like mom had it had a kind of rough childhood and you know
[25:33]they were very close to my father um they're very close to you know they don't have a relationship
[25:38]with with their grandmother as you know we've been estranged for a long time so you know they
[25:44]understand like there's something going on there there's a reason why you know they're estranged
[25:48]but they don't know all the details and so you know it's gonna be out there now and you know uh
[25:54]when I first gave the book to my husband to read like you know how do you feel about this you know
[26:00]being out there and he kept coming back to me and saying like how many more sex scenes are in this
[26:06]book you know like how how many more abuse scenes are in here like I you know and I was like we'll
[26:13]just skip ahead to page 100 you know that's that's where the whitewater starts and it gets really fun
[26:18]and he's like no I'm gonna read the whole thing you know and and then at the end he came to me and said
[26:24]like it's not up to me to say if you can publish this or not like this story is bigger than us
[26:29]like it's not it's beyond us and it's got to go out there and it's gonna help a lot of people
[26:36]and that's been our intention from the beginning. Well for sure congratulations um I hope I see you
[26:43]sometime in LA Malibu area I have like a hundred more follow-up questions so many questions about
[26:49]people in the book and but thank you who's really inspiring and congratulations in 22 years.
[26:54]Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I pleasure. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to
[27:00]totally booked with Zibi formerly momstone have time to read books. If you loved the show,
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[27:12]Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.