Kayak Chronicle (#1)

When my father died at age 91 in April of 2012, I received a small inheritance from the sale of the house that held nearly all of the life wealth of my parents. My brother Andrew, the executor of his will, hosted the five sibling beneficiaries on the anniversary of Dad’s landing on Omaha Beach, and wrote a check for each of us. I knew that my parents—my mother in particular—would have wanted me to appreciate at least part of this inter-generational gift through some adventure, transforming the solid foundations of home into flight, laughter, and new horizons. As I drove for three hours from New York to Rhode Island, toward a little blue cottage on Narrow River, the kayak bloomed into my life.

About a month later, on the very day that the mango-and-flame-colored boat was delivered, a Friday, my husband Vincent helped me attach the little wheeled contraption to one end to roll the boat down to our neighborhood beach to launch it. This was the first water craft that either of us had owned. We each wobbled around on the water for about twenty minutes while the other watched from shore. It was an awkward birth.

The next afternoon, Vincent delivered me to the beach and then went home. I spent about an hour paddling up and down about twenty feet off the shoreline. It was Saturday and there were weekend jet ski people and speedboat people out there making waves that rushed into collisions, multiplied, and collapsed into me. It was a lively scene from “Storm At Sea: The Kayak Disaster Movie.”
Skip Sunday and Monday.

On Tuesday, I intended to get up by 7 a.m. and try a new solution to the kayak transportation issue. I wanted to be completely independent in moving my kayak from the driveway to the beach and back again. If I am dependent, I know I won’t be going to the river as often. I created an auxiliary transportation device out of our son’s skateboard taped with bubble wrap as a cushion to protect both the board and the boat. Bungee cords from Ocean State Job Lots and an old green towel completed the scheme. After testing on the driveway, I abandoned the ragamuffinly, towel-ends-dragging contrivance and arranged another assist from my patient husband. I vowed to give this another try when it was not 90 degrees out. After all this, I forgot my paddle at home and had to walk back to get it.

When I finally got out on the water, it was approaching 9 am and the sun was shining unabashedly. The water was still and green, thick and opaque. My paddles and a black duck created only the slightest turbulence. Once I got into a rhythm of not dipping too deep, I found myself gliding with minimal “point oscillation” (front end of kayak pointing left and right as I dipped the paddle on opposite sides of the boat). Finally, I understood what salespeople were saying about my 9-foot boat being very stable, and that the longer, thinner boats “track” better. Ah-h-h, yes!

No other boats were active that morning, save for a solitary motor boat with a standing driver racing inexplicably up and down a short section of the river for about fifteen minutes. The wake from this boat reached me in sheets of flexible mirrored surfaces. I let my boat face the curves coming at us quietly like “shining from shook foil.” Not long after, the intense sun chased me back to my beach and a call for help to get home.

On Wednesday morning I set my alarm clock for 7 a.m. and, even so, the sun was up way before me. I remembered the paddle, but almost forgot the cellphone and life jacket! I was on the water by 7:30 a.m. and found that I could comfortably trace the shade along the east bank of the river where tall trees would hold slumbering shadows in their arms for another hour or so.

Alone with black ducks (Anas rubripes) and dragonflies (Anisoptera), this fourth expedition was the experience I had been hoping for . . . gliding without knowing effort; floating without sensing weight; and just being a bundle of elements continuous with elements above and below, inside and outside.

I set myself the challenge of sliding between two buoys on which serene black ducks were perched. I focused on not hitting the sides of the boat with the paddle, not splashing, not making any noise at all. Slowly, I drifted between the ducks without making eye contact. If I don’t make eye contact, I don’t exist. For one brief instant while crossing the line between two ducks contemplating morning, I became a black duck looking at the same quiet water, feeling the same light breeze ruffle my feathers.

Shortly after I crossed that line, the duck on my right broke the spell, lifted off the float, and skimmed in a wide arc through liminal space; not quite air, not quite water. I placed my palms flat on the water on both sides of my boat-skin and felt a synesthesia of temperature and texture: air . . . water . . . thick, warm, deep: breathing water; floating on air; which is which, both . . . and . . . I am, I am.