water

part one of several entries about the big vacation.

the week after school ends we find ourselves in maine. it is just after six thirty a.m. and the sweetie and his brother stand on the dock while i stare dubiously at the blue kayak. i do not know how to operate such a thing, but for months now, since the sweetie's parents sent word that the place we'd all spend a week together would be perched on the side of a hill overlooking a place called loon cove at the end of a long, island-studded lake, i've been drooling over the kayaks they mentioned would be waiting. i know how to paddle a canoe and i know how to row my own fine jon boat back at my own lake, but rowing is not at all like paddling. i am sure of it. i put on a life vest that is not at all like my own at home and i am sure i will die of strangulation before i ever get myself into the kayak.

i have seen fools in whitewater rolling over in these tiny plastic boats and friends have tried to explain what to do when the boat eventually spits me out into the water. because everyone, including me, is sure this is what will happen. eventually. i settle into the kayak and the sweetie hands me the paddle. it is surprisingly familiar. i paddle around the dock a bit and head out into the lake. the dizziness and questionable balance i drag around on land slides off me and the blue boat noses smoothly across the early morning water. there is a little island out a bit into the lake and i head for it, free of the land, free of the board of education of the city of new york, free of 90+ degree weather, free of subways and buses with angry drunks at noon.

but i am not a particularly good judge of distance and my six thirty a.m. self is not awake enough to consider that a first attempt at kayaking probably shouldn't include traveling a great distance across very deep water. i paddle about three quarters of the way over to the island before i am awake enough to think of this. i stop for a minute and look around me. i can no longer see the sweetie or his brother there on the dock. i can see a few houses on the shore but they are not any of them the house i came from. i consider that i might somehow die out here in this little boat because of lightning or whirlpool or deadly lake monster. none of these seems as likely as they usually do. i paddle toward the island. there is nobody there. birds and fish and water lilies, but no people. there is a small cove ringed with massive boulders and i glide in around them, watching the loons and terns watch me.

it occurs to me, more than half a mile from my version of the civilized world, that i have no water or food and there might be breakfast waiting back at that house i can't see. i paddle back in the direction i think i came from and catch sight of a fish hatcheries building i know is a few docks over from the sweetie and his family and breakfast. i am halfway back before i see the dock with tiny versions of the sweetie and his brother. when i paddle up the sweetie is waiting to help me back onto the dock, back onto the world.

there is breakfast and then there is sitting on the screened porch, looking out at the lake and the island. this is the first time in a very long time i have tried something new without being terrified. tried something new by myself, just because it seemed interesting. it is a small, small step in a line of other small steps. it feels good to be moving forward.