Surrounded by mountains, I slid the long, yellow Kayak quickly into the water. What waited for me was a lake of glass, covered in fog, it rolled down from the mountain and I imagined myself being swallowed into it, swept away from the world I'd left behind. I was alone on the water. with the wind in my hair and only the sound of my own quiet song keeping time with my paddle.
So I like to sing sailor songs when I'm on the water and yes the Kayak isn't much like a ship is it? Never the less, the question, "What does one do with a drunken sailor?" still needs to be answered. I only know like two sailing songs so the sound track does tend to get repetitive.
Anyway, it was lovely. Thus began my love of Kayaking, in the summer of 2017. Yeah it really just began.
So I was pretty keen to get my own Kayak, in fact I was dying to. The Summer of 2017 also happened to be one of the busiest summers of life and that dream seemed a little out of reach while I tried to keep the proverbial plates spinning.
But anyway, I bought one. And the how and why of that situation is not the purpose of this story. So, I bought one Ok?
Now, I ordered a hand cart on Amazon so that I could move it easily from my driveway to the small lakes in my neighborhood. But, I grew impatient so I just went to a sporting goods store and bought one.
So I was ready. Overworked, coming off days of rain and stress, a free hour and a break in the clouds. I was so ready.
So I go to the basement, I've got my kayaking gear ready. I've got water and special shoes and music and sun screen and snacks and just ...everything.
I take out the cart thinking it will be a snap to get it on.
Obviously, it wasn't a snap. Unless a snap consists of irate mumbling under ones breath, a fist shake at the wordless diagrams and a general feeling of defeat. As much as I hated to do it, I finally gave up and asked my husband for help.
So the cart, for the non-kayak-er, rests under one end of the kayak. One then secures it to the kayak using two straps. So we strap the kayak to the cart, my husband gives it a very quick test and tells me to have fun.
I begin pulling it out the door, but wait, it doesn't fit out the door, I thought it did, it looked like it did, nope, after all that work, it slides off the cart and lands sideways out the door, meanwhile, the cart has made its way down the path. Its almost as if it it doesn't WANT me to use it.
I resolve in my mind that I am going fix it on my own, I must if I am ever going to be an independent kayak-er. I mean, I try. but I can't do it. So I go back up and get the husband again. After some minor mocking he tries, unsuccessfully to fix it. I suggest we try bungee cords.
Another time, we agree.
We carry it to the road. Reattached the cart. And I start back on my way. I made it off my street even. Somewhere along the next street I hit a hill. and that's when things fell apart, literally (see pics). The cart got a flat, the strap came off. So I just stood there, with a broken down kayak in the middle of the street like an idiot. A school bus stopped, some middle school boys snickered as they walked past. I tried to get it back together once but when it fell again, with quite a bang, the neighbor came out and stood in front of their garage to see what the spectacle was about. And their dog was super helpful with its incessant barking.
So as I said, I stood there like an idiot. I debated what to do. I called the husband again. I asked him for bungee chords. He brought the car, took some pics, and dropped me off by the lake.
After so much struggle this was it, the maiden voyage. I stopped my push off from shore to take a picture, only my camera had disappeared into the deep crevices of the Kayak, I never did find it. So there is no picture.
Oh well, I don't need it I thought, I am here to be fully present in this moment, an hour later than I planned. But I am here and nothing can stop me now!
Yeah then it started raining.
Remember the mountain? The fog, the sailor songs. Remember those times?
They seem so long ago, in both this story and that day, the day of my struggle August 2017.
But this is life, isn't it? The awkward stages of learning, the trying and trying again. The idealized and the reality. There is beauty in both. The glory of triumph and the acceptance when we fail to reach perfection.
I earned the peace that finally came, after the rain stopped and actually after I climbed out of the water. It was the effortless strength of the bungee chords, allowing me to walk home with no further accidents, Kayak in tow, that let me know I'd won. I may have lost my water bottle on the way home, and never found it. But that's ok. I. Did. It.
Next time, tomorrow actually, it will be easier, and every time after until its habit, until its as easy as home.
It, life I mean, its never what it seems is it? It rarely meets our expectations, but there is beauty in every stumble isn't there? And when we continue to stumble, when we need help, when we refuse to quit. There is beauty.
