Often on this program, I talk about the news. Today, I’m going to talk about how to get away from the news.
I bought a kayak on Craigslist for $100. On Saturday, I strapped it to the roof of my car and drove 20 minutes north from my home in Baltimore to the Big Gunpowder Falls river in Sparks.
I launched into the stream at a place where it’s only about six inches deep, and shaded by sycamores. The sun pierced the leafy canopy in spots to light up the streambed, which looked like a sandy road cobbled with gold.
My kayak, being cheap, lacks a rudder. And so the current swirled me sideways. At first, I corrected my course with my paddle. But then I stopped trying, leaned back, and just floated backwards, looking up above the wind-blown treetops into the clouds piled high in the brilliant blue sky. It was a great way to look at the world -- instead of always fighting the current, worrying about where I’m going.
I don’t know why, but drifting down that river, I thought about my father. Before his cancer, before he stopped working, he used to canoe when he was younger than me, with his whole life ahead of him. And I imagine that the sky, seen from his boat, must have looked exactly the same to him. On the land, since that time long ago, everything has changed – careers have come and gone; children have grown up and grown gray; housing developments and cars have replaced the sandy bluffs and forests and meadows that he saw when he was a young man. But from the water, the sky is still the same – always will be.
That, I suppose, is why it is so important for people to get out onto the water – so we can dissolve our troubled, passing minds into the eternal.
In the stream ahead, a dot appeared…and then a ripple. A black watersnake twisted across the river, undulating its way toward a muddy cliff. I paddled rapidly toward it, digging my blades against the flow and angling close to the snake, because I wanted to really see it. But then, when it looked at me and froze, I froze and decided I’d better get on my way.
Down the river, there was a massive slab of rock, with a rope swing dangling from a tree branch. A group of what looked like college kids were sunning themselves on the granite. A girl held the rope, staring at the cold water, and waited, waited, waited….until her friend screamed at her and she let loose, flying way out over the stream and then letting loose and flailing into the water.
That, I thought, is the scientific definition of summer.
I little bit further on my cruise, everything was quiet and still. A whitetail deer walked up to the grassy edge of the riverbank, and just stared at me as I floated past.
At the end of my trip, I overshot my landing place on purpose. The sun was so warm, I was so relaxed, I couldn’t bear to get off the river. So I floated all the way south to Paper Mill Road. There was neither a landing nor a path there. So I had to lift my kayak over my head and hurl it like a battering ram through the thickets of thorns to claw my way up the steep bank to the road.
A stranger saw me with my arms scratched and my thumb raised, and gave me a ride back to my car. I knew I’d be back – if I had a choice, every Saturday of my life.
