Back to Basics for the First Time

The nice thing about abandoning your passions is that the only consequence is the starvation of you own soul.  No one else is directly affected.  It has been too long since my last aquatic stroll.  There is always a lot going on, with the feeling of never quite coming abreast with all the obligations to myself.  The basement office is almost done but not quite ready for moving in, still just a bit of sap to boil, running schedule is off, etc etc. The list is always there, everything to be tended to in good time.  Tonight, the last of a string of unseasonably warm days, was one beautiful afternoon too many not to capitalize upon. 

I only had a couple hours and did not want to make a big production out of anything (for a change).  I chose to check out a relatively isolated haunt that’s right in the middle of town, one of the closest to the house.  It's a little stretch that lies between dams on the Plover River, between McDill Pond and the Wisconsin River that I haven’t paddled in over 20 years.  Surrounded by an urbanscape, but with a relatively protected viewshed and with multiple access points by bike trails.  

Poe was only mildly curious as I lowered the bulky form of Ripple from the trusses in the garage where she had been stored all winter.  He didn’t care what I was up to as I loaded the canoe on my truck. Evidently my work around the house is a bore to him. Car rides mean adventure though, so he enjoyed the short ride to whiting Park.

I kept him in the truck as I readied our gear, and then lifted him into the vessel. 

I remember well my first time in a canoe, especially since I’ve written about it several times.  My mind was blown by this new version of existence, away from land, where the surface my body is rooted to rocks and shifts with every movement.  The moment was peaceful and exhilarating at the same time.  I wanted to take everything in at once, and everywhere I looked was a new take on something once familiar.  Poe’s physical exuberance this evening was exactly how my consciousness felt on my first time in a canoe. 

The medium of support, ever changing, playfully fluid, exercises a combination of passivity and resistance to everything that touches it.  Waves and ripples tell the tale of every action, and on an evening like that one, as with this one, a tone of calming acceptance set perfectly by the glassy reflective surface, pervades all.  In the midst of everything this evening, the earth is awakening from the catnap that has been this season’s excuse for winter.  Most markedly, redwing blackbirds were staking their territory.  Waterfowl of different sorts flew over or were trying to avoid us in the dimmer alcoves along the shore.  Most would noisily fly off, intolerant of this boat and curious puppy.

Between these distractions, Poe was captivated by the water.  Staring at his reflection, wondering at my paddle dipping into and passing through it, looking out across the reflective surface, and feeling the lurch of the canoe from the paddle strokes that propelled us across its surface were all things he apparently had a hard time making sense of. 

At one point, he crawled under my seat to the very stern of the boat.  I heard thrashing as he tried putting his paws to the water, maybe in an attempt to walk across its surface.  He might have fallen out of the boat had I not grabbed his collar as his momentum started taking him overboard. Ahh, the folly of figuring out this physical existence. I'm glad I'm not the only one with blunders like this.

Before the second dam, we took out on river right.  Still new to the world at barely 13 weeks, Poe sniffed around and did not dare to stray too far, even without his leash that I kept off him

till we approached a trail.  Investigating pretty much everything, excited to explore the next bit of landscape, I experienced through his exuberance the curiosity he was feeling.  Everything felt new, rife with possibility, and with no considerations beyond the present moment.  Man, I needed this.

We made our way up an embankment to the Green Circle Trail, to the house of the Whiting Spring, and down the Green Circle to the site of the old Whiting Paper Mill.  The surrounding asphalt a scar upon the landscape that will be buried under a few feet of sand and a dam that will hopefully be someday removed, this territory offers a beautiful view of the Wisconsin River below.  The site has a lot of healing to do, though. It will be interesting to see to what degree we remediate it.

At this our turn around point, I decided to record the return journey with an app on my phone.  To legitimize it among my peers I suppose.  But for me, this evening was real.  I have the peace of mind to prove it.