On the Water

     I had lashed our kayaks down just before the hurricaine last month, so I hadn't had a chance to get out on the water for over a month. Yesterday's holiday and blessed reprise of summer-like weather gave me an opening to bring my boat out and I decided to take advantage of it.

     When we're at home, deciding to kayak is a semi-big deal. I have to haul equipment out of the basement, install the rack on my car, lift the kayak onto the rack and tie that down for the car trip to the water. The kayak is almost eighteen feet long and is an awkward sixty pounds whose weight is tricky to manage because it can shift all too easily in the loading, travel and unloading. Murphy's Law fully applies and usually kicks in.

     Putting the kayak rack securely on to the car is one of those groaner chores that I can try to skimp on, but end up inevitably paying the price for if I do skimp. Fine finger-eye coordination and hand strength combined do not make my skill-set list, so getting the Thule rack fit to receive my boat tests my patience and my ability to defer gratification, neither of which qualities I have in any abundance.

     Suffice it to say, I managed to load up the kayak and make the fifteen minute journey to the Scallop Pond waterways in the woods and wetlands along Peconic Bay. Stepping out of the car, I was immediately struck by the sunshine and warmth, the clear and fragrant air, and the medium strong colors of early fall -- the green grasses going sere and golden, a few russet leaves and the diamond sparkles on the water.

     I reversed the loading process and managed to get the boat down off my car roof without hurting me or the kayak, no easy feat. I put on my spray skirt and PFD (personal flotation device) and stuck my cell phone in a waterproof holder I hung around my neck, got into the boat and pushed off.

     Sometimes I am so stressed and hungry for a workout that I paddle hard without interruption for a half hour or more. Not this day. I kept stopping and gliding, listening, looking, smelling and feeling the air around me as the sun warmed up the morning. I listened to birds and insects constantly sound their various signature noises. I watched the even ripple lines my boat carved as I paddled forward. I smelled the salt tang in the air and the marsh aroma, redolent with life. I saw lots of birds and crabs and fish, big and small. A flock of wild turkeys patrolled the marshlands, aware of me but not unduly agitated by the glide of my boat thirty feet from their foray in the grass. Several times during the two hour paddle, beautiful small bright yellow moths buzzed my head. And six cormorants set up a picket line on separate navigation buoys, carefully following my progress and ready to blast away if I came too close.

     I was tired at the end of the two hour paddle (and grateful I could do that much after my illness earlier this year), so I got careless in reloading the boat onto the top of the car. Predictably, with the iron laws of gravity and Murphy combining in perfect coherence, I almost lost the boat off the car driving on the highway. So I had to stop and resecure the kayak with a great deal of effort and some extra twine fore and aft. Home safe, I reversed the process of earlier in the day and put everything away. Whew.

     The lessons and gifts of the day are many. Time spent in readying things for safe transport is time well spent -- shortcuts can be costly. Beautiful early fall days are fleeting and need to be grabbed and experienced before they give way to gray, cold winter days. Colors and movement and aromas on a day like I had on the water are occasions for prayers of gratitude, of course, but also opportunities to just be aware and take it all in. To be one being in such a wide canvas of creatures feels like a blessing, and that mends the frayed ends of my over-stressed nerves. It was a good day to be alive.

WIND CHILL

     It was pretty cold and windy this Northeast morning on the walk I do with my friend Bob. We both used the old runner's trick of putting petroleum jelly on our exposed cheekbones to ward off the wind's bite. And as long as we kept moving briskly, we were fairly warm. Swinging my arms helped also, and at least my inside temperature was pretty comfortable. I said a prayer for all the people who have to work outside all day in this cold.

     The rewards of such a cold walk, I kept telling myself, do outweigh the dread I experience just before going outside to begin it. There's sharing the discomfort which makes it more bearable. I often get to hear (or sometimes tell) a good story. And I get to listen to my own or another's heart a bit through something one of us is passionate about -- from kids and grandkids to politics and so much more.

     There's a smile on both our faces after we're done, inside the house, drinking coffee and eating a pb&j on toast. Two older guys grateful for still being able to move our bodies in challenging conditions, congratulating ourselves just a little for not letting this first cold snap of winter keep us huddled indoors. The warm living room felt pretty sweet after forty-five minutes of the cold wind.

     Many thoughts come up for me. We saw a gorgeous winter morning sunrise sky, all deep blues and magentas splashed across the remnants of the little snowstorm we had yesterday. We were also  blessed to have the clothes and the health to walk comfortably in, and to have that warm house to return to. We're just a few days away from the Winter Solstice, a day our ancient forebears marked as earth holy because it signalled the return of longer days and the promise of spring, sleeping under the cold, but soon to be marching toward warmth again.

     The very sharpness of this cold weather might be, I think, a clearer invitation to feel connection with everything. Feeling the alive energy of a cold morning can be a way of finding something to be grateful for rather than something to fear or only bundle up against.

     Praise cold and its winter gifts.

    

Here Comes Everybody

    Nancy and I spent the other day in Brooklyn. First we went to a Christmas party held at a renovated firehouse in Red Hook that houses a drop in and counseling center for firefighters & their families, other first responders and veterans. The lively crowd of active duty and retired firefighters, families and staff was having a great time.

     We then moved on to a vegetarian restaurant in our old neighborhood of Park Slope. Great lunch and interesting people watching as the Slope is always known for its characters. Think of it as Santa Cruz East.

     Finally we went to Bay Ridge to a big clothing store, Century 21, that has great prices on some really good things. Here's where an excellent day began to touch my spirit even more. In that crowded and item packed store was an array of people from all over the world, all sizes, colors, ethnicities and probably at least twenty different cultures. African, Russian, Arab, Indian, Chinese, Latin American were just some of the folks both on staff at the store and shopping like us. The Brooklyn young people on the store staff were themselves a great mix of these cultures and races. And they couldn't have been warmer, more helpful or more patient with the sometimes frazzled crowd.

     There was a day when that sort of experience would be a sure set-up for me to lose it or, at best, to barely hang on by my fingernails. Crowded places full of determined and impatient people would put me on edge and layers of civility and respect would peel off me in a heartbeat. Not this day.

     This day I was afforded the grace to be grateful and appreciative. One man patiently pushed his disabled partner in her wheelchair all around a crowded set of aisles. Clerks were polite and cheerful even when their customers weren't so much. Lots of folks, including us, spent significant time finding just the right size or color of sweater or shirt to gift someone else. Outside a Bay Ridge volunteer ambulance corps was doing a fundraiser, supported by a radio station remote truck sending the sounds of pop music up and down 86th St.

     If that afternoon of shopping were a microcosm of this country these days, or even of the whole world, there's a lot to celebrate. Don't we all look grand? as my Irish grandmother used to say. Don't we, indeed.

     Here comes everybody.