Down the Lane
It’s been a long time since I’ve had any time or silence to myself, especially lately. The semester ends this month and the homework has been piling up. Final projects must be fleshed out, final papers must be written, and final portfolios must be put together. I couldn’t tell you the last time I read a book, played a game, wrote a poem, or created something for the simple reason of doing it for myself and my own pleasure. My mind is full of stuff I have to do and the planning and testing of my multitasking skills.
But not today. Today I’m letting go of everything that has made up my days, hours, and last weeks, and will make up my days after this for weeks to come. It won’t even be all of today, only a few preciously short hours. But today belongs to me; and it’s the perfect morning for kayaking. The sun’s taken refuge behind changing shades of waterlogged grey clouds that waft the subtle suggestion of life and afternoon rain down. The trees, freed of the color muting sun, are vibrant in their multitude of greens, while overgrown ducks forage below on the mottled lawn for stray birdseed and early rising bugs.
The grand endangered wood stork is dancing at the edges of the lake’s old banks, kicking free its breakfast. It’s made this backyard and lake it’s home since I can remember; back before the lake started suffering as it does now from the drought. Its shores have shrunken so far it’s become more of a large puddle than a lake. Its waters are flat and dark today; casting perfect reflections of the world above it. There are no more fish or gators to fill it and cause ripples on the surface; only the birdseed fed ducks and the elderly woo stork.
Yet even as I admire it all, I know that only a songs distance from here, the water that awaits me will not be like this. It is crystal clear, reflecting the abundance of life within it, not above it; and it is swift and wild with depths fathomable only when it chooses to be so. I’ll meet every corner at its mercy and only hope to be able to capture and hold its spirit; though I know that’s impossible. Even now I’m aware I’ll only be an intruder, and that the river will keep most of its secrets to itself, allowing me only glimpses at brief time.
When we arrive at the river’s side, there’s a brief discussion of who will use which kayaks. My second youngest cousin, and my uncle’s youngest, has never kayaked before, though she often boats. We decide the sit-a-top style will be best for her. It’s been my faithful companion lately, but I’m excited to revisit my whitewater kayak as I would an old lover. I know that it’ll respond not only to my paddles, but my hips as well.
I curb my excitement as we prepare to launch. Safely checks must be preformed quickly and pictures must be taken first: Life jackets on, and paddles standing taller than ourselves at the side, posing; a family tradition.
I’m the first to launch. My uncle pushes as I scoot and did my paddle into the sandy bank for extra pull. In only a few seconds time I’m free, of the world I live submersed in, and entire new one under my and surrounding me. I slide first one side of my paddle into the water and then the other, alternating sides to keep a straight path. I hold my paddle on the right side just a little longer than I had the rest, putting the nose of my boat in the current to help me turn around so I can make sure the rest of my group makes it in safely.
They do and we make the brief trip upriver to warm up. We pass our entry point flowing with the river this time, and tackle the first wide turns with ease. The current is strong today, as always fueled by the nearby spring and recent rains. The water is so clear we can see everything, straight to the bottom. We can see how the current cuts the sands always from one bank to the opposite, with the far bank always deeper containing shades of blues and greens that no painter, master or apprentice, will ever be able to replicate. Those shades belong to the river alone; as do its limestone sculptures. Nooks carved into yellow and brown-tan rock create structures as fine as any human sculptor’s masterpiece, even greater so when judged by its creation. They’re covered in the whitest sand any of us have seen; the base for greenery that is shaped by the rivers flow.
My cousin has gotten her paddling together by now and we are picking up from speed. I’m leading as my uncle orders her to follow me since I know how to best navigate the currents and the corners; able to guess which side of the river might provide the river’s more intimate secrets. On fact, to me, it feels second nature and when I just do and stop thinking about it, I’m even better at navigating us along.
But I don’t want to stay with them for long. This day is for me, and I want silence. Already the sounds of cars from the nearby highways are muted, and now I have the urge to get away from my companions noisy talking and paddling. I crave silence, and peace, and to be alone. So I speed my pace up, just a bit; it won’t take me much.
But I’m not worried about them either. We all have whistles on ourselves if we flip, and a whistle travels a long distance in the relative silence of the water and repetitive birdsong on the river. Plus they have each other, while I am alone, although I know I won’t flip.
Within a short time, the clock’s time doesn’t exist out here, I’m farther ahead than I meant to be, but that’s ok, I finally feel entirely at ease. I relax back into my seat, dip my paddles again, and admire my surroundings some more.
The sky is still grey, so I’m privileged to all the varying true colors of the trees along the shores, and of the sea grassed and dead leaves traveling with river with me. Now and then I catch glimpses of bright purple patches on the banks, and I notice a new flower I’ve never seen anywhere before. It stands a couple of feet above the water despite a bottom and roots that are joined with the sandy shallows, and it has a peculiar off white flower. It doesn’t appear to be like any bloom I know, and I don’t see any petals like a rose or even an orchid. It’s more like a large central bulb, with little tapering spires dotted at the end with tiny spheres reaching off in all directions. And it looks like they would be sticky. I’m not sure why they give me that impression, but I’m not about to touch it and find out. It’s a tough plant though. It stands in some of the strongest currents I’ve seen yet, and it’s not wavering in the slightest as other plants do.
The water is also teeming with life today. I’ve seen so many fish, and more the farther down I get. I’ve seen small fish, medium and big fish, and I take a moment to grin outwardly as I recite the old kid’s rhyme in my head. Some of the fish are alone, but mostly they’re in small or large schools. I barely have a chance to see them though they always seem to know when I’m coming and what side I’ll be on so they can avoid me. And then sometimes, I don’t even notice them until they’re startled by something or another and move so suddenly that all I’ll first see is flashes of silver. They’re camouflage is remarkably good, especially considering they’re mostly silver. A few are banded with darker stripes, but it’s still odd to me as an amateur ichthyologist that there is no tone difference above and below the fish's lateral lines.
I ponder this for a while as I keep paddling, happily watching as a turtle swims right under my boat and under the ripples I just recently caused with my paddle. Finally, I decide that it must be the river itself that the fish have adapted too. The bottom of the river is white, and always clear, so a darker coloring above the lateral would not protect the fish through deception to air predators. The silver coloring does. But; what about the banded fish? While I saw some very large ones, most of them were fairly small.
Before I had much time to think about it, the river caught me off guard. I’d read the current wrong and paddled my kayak to just the point where it could grab the back and quickly spin me around backwards. Surprised, but not panicked, I righted myself, and reminded myself as well that even though I’m good, I still needed to respect the river’s power too. It reminded me of another time I’d said that to myself, on a river with a fast current that was only occasionally clear, and had rapids. I definitely had not taken off on my own on that trip.
It was almost six years ago now, long before dad even considered buying us out own kayaks, and dad had decided he wanted to try out a new river; the Alifia. At the time I was dating a guy named Tony, and dad invited him to come along with us. It was the first of any such invitation from my dad to any of my boyfriends, and would be the last too.
Tony was a tall boy, and while muscular, he had very long arms and legs. Kayaks don’t seem to take well to that sort, though maybe it was just Tony. He had problems from the start. He was almost never able to get his kayak to go consistently straight, and he constantly dug his paddle much deeper into the water than was required; and in doing so, he tired himself out early and made progress very slow. All of which were reasons why our group eventually left us behind to our own devices.
While Alafia’s current was fast in most places, it was also unusually deep and easygoing. The river was wide, and you could see mini rapids forming occasionally, but they were easily avoided if you desired to. There were only two spots on the river that had even the mildest of challenging rapids, and those were where the water fast becomes shallower and the bed mad of large, well worn river rocks although they were more like boulders than rocks.
At the first of these I went first. I made it easily through and turned to watch Tony. He must have made it; through the first yard at best, because when I finally looked, the bottom of his kayak was all I saw and he must have let go of his paddle because it was almost at the end of the rapids.
Panic almost had time to set in before he popped up about halfway down the rapids and I yelled for him to put his feet out in front of him to help him navigate the boulders and to just float down the river till he was out of the rapids and to find a nearby tree to hang on to until I got to him with his boat and paddle. I retrieved both shortly downriver after making sure he’d safely gotten to a tree, and paddled back upriver to him with them. The water was still very fast moving here and it was impossible for me to get out and help him get back into the kayak like he needed.
“Hang onto your boat. We’ll attach it to mind, and I’ll paddle us down till we find a good spot,” I told him. A little ways down we found the perfect spot. There was a very large L shaped tree in the middle of the river. The longest part of the L was laying bank to bank, while the shorter section was pointed upriver and had a crook in it that would help us steady Tony’s boat as he got in. The bend in the L was also perfect to help me nestle the back of my kayak against itself and one of the smaller outcroppings of branch would keep the front steady and secure while I was out.
I paddled up, positioned my boat just right, and immediately realized my mistake. I hadn’t taken into account the large branch that was extended just under my boat which caused a tight and small space for the water to pass through. It intensified the current, which when I’d added myself, turned it into, in essence, a rapid. One that I was stuck sideways in, and that was filling my boat extraordinarily fast with river water; So fast that before I’d fully acknowledged my position, I’d been flipped and been bodily pinned between the boats and the branch below me. On top of that, the water was gushing over the top of my head and face, blinding me and preventing me from lifting my head above it to get some air.
Personally amazing to myself, I wasn’t and didn’t panic. My thought process was clearer to me than possibly ever before and I reacted just the same. My first action was to tilt my head back as far as I could, just enough so that my lips touched the surface. I opened my mouth and took a large breath of air. I got a lot of water as well, but it didn’t matter. At the same time, I reached for the boats edges to use them to push myself out and away as I’d been trained. That was when I noticed my foot. I’d been caught behind on of the foot pedals in the kayak and was hard to move due to the water that was still rushing in and over it. I managed to dislodge it, but in doing so, I flipped the kayak more, getting pushed further under and between as I lost my tentative grip on the boat. The water just after the branch below me was deep and there was no footing to gain. I started kicking them as hard as I could, trying to fight against the current that had me and reached below me in an attempt to grab at the branch. I was only barely able to grab it with my finger tips, and it was deceptively slippery in the current. Above the kayak was smooth and ungraspable as well, though I managed a very weak push against it, and I was running out of air, my exertions having taken most of it out of me.
I was still kicking and desperately grabbing when it briefly flashed in my mind that I might not live through this, and then I decided that hell no I wasn’t gonna die in a river. I pushed harder against the boat with my hands, and then I felt pressure under my armpits. It was Tony’s hands. He’d maneuvered to stand on another submerged branch behind me and was using his legs to pull against that as he pulled me up and out an angle. I got my head above water, took another breath, and redoubled my kicking efforts, pushing against the kayak bottom as hard as I could. I was finally standing on the log that Tony had been pulling from when the cold struck me. I shivered by we moved over to the L log and loaded him up, then righted my boat and loaded me in as well. It was silent between us; I hadn’t even said thank you. I hand paddled down the river till we found my paddle on a bank, and then continued on.
When we finally caught up with everyone, we were accused by my dad of stopping to have sex, and he wouldn’t believe our story of what had really happened. I didn’t argue with him past explaining, I rarely did; but that was another story in itself, and today was my day. And I’d reached the first fork in the river. Left would take me towards our exit point. I took a left. That’s what eventually happened to me and Tony. We met a fork in the road. He was sent away to jail, and I was on the left fork to college.
My trip, my day was half over. There wasn’t much to see the rest of the way I know. It was all homes on the river. Some were interesting to look at, but the silence and serenity of the upper half was ruined by them. They’re a reminded of what I’m going back to. And soon enough, the river follows in dreary suit; its crystalline waters turn green and brown with much built up from the slowing current.
I make it to the drop off point fifteen minutes ahead of my companions. It’s a concrete and metal park with only a single tree in it. It’s a far cry from even the tree lined bank across from it. It feels desolate compared to the vitality of the river I’ve just gotten off. I also know that I’m going to hear it from my companions for getting so far ahead of them, but I don’t really care. I’ve had my day and my trip on the mermaid river.
But not today. Today I’m letting go of everything that has made up my days, hours, and last weeks, and will make up my days after this for weeks to come. It won’t even be all of today, only a few preciously short hours. But today belongs to me; and it’s the perfect morning for kayaking. The sun’s taken refuge behind changing shades of waterlogged grey clouds that waft the subtle suggestion of life and afternoon rain down. The trees, freed of the color muting sun, are vibrant in their multitude of greens, while overgrown ducks forage below on the mottled lawn for stray birdseed and early rising bugs.
The grand endangered wood stork is dancing at the edges of the lake’s old banks, kicking free its breakfast. It’s made this backyard and lake it’s home since I can remember; back before the lake started suffering as it does now from the drought. Its shores have shrunken so far it’s become more of a large puddle than a lake. Its waters are flat and dark today; casting perfect reflections of the world above it. There are no more fish or gators to fill it and cause ripples on the surface; only the birdseed fed ducks and the elderly woo stork.
Yet even as I admire it all, I know that only a songs distance from here, the water that awaits me will not be like this. It is crystal clear, reflecting the abundance of life within it, not above it; and it is swift and wild with depths fathomable only when it chooses to be so. I’ll meet every corner at its mercy and only hope to be able to capture and hold its spirit; though I know that’s impossible. Even now I’m aware I’ll only be an intruder, and that the river will keep most of its secrets to itself, allowing me only glimpses at brief time.
When we arrive at the river’s side, there’s a brief discussion of who will use which kayaks. My second youngest cousin, and my uncle’s youngest, has never kayaked before, though she often boats. We decide the sit-a-top style will be best for her. It’s been my faithful companion lately, but I’m excited to revisit my whitewater kayak as I would an old lover. I know that it’ll respond not only to my paddles, but my hips as well.
I curb my excitement as we prepare to launch. Safely checks must be preformed quickly and pictures must be taken first: Life jackets on, and paddles standing taller than ourselves at the side, posing; a family tradition.
I’m the first to launch. My uncle pushes as I scoot and did my paddle into the sandy bank for extra pull. In only a few seconds time I’m free, of the world I live submersed in, and entire new one under my and surrounding me. I slide first one side of my paddle into the water and then the other, alternating sides to keep a straight path. I hold my paddle on the right side just a little longer than I had the rest, putting the nose of my boat in the current to help me turn around so I can make sure the rest of my group makes it in safely.
They do and we make the brief trip upriver to warm up. We pass our entry point flowing with the river this time, and tackle the first wide turns with ease. The current is strong today, as always fueled by the nearby spring and recent rains. The water is so clear we can see everything, straight to the bottom. We can see how the current cuts the sands always from one bank to the opposite, with the far bank always deeper containing shades of blues and greens that no painter, master or apprentice, will ever be able to replicate. Those shades belong to the river alone; as do its limestone sculptures. Nooks carved into yellow and brown-tan rock create structures as fine as any human sculptor’s masterpiece, even greater so when judged by its creation. They’re covered in the whitest sand any of us have seen; the base for greenery that is shaped by the rivers flow.
My cousin has gotten her paddling together by now and we are picking up from speed. I’m leading as my uncle orders her to follow me since I know how to best navigate the currents and the corners; able to guess which side of the river might provide the river’s more intimate secrets. On fact, to me, it feels second nature and when I just do and stop thinking about it, I’m even better at navigating us along.
But I don’t want to stay with them for long. This day is for me, and I want silence. Already the sounds of cars from the nearby highways are muted, and now I have the urge to get away from my companions noisy talking and paddling. I crave silence, and peace, and to be alone. So I speed my pace up, just a bit; it won’t take me much.
But I’m not worried about them either. We all have whistles on ourselves if we flip, and a whistle travels a long distance in the relative silence of the water and repetitive birdsong on the river. Plus they have each other, while I am alone, although I know I won’t flip.
Within a short time, the clock’s time doesn’t exist out here, I’m farther ahead than I meant to be, but that’s ok, I finally feel entirely at ease. I relax back into my seat, dip my paddles again, and admire my surroundings some more.
The sky is still grey, so I’m privileged to all the varying true colors of the trees along the shores, and of the sea grassed and dead leaves traveling with river with me. Now and then I catch glimpses of bright purple patches on the banks, and I notice a new flower I’ve never seen anywhere before. It stands a couple of feet above the water despite a bottom and roots that are joined with the sandy shallows, and it has a peculiar off white flower. It doesn’t appear to be like any bloom I know, and I don’t see any petals like a rose or even an orchid. It’s more like a large central bulb, with little tapering spires dotted at the end with tiny spheres reaching off in all directions. And it looks like they would be sticky. I’m not sure why they give me that impression, but I’m not about to touch it and find out. It’s a tough plant though. It stands in some of the strongest currents I’ve seen yet, and it’s not wavering in the slightest as other plants do.
The water is also teeming with life today. I’ve seen so many fish, and more the farther down I get. I’ve seen small fish, medium and big fish, and I take a moment to grin outwardly as I recite the old kid’s rhyme in my head. Some of the fish are alone, but mostly they’re in small or large schools. I barely have a chance to see them though they always seem to know when I’m coming and what side I’ll be on so they can avoid me. And then sometimes, I don’t even notice them until they’re startled by something or another and move so suddenly that all I’ll first see is flashes of silver. They’re camouflage is remarkably good, especially considering they’re mostly silver. A few are banded with darker stripes, but it’s still odd to me as an amateur ichthyologist that there is no tone difference above and below the fish's lateral lines.
I ponder this for a while as I keep paddling, happily watching as a turtle swims right under my boat and under the ripples I just recently caused with my paddle. Finally, I decide that it must be the river itself that the fish have adapted too. The bottom of the river is white, and always clear, so a darker coloring above the lateral would not protect the fish through deception to air predators. The silver coloring does. But; what about the banded fish? While I saw some very large ones, most of them were fairly small.
Before I had much time to think about it, the river caught me off guard. I’d read the current wrong and paddled my kayak to just the point where it could grab the back and quickly spin me around backwards. Surprised, but not panicked, I righted myself, and reminded myself as well that even though I’m good, I still needed to respect the river’s power too. It reminded me of another time I’d said that to myself, on a river with a fast current that was only occasionally clear, and had rapids. I definitely had not taken off on my own on that trip.
It was almost six years ago now, long before dad even considered buying us out own kayaks, and dad had decided he wanted to try out a new river; the Alifia. At the time I was dating a guy named Tony, and dad invited him to come along with us. It was the first of any such invitation from my dad to any of my boyfriends, and would be the last too.
Tony was a tall boy, and while muscular, he had very long arms and legs. Kayaks don’t seem to take well to that sort, though maybe it was just Tony. He had problems from the start. He was almost never able to get his kayak to go consistently straight, and he constantly dug his paddle much deeper into the water than was required; and in doing so, he tired himself out early and made progress very slow. All of which were reasons why our group eventually left us behind to our own devices.
While Alafia’s current was fast in most places, it was also unusually deep and easygoing. The river was wide, and you could see mini rapids forming occasionally, but they were easily avoided if you desired to. There were only two spots on the river that had even the mildest of challenging rapids, and those were where the water fast becomes shallower and the bed mad of large, well worn river rocks although they were more like boulders than rocks.
At the first of these I went first. I made it easily through and turned to watch Tony. He must have made it; through the first yard at best, because when I finally looked, the bottom of his kayak was all I saw and he must have let go of his paddle because it was almost at the end of the rapids.
Panic almost had time to set in before he popped up about halfway down the rapids and I yelled for him to put his feet out in front of him to help him navigate the boulders and to just float down the river till he was out of the rapids and to find a nearby tree to hang on to until I got to him with his boat and paddle. I retrieved both shortly downriver after making sure he’d safely gotten to a tree, and paddled back upriver to him with them. The water was still very fast moving here and it was impossible for me to get out and help him get back into the kayak like he needed.
“Hang onto your boat. We’ll attach it to mind, and I’ll paddle us down till we find a good spot,” I told him. A little ways down we found the perfect spot. There was a very large L shaped tree in the middle of the river. The longest part of the L was laying bank to bank, while the shorter section was pointed upriver and had a crook in it that would help us steady Tony’s boat as he got in. The bend in the L was also perfect to help me nestle the back of my kayak against itself and one of the smaller outcroppings of branch would keep the front steady and secure while I was out.
I paddled up, positioned my boat just right, and immediately realized my mistake. I hadn’t taken into account the large branch that was extended just under my boat which caused a tight and small space for the water to pass through. It intensified the current, which when I’d added myself, turned it into, in essence, a rapid. One that I was stuck sideways in, and that was filling my boat extraordinarily fast with river water; So fast that before I’d fully acknowledged my position, I’d been flipped and been bodily pinned between the boats and the branch below me. On top of that, the water was gushing over the top of my head and face, blinding me and preventing me from lifting my head above it to get some air.
Personally amazing to myself, I wasn’t and didn’t panic. My thought process was clearer to me than possibly ever before and I reacted just the same. My first action was to tilt my head back as far as I could, just enough so that my lips touched the surface. I opened my mouth and took a large breath of air. I got a lot of water as well, but it didn’t matter. At the same time, I reached for the boats edges to use them to push myself out and away as I’d been trained. That was when I noticed my foot. I’d been caught behind on of the foot pedals in the kayak and was hard to move due to the water that was still rushing in and over it. I managed to dislodge it, but in doing so, I flipped the kayak more, getting pushed further under and between as I lost my tentative grip on the boat. The water just after the branch below me was deep and there was no footing to gain. I started kicking them as hard as I could, trying to fight against the current that had me and reached below me in an attempt to grab at the branch. I was only barely able to grab it with my finger tips, and it was deceptively slippery in the current. Above the kayak was smooth and ungraspable as well, though I managed a very weak push against it, and I was running out of air, my exertions having taken most of it out of me.
I was still kicking and desperately grabbing when it briefly flashed in my mind that I might not live through this, and then I decided that hell no I wasn’t gonna die in a river. I pushed harder against the boat with my hands, and then I felt pressure under my armpits. It was Tony’s hands. He’d maneuvered to stand on another submerged branch behind me and was using his legs to pull against that as he pulled me up and out an angle. I got my head above water, took another breath, and redoubled my kicking efforts, pushing against the kayak bottom as hard as I could. I was finally standing on the log that Tony had been pulling from when the cold struck me. I shivered by we moved over to the L log and loaded him up, then righted my boat and loaded me in as well. It was silent between us; I hadn’t even said thank you. I hand paddled down the river till we found my paddle on a bank, and then continued on.
When we finally caught up with everyone, we were accused by my dad of stopping to have sex, and he wouldn’t believe our story of what had really happened. I didn’t argue with him past explaining, I rarely did; but that was another story in itself, and today was my day. And I’d reached the first fork in the river. Left would take me towards our exit point. I took a left. That’s what eventually happened to me and Tony. We met a fork in the road. He was sent away to jail, and I was on the left fork to college.
My trip, my day was half over. There wasn’t much to see the rest of the way I know. It was all homes on the river. Some were interesting to look at, but the silence and serenity of the upper half was ruined by them. They’re a reminded of what I’m going back to. And soon enough, the river follows in dreary suit; its crystalline waters turn green and brown with much built up from the slowing current.
I make it to the drop off point fifteen minutes ahead of my companions. It’s a concrete and metal park with only a single tree in it. It’s a far cry from even the tree lined bank across from it. It feels desolate compared to the vitality of the river I’ve just gotten off. I also know that I’m going to hear it from my companions for getting so far ahead of them, but I don’t really care. I’ve had my day and my trip on the mermaid river.