Three Hours on the Concord and Sudbury Rivers -or- Me, You, and a Silvery Canoe

As mentioned in another post, I love a canoe.  I love to canoe.  Before this past Sunday, though, I had not been in a canoe since the summer before my amputation, three years ago.

We always meant to go.  We just never got around to it.  Finally, this last weekend promised to be so beautiful that I insisted we get our sh*t together and just do it.  Having been to The Old Manse with me and loved it in early July, my true love immediately saw the sense of this idea.  We could do as others do, row up there, enjoy a leisurely picnic, and then row home.  The only problem was that we had no picnic basket.  Thus we resolved that Saturday would be Picnic Gear Acquisition Day, and Sunday would be the Day of the Canoe.

After poring over the selections in three different Walden Street stores, we found the perfect picnic kit -- and on sale, too!  We immediately tested our gear at the second-to-last performance this season of The Town Cow Theater's presentation of Measure for Measure, a very silly play so enjoyably produced and performed it commanded a rapt audience. (Click photo above left to enlarge.*)

After such a successful trial run, we knew we had found the perfect toolkit to facilitate -- and inspire -- future outings.  Now we had to try it out on the rivers!

I was nervous.  I had not gotten into a canoe with a fake leg before.  I did not photograph what I did for you, because I was too worried about the distinct possibility that I might drop my boyfriend's camera into the drink.  I do not know if I can do it by myself yet.  It wasn't difficult, but it was a trifle awkward.  Two men held the boat tight to the jetty, while I sat down, swung both legs into the boat, and then sort of slid my butt onto the prow seat, turning myself around to face front once I was all the way in.  Next time we go, I will see if I can manage this with only one man holding the boat still.  Baby steps, you know.

Getting in and out where we landed was much less complicated because my true love dragged the boat up onto the riverbank with me in it, and then I just got up and stepped out.  We merely reversed this sequence when it was time to get back into the water.  At some point I will have to figure out how to do this myself, because I hope and expect to canoe alone, often.  I find it so deliciously relaxing and rejuvenating.

Getting out was sort of the same thing when we returned to the boathouse.  Two men held the boat flush with the jetty, but instead of swinging my legs out or trying to stand up, I just sort of pulled myself up using my arms and hurled myself onto the dock belly first.  Apparently, I was somewhat less graceful than a sea lion.

"Ouch!" shrieked my love.

"Oh, did I hurt you?" I asked, anxiously, thinking perhaps he had gotten his fingers pinched between the boat and the dock or something when my weight had hit the wood.

"No.  That just looked like it hurt."

It didn't.  I am very strong, and this is a lot like how I get out of the bathtub every day, except here all the elements were moving in kind of different directions, constantly. 

Once on the dock, of course, standing up was easy, just like on land.  I'm just going to have to work on getting onto the dock without so much help.

It felt amazing to be back in a canoe.

The last time I was in one, I was literally dying of cancer.  I was so weak, I could barely paddle, and the huge tumor in my knee which had been bleeding for months had just started oozing smelly infectious crud to boot.  My true love had taken me out because I was so desperate to go, because I genuinely feared I would never go again, because I didn't know how bad it was yet or how many choices would be open to me, or what those choices would really mean for the possibility of recovering my own life.  I was still trying to avoid amputation, and was spending all my time not at work either sleeping 'til pain woke me or having vile tests and examinations, and horrifying conversations, at various institutions.

Back then I could barely paddle.  This last Sunday, though, I paddled with strength and assurance, cutting the water deeply, just the way my father had taught me in the canoe he'd built himself in our driveway nearly 40 years ago.  I felt ecstatic, triumphant.

Grateful.

We picnicked.

We enjoyed our repast while sitting on a bench "by the rude bridge that arched the flood," watching tourists.   It hardly looks "rude" now, does it?

Many of the tourists looked at our spread hungrily, speculatively. Many of their children regarded our boat hungrily, speculatively.  It was prudent of the rental guys to warn us not to leave our oars in the canoe while we were ashore! 

"There's a boat down there!" 

"Daddy, can we go on a boat ride?"

We urged people not to overlook The Old Manse while they visited The Battlefield.  I waved my hand dismissively.  "Oh, that.  That's just about men shooting at each other.  The Old Manse, that's romantic."

"The tour is very romantic."

"Heart-crushingly romantic."

"But also it's about the foundation of our literature and of the spirit and ethics and thought processes that gave rise to everything."

"And it's beautiful."

"It's very beautiful."

Canoeing is beautiful.  On a canoe, you can get out and see where the river looks like antique glass.  (Click to enlarge.)

With a canoe, you can imagine your life as though it exists in a European landscape painting from another century.  (Click to enlarge.)

In a canoe, you can discover secret havens (click to enlarge) --

-- and peer into green murk searching for turtles where the shadows are long but the tree roots are longer.  (Click to enlarge, but be warned that no turtles would sit still for the camera.)

Clumsy on land, perhaps, in a canoe you can paddle easily among ducks (click to enlarge) --

-- or glide silently, effortlessly to where the hamadryads come to drink.  (Click to enlarge.)

Bliss.

I'm so thrilled to have this back.

And grateful.  Very, very grateful.

_________________

P. S.:

Sometimes I kind of space out about flipping the calendar in my studio.  This week was a perfect example.  It's August 4 already, yet I only just now thought about flipping the page to August.

The calendar in my studio is a haiku calendar with beautiful old Japanese woodcuts illustrating a different haiku every month.  After writing rapturously about the joy of propelling oneself in good company along a river, I was delighted to be surprised by this month's offering:

cool clear water
and fireflies that vanish
that is all there is...

--Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), copied from Haiku:  Japanese Art and Poetry, published by Pomegranate Communications, Inc., © 2005 Trustees of The British Museum, London

_____
* My boyfriend does not know why I took this picture.  When he was uploading it from his digital camera to the shared drive, he thought I must have snapped it by mistake.  I did not, however.  Do you understand why I took it, what I saw and still see?

Just curious.

(back up)

Comments

[melissa b.]

The images and your description are gorgeous. Truly an enviable trip!

By the way, the way you get in and out of a canoe is not much different than how I (with two original legs) would do it. I'm positive you are far more graceful.

What do you see in that photo? I notice a little boy but I can't make out what he's leaning on.

[Sara]

Ah. Since I was there, it is obvious to me that the little boy is not leaning on anything, but rather clutching a piece of black fabric which soon after he used as a cape while raucously -- yet strangely not obtrusively -- playing pirates (ostensibly of the Caribbean) with his brother. Were the image reproduced at a larger size, you might be able to see this, too. Or maybe it got so Holga-fied by my love's cheap-o (but so handy) digital camera that the requisite separating details were not actually recorded.

This photo, though, and the painting I hope to make from it are not about the little boy, not exclusively. The key might be in the title, Rapt.

I will tell you other things. This play started at 6:00 in a tiny park which connects a major thoroughfare with an important parking lot. People walked through while the performance was going on. It being close to dusk, birds sang, including one particularly eloquent lark or wren right at 7:00, and squirrels busied themselves over our heads. Church bells went off every hour. Bugs bit us. A light breeze occasionally cooled us. We at the back enjoyed picnics, and occasionally actors in character would enter or exit through a gap in the bushes to our left, maybe speaking to us on the way as though we, too, were in Vienna awaiting the Duke's arrival. It really was the most delightful evening, including the performance, which you can see held our attention and thoroughly charmed us all, even while not separating us from the moment.

That's what the picture is about. The audience and the place.