Canoe

Day 111: Canoe, Paddles and Seat Cushions
Rich purchased this canoe ten years ago in Orlando, Florida from a Craig's List ad. We were visiting his parents in St. Augustine. For some reason, Rich preferred not to join his parents, the kids and me on a day trip to SeaWorld (imagine skipping SeaWorld!), so the five of us picked the canoe up from the seller without him. My father-in-law Bill and I had to figure out how to strap it on top of Bill's minivan with only half-remembered instructions; smart phones were still in the future. The result was the boat buzzed and wobbled all the way from Orlando to St. Augustine. Miraculously, it did not slide off and cause a multi-car pile-up on the freeway.

My memories of childhood are rich with family activities. A trip to the orange grove in Fort Lauderdale; I was jealous of the coconut my sister scavenged, so I ran outside to get one of my own. Underneath, a nest of red ants; my father rescued me by hosing me off. Weekends at the cottage on Pleasant Lake, crewing for my father as he sailed our little two-man boat, or jumping off the top deck of the pontoon, or paddling the canoe down the St. Joseph river in Kalamazoo. Long car-rides to Mount Rushmore, or Banff, or the Lake of the Ozarks, or Washington D.C., reading, looking out the window, singing along to John Denver, all five of us in a single hotel room, Karl on a folding cot and Hostess powdered sugar donuts for breakfast.

I wonder sometimes if I have given my children this rich store of memories, because the trips I've taken with them are much vaguer in my mind. But I suspect this is because time rushes forward so quickly in adulthood, and car trips and camping and bike rides and hotel rooms and paddling all run together like an impressionist painting.

My chosen family - my husband, my children - has paddled this canoe on the Huron and the Metanzas and the Au Sable. We've canoed on Lake Michigan and Pickerel Lake. On the Au Sable, we tried to fit our 100-pound black lab, Chester, in the boat with the four of us. He jumped out and and then I fell out trying to pull him in. Emma, aged ten, jumped out to rescue me: such a strong swimmer and she does so love to help. In the end, we had to paddle a mile upstream calling "Chester" and whistling, while the dog ran along the shore as best he could. We all survived.

I wonder, is that trip imprinted on their minds, a Dutch master memory? Or is it already forgotten?

Just over seven years ago, we already had the canoe strapped on top of the car and were getting ready to head for the river when the phone call came that Bill had died from complications resulting from surgery. Stunned, we went ahead with the trip. The four of us paddled lazily down the Huron, remembering Papa, taking it in. The next day, we piled into the car and headed down to St. Augustine to say goodbye.

We can't fit the four of us in the canoe any more, and no one is willing to sit in a puddle in the bottom of the boat with their knees around their ears. Very soon, there will be only three of us living in our house, and then, only two. Rich and I are thinking of kayaks, or sailboats, or scampers, or... or... who knows what?

The canoe has been hanging from its hooks in the garage for three years. It's time to let go.