Calm, deep, clear and yet clouded. Silent, yet sounding. Stirring and still still. Cool and cold, but not bitter – not winter. Pristine and serene and pure.
Roll to the left, right shoulder rotation. Slip your elbow up, dive your hand forward and reach into the next moment. Stretching forward, now drawing back. Pulling yourself through, finding yourself filling the void before you. One stroke at a time. All the way. Where to? Wherever you want.
Exhale slowly, steal your inhale when you must. Deep inset. Sweet oxygen energy. All you need to keep going. For now. One more breath, such precious air.
Your lungs are singing and your muscles are humming. And the water is only mildly upset by you, and forgiving of your intrusion, but not yielding in its loyalty to the laws and properties of physics. You must know. You must respect. You must have healthy fear within your understanding and consider the knowledge you possess before sharpening it with your experience.
But there is no beauty quite like flying through water. No walls, no windows, no barriers… as reduced as you can be to a most basic existence.
Breath to propel you.
Your own mind to keep you company.
And the wind and the sky and the water…
As I loaded the kayak in the early dawn, I was thinking. I was thinking about Natalie, who would be kayaking for me. And I was thinking, that I could do the same for her. And it occurred to me that I have never operated a kayak before. I own half of one – since late May, early June! – and still have not been out in it.
My purpose requires the use of a kayak by somebody else whose purpose is to operate the kayak.
Well, that may strike you as less than profound, but to me it was interesting. I need somebody alongside me for certain things. Sometimes, I don’t need a quite so experienced kayaker, sometimes a friend is good enough. And sometimes, when it’s windy as I cross Lake Bomoseen, I need somebody a little more experienced and attentive.
There are people who come and go in our lives. It is important to see them for who they are. Some people are there to accompany you for the entirety of your journey. Some people are there to just get you back and forth through little things. Some people aren’t supposed to do either, and you have to understand that you can’t make them be something they aren’t.
Some people think they can get you where you’re going, but they don’t actually possess the skills to do so. Some people could really care less about what you’re doing, will take what they can from you, and leave you stranded.
But you know… it’s good to have a purpose. All purposes require guidance. All guidance begs authority. All authority is given by God.
Because when I’m out there on the open water, I can’t see where I’m going. I can’t hear what’s around me. I have no concept of time or direction or anything.
It is easier to swim with you there. It is easier to trust you than myself. It is the very thing that frees me to accomplish what is before me. No worrying, no fears, no navigation plotting and mad math… just the goal.
Get somebody, an authority, to come alongside you in your purpose. Because I have lost too many friends at sea who set out to reach their dream.