I stand out here on the water, waiting, observing. I shift my weight in tiny increments. The board under my feet shifts in the water. I watch the wind touch the water, barely touching the surface, barely moving the water, but I feel it touch my ankles, and I and my board shift almost imperceptibly. It is a sunny, warm, summer-ish day. Not many people are on the water. I look down the bay and see generic, white motorboats, all indistinguishable from each other. I reach forward and paddle, suddenly moving across the surface of the water. Another stroke, then another. I move with entropy towards a moored sailboat. It has been in the water all winter. Its bottom black and slimy. Nearby, another boat lies at anchor. She is wooden and looks clean and crisp from her winter spruce up, ready for a summer. I pull myself even farther forward, bending at the hips, using my body in a sturdy, sensual way. The front of my board catches a river current coming into the bay and I turn slightly, but deep underneath there is a counter current, dark and boiling. The fin at the back of my board responds to the different rhythm than the one that took the front, and my body becomes conflicted. Which song do I listen to? I have to bend my knees momentarily and brace my body with many muscles, so I don’t fall until the board comes into stasis with itself. I dip my paddle and move forward again. I pause. Another stroke and another.
I go out on the water not to reach a destination but to know the water. I listen to the water knowing it not with facts, but with my body. I identify with outdoorsmen, skiers, hikers, sailors, mountaineers, bikers, but most of them seem to be in pursuit of something, chasing something. I long to know the mountains, the water, the ground, and my environment not so that I accumulate or win it, but so that I can become in relation to it. I don’t understand the concept of “conquering” nature.
I paddle out onto Narragansett Bay where the Palmer and Barrington Rivers drain. The bottom of the water is filled with green ribbons of some sort of kelp or sea grass. I try to learn from these waters, but it is obvious that I am from away—I know the waters of Casco Bay, know the pull of her tides, the vicious crags of the sharp glacial scraped rocks, sharp enough to cut into hulls, the sucking black mud, the currents caused by the moon pulling the water through the rocks and islands. Here I am an outsider. The tides are too short, the water reacting differently on the surface because I don’t know what lies beneath. My body is not in relation to these currents, not able to anticipate where the waters pull and mingle, where there is safety and where the dangers lie. I pull my paddle towards me and learn something new.