Helayne's inflatable kayak (Intek 1 Challenger) looks like the nose-cone of the Space Shuttle--downsized. It doesn't help that the cheapest life-vest at the Dollar Store was a red and yellow NASCAR decal model. When she plopped into the kayak, it was like someone had dropped an amusement park ride onto the lawn.
However, all it took was one afternoon, on the pond behind her house, to hook her on kayaking--even in an inflatable!
Of course, the giant lilypads (like green, lace doilies--eaten in perfect circles all around the inside rim of the leaves, by freshwater snails) and gently undulating grasses, had their effects, too. Or maybe it was the red- striped turtle, that waited until we drifted two feet from its rock, before taking a nose-dive into the water? Of course, the blue heron that sailed directly from a branch overhanging us, contributed. Not even when we got close to the two dams, which H. is terrified of, took away her joyous abandon.
"You know, I'm not even wearing make-up! I don't care what I look like--I have never been so relaxed in all of my life!" she called to me, across the rusty pond.
After watching me "dismount" from the interior of my hard-hulled vessel, and promptly slip in the muck at the edge, her mood only grew lighter. The ease of standing straight up, and simply walking out of her inflatable, compared to my roll and flip exit, finished the day of grace for her.
"Tomorrow, let's try a bigger body of water! I'm so up for it! I want to do this every day! Can you imagine? We'll have arms like Schwarzenegger if we paddle a few hours every morning!" Helayne was almost dancing on the grass as we pulled the kayaks up to her shed.
(It's been a while since Helayne has seen Arnold...)
"Okay, how about Lake Wampanoag, tomorrow? I haven't been on that lake for forty-five years! Seriously.
I found this little "put in", off the main camp road, between some blueberry bushes and white pine trees. Nobody will even see our cars. You up for it?" I asked her, wiping the "For Bald Guys Only" sunscreen I'd pinched from my Dad, off my eyebrows.
"Yes!"
Next afternoon, I was strapping my orange "Manta-the-Kayak" to "Tortguga", my low-flying Subaru. Twenty bungee cords, two ballistic webbing straps and a couple of foam "bricks" and we were almost ready. Helayne merely threw "Pocohantas" into the back of her Rav4.
"You know, maybe we can strap your kayak to the top of my car...I mean, if you get hung up in the woods or something..." she offered.
"H., neither you nor I can reach half-way to the rack on your vehicle...let's be real." I strung another bungee cord to my bumper. (It was a nice thought, though.)
Her teen-aged youngest son checked out the weather report for us. (In a single-parent family, one doesn't want to see one's single- parent struck by lightning. )He gave us the all-clear, bemused that I'd introduced his Mom to this whacky enterprise.
We drove through the center of town...me, resembling a real turtle, and H. a flash of silver, in the Rav4 with the inflatable kayak jammed all the way up to the front windshield, next to her.
When we passed the town golf course, we immediately entered another world : a tunnel of tree branches. Twenty degrees cooler, and resembling something Monet would have paused to paint, I couldn't help but be glad H. had been game enough to trust me, and to buy the inflatable kayak. Gardner is no high- risk area, but over the years, we have had a couple murderers and a serial killer come through town. And while I don't mind walking the dog out in the woods, alone, kayaking is not the best sport to take on solo...especially when one has to drive down long dirt roads and park in the trees, even before hitting the water.
Helayne had acquiesced to something that not even my pro-surfing buddies in Huntington Beach, CA had agreed to do: go kayaking with me, more than once! I kept my eye on the rearview mirror, checking her progress, as I carefully avoided potholes in the outback road. Finally, we came to the camp gates, pulled in, and drove just a wee bit further, into the arms of the forest.
In walking Maeve, out here, one morning, I'd noticed a neglected turn-off and found how close it came to the edge of the lake. (Clearly, only fishermen, or maybe some teens had made use of the little break in the treeline.) I put Tortuga in park and hopped out. The pine incense cleared my head. The buzz of the cicadas and crickets in the grass, were giving us a hand for arriving safely--kayaks intact. Helayne got out, ready to rock and roll the waves.
We hauled my kayak down, first,and carried it to the lip of the bank. Then,opening the back of her Rav4, we "released" her rocket: it popped out like silly string, ready to become immersed. I made sure my keys were in a pocket of my shorts that had buttons, and that my sunglasses were secure. Then, jumping into "Manta", I pushed off. Helayne was right behind me.
(We might have resembled a clown act from Barnum and Bailey's Circus, but we were deadly serious.)
Immediately, it was like what all good things are like: a cold beer on a hot afternoon; a hug from a well-missed friend; clean sheets on a bed when one's had a hard day; popcorn at a great movie; a first kiss...the list goes on. Simple pleasures. Sheer bliss. We found what we had come looking for.
The lake is large enough to be a real lake. The water is still clear. There are living fish, and frogs and dragonflies. Song birds scolded us from the trees overhanging the edges. No powerboats. Not even a sailboat to break the silence. Far off, across, on the other side, a couple other kayaks on the water. We basically had the lake to ourselves.
"I feel like an Indian--for reals!" Helayne laughed.
I back-paddled, and stifled my own giggles: between the huge red life-vest (emblazoned with a NASCAR decal) and the sheer silver vinyl sides of the inflatable, ( wearing her Jackie Kennedy sunglasses) Helayne truly resembled some alien visage--a blonde ET, set down in the middle of Lake Wampanoag. No matter. We were there, on the water, independent of all contraptions. Authentic as the water lillies surrounding us.
We spent three hours paddling one half of the lake. We crossed it, twice. In the middle, I spotted a large waterfowl, swimming about ten yards off my bow.
"It's a loon!" I pointed out to H.
She paddled over. "No, I think it's a mallard duck...seriously, Minns..."
H. has known me since we were very young. I have always had "eye challenges"--not quite Helen Keller, but close. Nobody trusts my eyesight...)
"Really, I think it's a duck," H. insisted, kindly.
Either way, it was magical, to be on the same level in the water, with the wild bird. (I hesitated to tell H.how homesick it made me for Southern CA, where the brown pelicans would dive bomb straight down next to me, and swim close enough to my sea kayak to touch--or when dolphins would mark time with my paddling, on the waves.) For this second voyage on the flat waters of Gardner, a duck was miracle enough.
As we got around the point, a dot of an island stuck out. We paddled around it silently, until Helayne noticed, the entire island was covered in high bush blueberries--none ripe enough to pick--but there!
"Oh my God, Karen, we can come back in three weeks and bring....plastic bags! It's like treasure! The whole island is a blueberry garden!"
I was worried she might fall out of her boat in her excitement.
As the sun grew less brutal, we paddled to the far end of the lake. H. just lay back, drifting on the waves, letting them lull her into a bit of a nap. I explored all the inlets--seeking out snapping turtles and nesting birds along the bushy shore. The water was crystal enough to see the remains of mussel shells, littering the bottom. These were cousins to the shells collected by local Indians and strung and worked into lines of "wampum".
I could feel ancestors' lining the shore in the shadows, and I sent out silent prayers, unashamed of my feelings of connection and peace. As I watched a huge, navy- blue dragonfly light on the prow of my kayak, I heard a scream!
Turning around, craning my neck, it was Helayne, hundreds of yards out in the middle of the lake!
(Calling would do nothing. She was too far off. I knew she wasn't sinking--I could see that. She had her enormous lifevest, anyway...)
I paddled full-tilt boogey to her side.
"You're right! You're right!" Helayne hollared as I pulled up beside her kayak."Did you hear it? It came up from under the water--they dive--under the water! It came up right beside me ...it screamed! Just like the movie, "On Golden Pond"! Do you remember? " The loons! The loons!" Helayne clapped her hands together. "I was in Miami when I saw that movie...it made me so homesick for New England, I cried through the whole thing...and now, a loon just popped up-- in front of me--yelling at me ! It's so cool, Minns! I love this sport! I want to be out here every day! I've never been so peaceful in my life!"
I watched the sparkle factor on the waves....watched the fast disappearing loon sink down into another dive...saw a pickerel skitter through the shadows on the rocks, below our drifting boats. (Yeah, I've missed this part of New England, too.)
Helayne floated off, lost in her reveries. (As puffed and comfortable as someone in an overstuffed recliner.) This was no white-water, adrenlin ride, for sure...but that was okay.
I paddled into another water-lillied cove. Hanging over the banking were clumps of blueberry bushes--these were ready to be picked! I took only a hanful, mindful of the birds and bears-- I couldn't refuse to take some back to Helayne. So, there we ended the afternoon: drifting on the cooling waters of Lake Wampanoag, smacking our berry-stained lips with the first fruits of the season; two, fifty-something, single women, (without make-up), unemployed in America, celebrating a new summer in an old friendship.
God bless the loons!
