Lost Along the Way

 

Kayaking the Pocomoke River

 

River's Edge

“How do you know you’re not just chasing down the next adventure?” She had once asked me, “I’d think I’d be happy if I could just stop and smell the flowers along the way. That could be my adventure.”  Now the memory of my closest friend’s question is interrupted; here my kayaking partner and I are facing the wrong direction once again. Following his directions to reorient the boat, we turned away from the leaning branches and the shrubs of soft pink Swamp Roses. “Paddle to the left” so I paddle to the left. “Is the rudder straight?” it looks straight, but I am not completely sure. Look! A Prothonotary Warbler was hiding amongst those leaves. It’s rarely seen beyond this region, explains Grant, our guide. How fascinating! I can see it; I wish I could be closer. See, the other kayak is ahead of us; let’s paddle just a little bit harder.  They saw something, now we catch up and it is gone. I can still hear it I think, or else it is the tree coughing with a toddler’s light raspy breath. Although what I see does not disappoint me, for the shore sure is beautiful.  Now where was I?

What a frenzied, distracted mess rests in one’s mind! The more I’d search for some manner of meditation in the experience, the more it would elude me.  Perhaps it is only natural. After all, Hawthorne speaks in his Footprints on the Shore of so many different little encounters during his walk. Each one was in itself an adventure, a chance for meditation. Yet he also fought his distractions. Did not his memories accompany him as well? The sea invited him away from them, “for those ages find utterance in the sea’s unchanging voice and warn the listener to withdraw his interest from mortal vicissitudes, and let the infinite idea of eternity pervade his soul” (340).  Hawthorne’s narrator chose between the forest and the sea for his contemplation while here in the cypress swamp I enjoy a taste of both. Yet the channel I follow must soon bring me home.

We fall behind, so we try to pull ahead again, but each time the exhilaration of the race brings with it the reminder that there will be an end to the journey. This wooden box houses the wood ducks, and that tree has mistletoe growing in it. Ahead the docks come into view; it shall be over too soon. Yet as we go, I see by the shore that the water does not end at the trees, but travels further into a tantalizing unknown. I remember all of the turns we made, and all of the turns we could have made to take us farther away. How can I turn my interest toward eternity as Hawthorne’s sea demands? How can I reconcile my many conflicting thoughts with my present experiences? How can I see the flowers along the way as an adventure, when I have an unavoidable finish line before me?  Perhaps we sometimes need to let ourselves get lost. I do not mean we should remove that goal altogether. Rather we can make our goal not what we have planned, but that which we find. Our goal need not be where we must return but all of the places that we ended up.

Now the kayaks have been loaded up, but I am not ready to finish yet. Let me explore that side road, let me stop for a while here and there, let me make my adventure not my planned destination but of all the things I can find along the way. The sun is warm, but the wind is cool. Perhaps I shall wander toward the beach, I almost know the way. I shall not try to be back for dinner, because who knows what I will find!

By Jev Voight