"I Wish I Had a River..."

"I could skate away on."
That is a line from one of my favorite Joanie Mitchell songs. Yesterday we paddled on Turtle River, visiting again, a stretch of water I have paddled many times over the years. Paddling together is one of the things Karen and I enjoy and any time Karen is on or in, a river, she is happy. We needed happy. The whole of the time on the water was a welcome respite from a week that was in some ways, too long and in all ways, too exhausting.

We were paddling with friends, Dave and Tammy, their daughter Claire and her friend Hannah. Karen and I introduced them to the Jolly Rancher game and they introduced us to the silliness of young girls in a canoe.

Red-horse suckers zoomed upstream, jetting past us as we floated over pools in the river bends. Quick, bulbous torpedos visible for just a second against the river bottom before disappearing to deeper, darker water and safety.

Schools of minnows turned and flashed in the shallows as one, sparkling like the shiny scaled skin of a larger fish, displaying for our pleasure. A few times a minnow made great skipping leaps out across the surface, past the bow of our canoe and I imagined a hungry northern pike chasing the minnow toward shore, hoping to enjoy the taste of success.

It may be cliche' to say "the river worked magic and we were cured" but something like that did happen. We, all of us, came away feeling better; not cured, but better. Tammy is a breast cancer survivor and an inspirator for Karen. Tammy wanted to be crabby in the morning. Karen and I wanted to be stressed about getting the garden done and the lawn mowed before our trip to the Cities but the river took all that away, pulled it from us, through our hands into the paddles and from there, into the river where the red-horse suckers scurried away. Somewhere downstream right now, maybe in Kitchi or Cass, our troubles are floating, lost and alone and afraid without the comfort of a host to cling to while we, all of us, smile as we drift along, down the rivers, (literal and metaphorical) of our lives.

" I would teach my feet to fly... O, I wish I had a river, to skate away on."
Peace and love,
Mike