Canoe canoe?

In my youth, there was a coolly erotic television ad for a men's cologne called Canoe. Understated, patient, it made its point. And it must have made an impression on my adolescent mind that there is something intimate about floating across the water together in near-silence punctuated by paddles breaking the surface as they enter and exit the water.

Alienated after church, in spite of the Ingathering service that marks the official start of the church year, in spite of the annual water celebration in which congregants pour a vial of water - from Lake Erie or the Niagara River or the Mediterranean Sea or wherever they have been over the summer - into a common bowl and describe in one sentence where they have been. In spite of dedicating the new religious education building in a loosely organized ritual of passing the chalice from person to person in a line stretching from the meeting hall to the new space across the street, I was feeling a bit "off" on the heels of this jolly, well-meaning, in-group occasion.

Gven Golly in her wisdom suggested that we put the canoe in the water, so I said sure. But when? We could do all the chores, all the baking, all the miscellaneous stuff, and then go when it cools off; or we could just go. I ate breakfast, drank coffee, wrote notes on some overdue birthday cards, read the paper. Let's just go.

So we loaded the old blue fiberglass canoe on top of the truck, tied it down securely enough to make it two miles out Walnut Street to Hoover, and put it in the water. We decided at the last minute to bring the dog along, so there was that bit of unpredictability. Dali was just a bit freaked out at first, never having been in a boat before, and her lurching back and forth evoked a few choice words from me. Eventually she settled down, kept a low center of gravity, and wasn't a problem.

The rest of the excursion was like a relationship in miniature. It was a lot windier on the water than in town, which I might have anticipated but didn't, and the water was a little choppy. It took us a while to get the hang of paddling directly against the waves, instead of diagonally across them, and eventually we centered ourselves and our surrealist canine friend without getting wet.

It's always an exercise in adaptability, paddling across the water, adapting to conditions and each other's paddling style, keeping our distance from fisherfolk, other boats, sandbars, and waves hitting us broadside. Going far enough without over-extending, having a somatic experience without creating a medical or marital emergency.

Long story short, Gven in the front found a rhythm of changing from right to left that worked for her, and Sven in back managed to pull hard enough and switch sides whenever we needed to change direction. So we cruised a ways up past the County Line bridge and back, not a major excursion but lots of fun.

Somehow that short, hourlong trip changed the rest of the day. We loaded the canoe, drove back up Walnut Street, unloaded the boat, and enjoyed a cold dark beverage. There was still plenty of time to bake bread and apple pie, grill salmon, and watch a very strange movie. Somehow the joint effort transformed otherwise ordinary things into really satisfying stuff, but now that I've been back on land for a while, words don't seem to get it. You had to be there, in the canoe.