Saturday was a heavy chore day, which sucked, but getting everything done on Saturday meant we opened Sunday to goof off. The sky was clear, the leaves are falling, and we wanted to be out on the water. My husband put the paddleboards on the car while I collected wetsuits and towels, and we drove the half hour to our nearest lake.
This was the second time I wore my new wetsuit this season, and given how little time I actually spent in the water (read: none), it was a little too warm a day for a full wetsuit. About halfway through the paddle, I pulled the top down and the arms flapped free at my waist.
The day was glorious. It was just what I needed after a busy work week and the frantic planning for a last minute trip to New York City to take our daughter to see Harry Styles next weekend. The air was the crisp of late October, and a stiff breeze brought out the pretty white sails of sailboats.
Crunchy leaves floated on the lake’s surface in the coves we poked into. I saw two mallard ducks in a quiet, empty part of the lake — a brown and white female, and a male with his shimmering, peacock blue-green head — dunking their heads under the water with their butts in the air. I admired saffron-colored trees against the crystalline blue sky. I watched leaves fall gently down.
I wore booties on my feet to launch and recover so I wouldn’t have to step on the slippery boat ramp or wince as I walked on gravel, but I took them off to paddle. I feel more steady when the soles of my feet make direct contact with my paddleboard. My husband jumped into the lake when he got hot. Even with a wetsuit on, I wasn’t up for that. Instead, when I got hot, I slipped my paddle under the bungee, sat on my board, and dangled my bare feet off the side into the icy lake.
Back in May, I wrote about my aspiration to be unencumbered. What I didn’t write about is that at the beginning of the summer, my husband and I wondered, now that we have paddle boards, how much will we care about taking the sailboat out? We pledged to sail when we wanted to, but not to feel obligated to sail just because we had a sailboat we’d invested time and energy into.
Weekend after weekend, my husband threw the paddle boards on the top of the car while I packed a bag with sunscreen, towels and snacks. We drove to lakes and reservoirs, and even drove over to Chesapeake Bay for a three-day paddling weekend. True to my aspirations to minimize stuff, I did not even take my laptop on that trip.
Weekend after weekend, we did not hitch up the sail boat, did not drive it to the lake, did not spend half an hour stepping the mast in the parking lot, did not jockey for position at the boat ramp.
Some days as we paddled, we talked about how it would be a nice day to sail. And yet, we were paddling instead. We’d remember how good it felt to sail, and then we’d remember all the work that went into trailering the boat, the stress of the squirrelly wind and powerboat wakes on the lake, and then we’d dip our paddles into the water and glide in the silence. It was just as nice to paddle, and it was a lot less hassle.
When the end of August rolled around, and our sailboat sat next to the house, unmoved since the end of last summer, we decided it was time to find it a new home. We sold it to someone who was excited about it, an experienced sailor who will love it and sail it.
And we, now, are that much freer. The sale of the boat means no more trailer, no more boat maintenance, no more sail bags and cables and lines. No more mast repairs and hardware replacements, no more stress about whether the wind is exactly right for a good day on the lake, no more 30-60 minutes of prep and breakdown at the beginning and end of a sail, no more restrictions of needing to find an Airbnb with a dock. Without a boat to trailer, we can have the side of our house back for a wood pile (the wood is currently a steep walk up a hill to retrieve), and we’re no longer locked into the kind of car we have, if we wanted to get something smaller.
I feel lighter and nimbler. One step closer to being unencumbered.
My husband and I love the water. We met in the Florida Keys on a marine biology field course, and we both feel the pull of the ocean from our home in the Appalachian mountains.
The nearest salt water is more than four hours from us. We can’t get to it in the morning or evening for a walk on the beach, or in the afternoon for a quick swim, or any time to body surf or listen to waves crash and gulls cry.
To ease the separation, we started sailing on nearby mountain lakes. The air smells different from sea air, and the spaces aren’t as wide open as the ocean, but a lake is water, and our sailboat gets us out on it.
Last year, we tried a new way to get on the water. For Father’s Day, the kids and I took their dad to nearby Fairy Stone park and rented four stand-up paddle boards. We laughed, splashed, glided, laid on our backs on the boards with our hats over our faces.
Next thing you know, my husband and I have our own paddle boards.
We took them out Sunday for the first time this season. It would have been a good day to sail, too, but the paddle boards are easier. Plus, my husband found a reservoir nearby with limited power boat traffic, so it would be quiet and wake-free — a perfect place to paddle. With the boards, there is no trailering, no stepping the mast, no jockeying for boat ramp position. Once we got to Carvin’s Cove, we plopped the boards in the water and took off.
Over the years, we’ve started to notice how much of a burden stuff can be. Even stuff we we like, like our house, and like hobbies. I love our home and obviously I love my garden, but they’re both a lot of maintenance. And the bigger something is, the more maintenance it requires. Similarly, hobbies that require a lot of equipment become high maintenance. I used to be into cycling, but it got to be a hassle, what with all the gear, and having to find a good place to ride, and drive the bikes there, and then you have this dumb helmet and clacky shoes when you need to stop and get a snack, and you can’t leave the bike because it might get stolen, and you have to ride for hours to get a decent workout.
I eventually ditched the bike and switched to running, which just requires running shoes, clothes that wick sweat, and a half hour of time. I can go right out the door, and I can do it when I travel. As my husband pointed out, walking is even simpler: you don’t even have to change clothes. As long as you’re on land, traveling by foot is the most up-close-and-personal way to explore.
Similarly, my husband and I did a lot of SCUBA diving in our earlier years. After a while, the heavy tank, the gear, the limited bottom time, and the dependence on dive shops to get us to moorings all became burdensome. With a mask and snorkel we could get what we wanted — to see the underwater world — with our bodies free both on land and in the water. With a mask and snorkel, you can walk anywhere there’s water access and just get in and go.
Today I felt that same freedom with paddle boarding. Getting the boards on and off of the car is the most complicated part. Once you’re in the water, you can go anywhere, with no stress, little risk, and pretty much no limitations for water depth, proximity to shore, stopping and starting, and jumping in. It’s just you, your paddle, your leash, your board, and the water, right there, inches from your feet.
On the quiet of the reservoir, I heard the dip of my paddle blade, the rat-a-tat of ripples on the bottom of my board, the wind in the trees. When I saw flowers on shore, I paddled up to them and used my foot as an anchor so I could photograph them. When I was hot, I jumped in. When I wanted to do nothing, I sat on my board as if it were a beach blanket.
Relaxed in a cove
Mountain laurel on the bank
Cycling, SCUBA diving, and sailing definitely offer a more intense experience. You can go faster and deeper and farther with them, and I do like speed and depth and wind on my face. But the unencumbered way gets me the main thing I want and with a lot less hassle.
I love feeling unburdened. The more I experience it, the more I want to cultivate it in more areas in my life. I’ve purged almost all of my physical books, for example, and carry my library with me in my e-reader. As I think towards the day that will come when our kids move out and it’s just the two of us again, I wonder, “Could we just take off for a few months and be nomads? Live out of backpacks, go wherever we want, whenever we want? Explore oceans and cities all over the world without having to rush back home to maintain everything?”
When I ask that question, I look around and think, how much of this stuff do I really need? How much do I even want? The only things I need are the things I use on a daily or weekly basis (toothbrush, laptop for work, clothes), the things I want are the things I choose to use on a daily or weekly basis (e-reader, notebooks and pens, camera). I’d need to figure out my fountain pens and notebooks, but everything else could realistically fit in a backpack.
I aspire to feel as unencumbered in my life as I do on the paddle board. I want to be free to start, stop, poke around, and move on to a new place when I get the urge to wander.
On Father’s Day this year, the kids and I didn’t want to give their dad stuff. It was day 101 of the lockdown, and he’d already had a pandemic birthday shuttered up inside. We wanted to give him an experience, to leave the house, to do something together as a family instead of just spending money on physical doo-dads he may or may not want or need.
We found a state park nearby whose boat rental shop was open: Fairy Stone Lake. Our son, who was learning to drive at the time, drove the hour and a half drive on winding mountain roads. We thought about renting canoes, but then decided we all wanted to try paddleboards.
We loved everything about paddleboarding: the portability of the boards, how easy it is to swim off of them, their versatility — you can sit, stand, kneel, or even lie down to paddle. We loved that when you want to hang out, you can sit on the board and dangle your feet in the water, or you can lie back and chill out with your hat over your face.
Shortly after that trip, my husband and I bought paddleboards. They get us out of the house without having to get near other people, and they complement sailing perfectly because they’re better for days when there’s no wind.
We’ve paddled several times on Claytor Lake, a nearby lake we also sail on. But Claytor Lake is busy with power boats and jetskis. It can be loud, and there are lots of boat wakes to navigate when you’re standing on a floating board.
On Labor day we decided to try a new place to paddle: the New River. We’d tubed down the New River before, but we’d never paddled on it. A friend told us about a good place to put in where the current’s not too strong and there’s plenty of depth so you don’t have to worry about crashing your board over rocks and rapids.
Paddle on the New River
I loved it. When we paddled upstream, the sun was behind my right shoulder, and when I looked into the water on my left, the sunlight streamed in golden rays into the topaz depths. Sometimes the rays converged at my crown’s shadow, as if my shadow self were radiating sunlight from beneath the river’s surface.
The air temperature was in the low 80s. Not too terribly hot. On the river, though, standing on my board in a long-sleeved sun-protective rash guard and a life-vest that covered my torso and back, and the sun beating down on me at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I was hot. I put in a few good strong pulls with the paddle to get me going into the current so I could jump in quickly to cool off, and the water was crisp and chilled. It was colder than the lake, and it made me think of my favorite scene in The Sun Also Rises, when the characters go fishing in France and chill their wine in an alpine stream.
But my favorite part was the light in the water. September is beautiful for light. When we paddled into the shallows of an island in the middle of the river, the water was crystal clear. Looking out over the nose of my board, the shallows rippled golden in the light. When we stopped in shin deep water to hang out, the pebbles beneath us shone gold and bronze and copper. The colors are so beautiful, it’s no wonder those metals are precious.
But the pebbles through the clear, rippling water were even more awe-inspiring than precious metals because their beauty included light and water, two things that are uncaptureable. You can’t hold light and water in your hands. You can’t hold golden ripples. I think that’s why I love them.
Butterfly Mind 