Kayaking alone

July 2, 2012 (posted late because I had no internet access!)
     I am alone in this nearly deserted campground, here in the lull between the weekend campers and those who will arrive tomorrow and Wednesday for the Fourth of July holiday.
     Rick and I drove separately Saturday and he left the following day to work Monday and Tuesday before returning tomorrow night, when a group of friends also starts to arrive.
     So today is mine alone at Half Moon Pond State Park in western Vermont -- a situation both exhilarating and scary. What shall I do with myself? Or, to borrow from Mary Oliver, what is it that I plan to do with my one wild and precious day?
     It's not that I'm afraid of harm. It's more like what my friend Tom, who regularly sojourns alone in the wilds of the Allagash Waterway  in Maine, says of those journeys: you have no way of escaping yourself.
     So, so far, I have slept in and had my usual exotic dreams -- which may be ways of both escaping and confronting myself. I have meditated twice. I have walked a mile, fighting flies all the way. I have read a little. And this afternoon, I did something I have never done -- I kayaked alone.
     It was a gentle paddle -- 45 minutes around the perimeter of the pond -- but I was surprised at how quickly my arms hurt after not having kayaked for a while. But oh, the things I saw: That other world beneath the surface of the water, with fallen tree branches supplicating like the arms of sunken-ship ghosts. Water lily pads shimmering on a current. A female mallard sunning. A dragonfly circling the boat and finally resting on my arm, as though he enjoyed my company.
     You know, I think I do, too.