A Reverie of Sorts

Sandwiched between the usual Sunday “what are we going to eat for dinner” and “where did I leave my cell phone this time” and “what are you planning to wear for school tomorrow”, a small slice of serenity.

The afternoon was supposed to entail a 24 mile bike ride, a short kayak jaunt on the lake and a bucket or two of balls on the driving range. Peace and contemplation did not seem to fit anywhere into this plan, but it was going to be fun.

Unfortunately, although I had brought beautiful Ruby Opal to ride, I had forgotten the helmet, gloves and shoes necessary to ride her. I banged my palm on the side of the truck in frustration. This was the second time I managed to leave the house half-assed in about as many weeks. For all of my bitching and moaning about the pain in my calf and my fatigue, I was really looking forward to the ride. Another Sunday ride shot, and my butt getting bigger and bigger in my bike shorts.

“Change of plans,” Allen decided after we parked over by the lake. “We paddle around. We go hit golf balls. It’s stupid to drive all the way back to Waresboro for your stuff.” A somewhat surprising declaration, considering that Allen is most definitely In Training for the end-of-season races, and really needed to get some miles in.

When we put the kayaks in the water, there were still a few speedboats and Jet Skis flying back and forth across the “lake”, really just a dammed up creek which was transformed into a long, skinny pond with iced-tea water. It’s really just fine: room for boating and fishing and paddling and birding.

Lib and I took our turns first. We hadn’t been out on them for a few months, and it was evident. We spun in circles and whacked into each other a few times, and paddled a little ways down and back by the shore.

Libby had enough adventure for one afternoon, and retired to the picnic tables to sit and reflect, Libby-style, by texting her best friend for the next hour.

By now, the sun was moving down toward the end of the lake, and the power people had departed for the afternoon. Allen and I ventured to the other shore. I wondered what the end of the lake looked like, because I’d never seen it, so we paddled down the middle of the lake toward the far shore.

This is the kind of kayaking I like- the quiet kind. These particular kayaks are not well-suited for whitewater or anything aggressive like that, so usually we paddle out past the waves in the ocean, or down the quiet part of the Chattahoochee River, or in this lake.

There’s no noise coming from the shore; the only sound is the small splish of the paddles a they hit the water. It’s quiet enough that, even with Allen twenty feet ahead of me, we can still carry on a conversation.

We paddled past the giant land yachts and the CCC-built cabins at the campground, over to the grassy border of the bird sanctuary. Sure enough, there was a flock of egrets heading that way, with one stray bird following behind. We surmised that this must be the Whiny Nerdy Bird: “Come on, guys, wait up! Geez….”

We somewhat reluctantly headed back to shore, not wanting the reverie to end, but not wanting to miss Sunday Whack-A-Ball over at the golf range. If we didn’t get back there soon, we would be playing what we affectionately call Sonar Golf— we can’t see where the ball is going, but we know it’s a good one by the sound it makes leaving the head of the club, and how long it takes to hear it plop down range.

We had brought a watermelon to the lake, a home grown one that is a source of great pride for me. I’ve never been able to grow more than a handful of tomatoes and two cucumbers in my life, but I had six of these beauties this year. Allen chopped off big hunks for all of us for a quick fix before golf.

We sat by the edge of the lake, our feet almost in the water, and dripped watermelon juice down our arms. Allen and I spit the seeds into the lake; Libby carefully picked hers out of her piece because she claimed that she was unable to spit watermelon seeds with any accuracy, and was embarrassed.

As I am prone to reflection at times like these, I pondered the origin of the watermelon. Who thought of eating these things? Where did they come from? We contemplated the possibility of finding wild watermelons somewhere—somehow, this didn’t seem a likely scenario.

We were covered in sticky watermelon juice—Allen dunked his entire self into the lake to get rid of it. We packed up the rest of the watermelon, as well as the rind—I intend to make watermelon pickles for my next adventure in canning—and headed over to the golf course, We indeed ended up playing Sonar Golf, which is actually much more fun for lousy golfers like us.

I realize that my butt will be too big to fit on the saddle if I don’t get back on the bike soon, since running is out for the moment. Kayaking is not much of an aerobic workout, even though, of course, we tried to make it one. The afternoon was a spiritual workout, really—training to quiet the mind and put aside the busyness of life. Watching the dark water pass by, and getting yourself sticky with home-grown melons on a late summer afternoon.

How Things Work in My New Hometown

After work, we had to head over to a family event (a viewing, sorry to say) where we met five church members, two of Allen’s co-workers, and about fifty family members. I subsequently learned that Allen is related to basically the same families on both sides, via a family tree that looks somewhat like the wisteria that winds through the trees in the yard. This one had a sister who married the brother of the aunt on her paternal side, who was married to someone else on her maternal side, and his cousin is also his nephew…. My head spins considering this. I am going to draw myself a diagram for further reference.

After the viewing, we head over to a local restaurant, where we see our auto mechanic (who is now basically a family member since we see him more than we see our own family, thanks to the Corvette) and his wife eating dinner. We sit next to a large table of high school students, two of which are in Allen’s class. Our waitress graduated from another high school, but her boyfriend is the stepbrother- well, not exactly the brother, but a friend of the family who lives with them who basically is a family member- of a kid in Allen’s class, who, incidentally, told Allen that he “talked like a girl” (to which Allen replied: “You look like a girl.”). Now the boyfriend of our waitress also had Allen as a teacher (and said very nice things about him and his class). And our waitress is also the babysitter of one of the doctors who works with me in the hospital. And, no, he doesn’t own the late-model Corvette in the doctor’s parking lot, as I had speculated.

Anyways, the owner of the red Corvette is still a mystery, though I expect to meet the sister of the wife of the husband who works in the Emergency Room who heard from a nurse that the doctor who drives that car is….. my husband’s cousin.

Editorial Comment:
On a serious note, I’m sick of hearing about how stifling small-town life is. As humorous as I found the incident above, I see it in a different light after I read about the gunman in Pennsylvania who, according to reports, blew away half of a Latin Cardio class at his gym because he was bitter and angry that he was rejected by women his whole life. We can never say that “it can’t happen here.” But I suspect that he wouldn’t have been so anonymous and marginalized here in Wayx. Instead of a lone blogger, broadcasting his hatred of women and his detailed plan for revenge into the black hole of cyberspace, he’d be “so and so’s weirdo cousin that we had to call the law on back in July because he was talking crazy sh**”