Where the Lines Blur

My husband is a triathlete. He decided two years ago that he was going to compete in triathlons.

Just like that. Swim, bike, running man.

I remember being amazed that one could just pick a wild physical goal and then with what looked like little effort, accomplish it.

He’s like that though. He decided he wanted to learn to snowboard and was immediately carving down black diamond routes. I decided to learn to snowboard and spent the better half of a weekend on my ass in the snow. Except, of course, when I was on my face.

He sees a mountain and thinks to himself, I will run up that. I see a mountain and think, Hmm . . . I wonder if there are any mountain lions up there waiting to eat me.

His idea of vacation is yard work and then watching the grass grow with obvious satisfaction. Mine is moving as little as possible while wandering through a long novel. And so it goes.

Weekends at the lake, he likes to get in a practice swim. So he looks at the (BIG) lake and says, “I will swim across that.” And he does.

I look at the (really freaking BIG) lake and say, “A boat will run over you.” So it is agreed that I kayak beside him in the little red kayak while he swims. I’m a little red beacon. A little red safety zone. 

Weekend lake swims are some of my favorite times.

We always go early in the morning, when the boat traffic is low and the lake is calm. My job as safety marshal is not hard that way. When the lake is lost in its morning stillness, one stroke of the paddle will buy you some serious distance.

So, I watch for boats and the occasional dead fish in my husband’s path and pretty much have thirty minutes in complete silent solitude. I spend my time listening to my voices, memorizing the shapes of the trees on the other side of the lake, listening to the rhythm of my husband’s strokes across the water, watching the way the bow of the kayak moves the glassy water in an ever growing pyramid of ripples.

This past weekend, the lake was creating its own atmosphere. It is that long and arduous season of pre-change here in the south. Summer is fighting like crazy to hang on and fall is seeking out the cracks to seep through. The change to cooler autumn weather will not come any time soon. This is the before time. The waiting part. The why-in-the-heck-is-it-still-ninety-five-degrees-out time.

On this morning, the water was warm and the air was cool. The result was a complete whiteout of fog. There were no familiar landmarks to sight with as we crossed the absolute stillness of that lake. Everything was the same grayish mist. The water and sky melded into each other seamlessly creating a completely alien world, especially for a girl like me.

Before we began, I complained about our lack of sight and worried about a speeding fisherman coming up on us too fast to stop. We are grown-ups, you know. We have responsibilities. I really want to eat breakfast this morning! That kind of stuff.

My husband looked across the grey world in front of us and said, “Just go straight.”

I thought: We’ll be lost forever.

He swam. I paddled endlessly through the fog. My eyes desperately raked the mist before me, beside me, behind me, and above me. I could see nothing. I tried to tell myself this was an awesome experience. Somewhere in this mist, there must be a lesson. This insanely beautiful and horribly disquieting setting must be a metaphor big enough to blow my mind.

I paddled and looked, looked and paddled and found nothing but the same blurry mish-mash of sky and water and land (somewhere out there, please, there must be land). The questions, Where am I? and Where am I going? overflowing with meaning that spilled over the edges of the kayak and into my lap.

But there were no answers so I just paddled straight and pretended I was not as small as I felt.

Finally, we came upon our goal, a familiar buoy that I was beginning to obsessively think we’d never see. It loomed not five feet in front of me, making my heart slam in my chest and a quick, “Oh,” break from my lips, shattering the silence.

I felt . . . happy. We’d made it. I had not been swallowed up.

My husband looked up at me wonderingly. Perhaps that “Oh” was not as quiet as I had imagined.

“The buoy is straight ahead,” I said, full of joy. We’re not entirely lost!

“I’m going that way,” he said with a nod of his head and took off to the left of the buoy, to some destination known only to him.

And I thought to myself as he put his head back in the water, But . . . I’ve found the buoy.

He was in the lead now, not me. Back into the mist we went. Without anything to sight, my husband swam as his nature flows, this way and that, onward in strong strokes that move entire waves of water, never faltering, but not quite in the straightest of lines.

One big loop later, we were back at the buoy (Oh, thank goodness! It’s the buoy!). He had also found us a way back to a familiar place, maybe not the place he’d thought he was going to, but a safe place nevertheless.

It was agreed that I would lead the way home. It went something like this.

“I’m leading us home.”

So, I paddled my little red kayak with precision straight on in the direction I knew would take us home. I considered once again the vast difference between our natures and how much I had always wanted to be the dauntless explorer of life and how I really was more of the cautious beholder of life.

I found myself feeling dejected by my inability to be more fluid or find the grand meaning of life lost in the mist. I kept paddling straight, until eventually the first outlines of our shore became visible in the place where the mist was lifting away. And just at that moment, I realized something wonderful.

While my husband never once felt any fear or discomfort out there in that grey country (or questioned his own sanity for that matter), he also would have continued to circle aimlessly if it had not been for me, my red kayak, and my straightforward (if slightly compulsive) desire to persevere.

I am his safety zone. He is my adventure. It is a perfect union.

photo by Gergely Karacsonyi