Unframed

It’s not scenery, I say, it’s not a pretty thing to hang on a wall. Here, let me show you. Unknot that rope and I’ll push us off.

Paddling the old canoe takes effort. It’s an old yellow relic of a boat, heavy and wide. We’re past the cottages and in our view are rock cliffs, trees, scruffy underbrush, water, and sky. We angle into a quiet bay, and as the ripples settle, we enter the landscape. The cracked cliffs are doubled in the surface of the lake. The symmetry and the blackness of the lines draws our gaze. We sit and drift on the mirror, watching the clouds drift under our canoe.

The current between the islands is fast and we are paddling against it, returning to camp. We dig into the water, working our arms and shoulders, pushing against the flow. We’re pulling hard and staying stock still in the water. We build up heat and nerve, and ha!, begin to slide forward. The splash and drop of water sounds against the roar of water over rock. Ha!, ha!, the rhythm of the work pulls us back to shore, safe, the jackpine growing larger in our sights, and the canoe scraping up on sand and shale.

The wind rises. I feel as if the wind goes right through me. I know, literally it does, air fillling our lungs and bodies with oxygen. I mean, I feel as if it blows right through me. I feel cleaner and lighter in a strong gust, unanchored, unburdened, less attached. My eyes follow the leaves lifting up, sweeping over, becoming smaller in the distance. They are thrown, tossed, borne away. A little piece of me follows, lifting off and soaring.

A wild gust of wind. The trees hold each other up, the dense forest catching and absorbing wind, sheltering us along with the undergrowth. The trees don’t move in unison. They dance and sway in wide arcs, each giant moving side to side in a slow waltz. The sandy soil can’t hold them. They must be rooted to each other, the whole forest rocking and strong, creaking and singing around us in the gale.

Wading in a clear, northern lake. It's cold. It’s so bone-chilling that our fingers and toes go numb. There's a moment, about mid-thigh deep, when intention wavers. Really? we ask ourselves. Do we really want to dive under? It may take a few minutes to decide, although it's easier if it doesn't. Lean forward, summer is short, life is short, and winter will be here soon enough. Here, take my hand.

Be surrounded, submerged, lifted, wrapped in water grasses. Be in the landscape, in the wild wind. Unframed.