remember that canoe?
Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:30 am
Something about a canoe. I took the time this afternoon to start working on the Hooter. The boy and his toy. But there is something about working on a canoe... Maybe it is the wholeness of it, the way it can float on the water and not be compromised by currents or waves. Or the way it can skim on the surface yet always be separate from the water that bears its weight. A canoe is master of the water.
Maybe working on a canoe creates a marriage, it molds the canoe to my body. The fitting of the object to myself. Shaving foam and laying floor pads creates a helm and extends my body. In the end it will be so much easier than swimming---warmer, more powerful, and more comfortable.
Maybe it is the adventure it promises. The canoe will capture the sounds of ouzels, and ferrry me into alcoves papered with mosses and dripping maidenhair ferns. I will rise over waves, and splash down rapids. I will pull ashore under huge firs and cedars. It will take me to places most people only see in paintings. People don't see these places in photos because photos are always too flat, and the colors aren't right, no depth.
And maybe the canoe is simply the ownership of an object that has a use and a purpose. A canoe has a utility. It works.
Whatever it is, I find it satisfying to work on a canoe. Especially old canoes. Canoes that were built by hand, not simply punched out by a machine. Old canoes that were once new, and sleek, and sparkled in the sun and sparkled in the eye of a boy who said, wow, I could have fun in something like that----and did. Once.
Then the canoe became yesterday, or next week, but not today because today there was something else more important. Next week became next month, and by then the canoe became dusty, and out back, or underneath the porch, or behind the garage because it was simply in the way where it used to be. Then the canoe became old. That old canoe with the peeling paint, or the seat busted out, and maybe it now leaks, or it does leak and that makes the canoe no longer a canoe, just something overlooked and forgotten. Old. Maybe put some dirt and flowers in it and call it a planter.
I like old canoes that have a history, even if I don't know the history, because when I look at an old canoe I imagine where it has been. I imagine fish flopping in the bottom of the canoe, and sunny days, and osprey chirping, and sliding between the cattails, and people smiling after they finished a great journey over the water.
I once fixed a canoe with 17 holes in it. The holes were all covered with duct tape. They were easy to find. It was only an average canoe. But there were lots of adventures in that canoe
I worked on the Hooter today. It is not an average canoe. I cut the seat out and peeled the glue off the inside of the hull. Tomorrow I will sand the gunwales and put a couple coats of oil on the wood. As I work I can feel the beauty in the curving lines, the speed in the prow. Occassionally I thump the hull with my knuckles and listen to the ressuring boom that tells me the hull is tight and whole. No rattles or holes in this old canoe. It is ready to skim the water and carry me over waves to grottos lined with mosses and dripping maidenhair ferns. We will go there together.
Thank you, Kaz, where ever you might be. Thank you for building this canoe by hand 20 years ago. I found the card announcing its birth on the inside the hull. It is a special canoe.
Maybe working on a canoe creates a marriage, it molds the canoe to my body. The fitting of the object to myself. Shaving foam and laying floor pads creates a helm and extends my body. In the end it will be so much easier than swimming---warmer, more powerful, and more comfortable.
Maybe it is the adventure it promises. The canoe will capture the sounds of ouzels, and ferrry me into alcoves papered with mosses and dripping maidenhair ferns. I will rise over waves, and splash down rapids. I will pull ashore under huge firs and cedars. It will take me to places most people only see in paintings. People don't see these places in photos because photos are always too flat, and the colors aren't right, no depth.
And maybe the canoe is simply the ownership of an object that has a use and a purpose. A canoe has a utility. It works.
Whatever it is, I find it satisfying to work on a canoe. Especially old canoes. Canoes that were built by hand, not simply punched out by a machine. Old canoes that were once new, and sleek, and sparkled in the sun and sparkled in the eye of a boy who said, wow, I could have fun in something like that----and did. Once.
Then the canoe became yesterday, or next week, but not today because today there was something else more important. Next week became next month, and by then the canoe became dusty, and out back, or underneath the porch, or behind the garage because it was simply in the way where it used to be. Then the canoe became old. That old canoe with the peeling paint, or the seat busted out, and maybe it now leaks, or it does leak and that makes the canoe no longer a canoe, just something overlooked and forgotten. Old. Maybe put some dirt and flowers in it and call it a planter.
I like old canoes that have a history, even if I don't know the history, because when I look at an old canoe I imagine where it has been. I imagine fish flopping in the bottom of the canoe, and sunny days, and osprey chirping, and sliding between the cattails, and people smiling after they finished a great journey over the water.
I once fixed a canoe with 17 holes in it. The holes were all covered with duct tape. They were easy to find. It was only an average canoe. But there were lots of adventures in that canoe
I worked on the Hooter today. It is not an average canoe. I cut the seat out and peeled the glue off the inside of the hull. Tomorrow I will sand the gunwales and put a couple coats of oil on the wood. As I work I can feel the beauty in the curving lines, the speed in the prow. Occassionally I thump the hull with my knuckles and listen to the ressuring boom that tells me the hull is tight and whole. No rattles or holes in this old canoe. It is ready to skim the water and carry me over waves to grottos lined with mosses and dripping maidenhair ferns. We will go there together.
Thank you, Kaz, where ever you might be. Thank you for building this canoe by hand 20 years ago. I found the card announcing its birth on the inside the hull. It is a special canoe.
