Surface
During normal operation, our kayak is situated at the interface of wind and water and subject to the influence of both. The water and the wind are not always in agreement. The waters and their waves have their own ideas about where things are going. The wind is an invisible but independent, insistent current at and above the water.
Without sails, the wind is simply tolerated. Our hats are pulled down tight against our heads. We squint our eyes, as if the wind were a bright light.
The water can be navigated, of course, but not simply through brute force. Water has gravitas and power, but it can be bargained with. An arrangement must be negotiated: playing for a minimum of friction and a method for force production. The paddles provide leverage and the water provides purchase. The hull and the water seem to readily conspire to grant buoyancy, but awkwardly and grudgingly offer slipperiness.
It doesn’t require much effort to balance—only to sit upright—but more to command where the boat points. It can be like a compass needle searching for North, except North continues to move and drift. The flow of the river might be the boat’s True North at any given moment, but the wind, waves and wakes are like nails and magnets scattered around our two-person kayak-compass: jangling and pulsing, pushing and pulling the needle. (The ducks don’t seem to notice or mind any more than the sunlight reflected on the water does. Show-offs, they are perfectly at home in both the water and the wind.)
The interface—the meeting place of these two elements—is where we sit and paddle. That slightly convex surface is where we brace ourselves against the pedals inside the hull and move from our core. Our core is the only part of us strong enough to brace us against and heave us through the wind and the waves. Movement, intention, resolve, efficiency come from the center, from the core. A kind of understanding about the water, the wind and the kayak must also come from the core. Or maybe that’s just where it’s focused, where it naturally concentrates. Maybe wisdom and understanding work their way in, bit by bit, from the outside and gather there, where the currents sink deeper down, growing in strength and finally providing stability; a place where we can mark our current position at the interface of things.