River, memory

I thought: on a beautiful day like this not a mountain excursion but a river. Yes, a river and me in my inflatable kayak. The Back River in Weymouth? Too close. The Charles? Too familiar. The Concord? Too classic. How about the Ware in Barre northwest of Worcester?

The marshy flood plain was wide, but the river itself was thirty or so feet wide and usually only three to four feet deep, sinuous, looping left and right among the grassy hummocks and berms or around the base of steep hemlock-covered slopes. The slow current could only be determined by the direction of the underwater plants but on this warm sun-in and sun-out day there was a strong upstream wind that riffled the surface. I got help going down and coming back.

The tea colored water let me see down to the gravely bottom, unless it was a zone of weedy patches with thin string-like leaves that caught my paddle blade and shaft. I began to appreciate the way the water surface indicated what was below, and the way that what was under the water affected how the surface responded to the wind. A few angular snags and branches protruded from the water like rampant serpents, a few alders and silver maples rose among the shrubs on the banks. The forest line was always in the distance as I turned corner after corner with no new revelation. I got tired, and little bored. As far down as I went, that far back I would have to paddle back.

Clearly this is a river that has its lovers. Bostonkayaker.com calls its banks 'pristine and undeveloped' and a number of kayakers and canoeists, older people and kids, were out dipping the water, one couple very interested what they saw on the banks. I put in at the end of a dirt road beyond a cemetery, out on a promontory. The obligatory campfire and debris from nighttime revels spoke about how this river provides a certain valuable solitude. A gimpy legged old man in overalls pulled up behind me and we chatted about the fish 12 inches and longer that he'd pulled from it 'because not too many people fish here...I love this place; it's so peaceful.'

Chief among those that love this river are beavers. Their dams, complex layerings of gnawed branches, held back water six inches or more when intact. Where I put in was at the confluence of the Ware and the Burnshirt rivers and passage upstream was blocked by functioning dams (which I could have pullled my craft over if  I'd been energetic enough). Downstream there were other dams, including some, very ambitious, which had been breached. On the promontory where I parked thick trees had been gnawed almost through and abandoned (dangerously) by these intent animals.

Calling you to mind, River Ware, now that I'm home; reviewing my quiet progression through your slightly different but generally similar scenes, you full of yourself in the bright, windy afternoon, I don't apologize for my impatience but can't fault you for your calm incessance. In the visual scene of browns, greens and grays, how striking the bright red cardinal flowers scattered here and there along your banks. How impetuous the swallows who erupted into the evening sky over your quiet backwaters for their acrobatics. And as I delayed getting out of the water, you agreed to slowly swirl me under an overhanging branch until, looking up through to the sky, I felt quite disoriented.

In the flow, but not of the flow--at that moment. Now, strangely, the encounter hangs in my mind. My act of memory, or something inherently, if not obviously, memorable in you?