Sunday, June 23--
6:44 p.m.-
Green. Green. Life is sensationally green. Brushed thick thickets and
overlaid layers and lavish parallel tunnels trailing three-dimensional green.
Dire secret woodsy green and limy fern green swaying in the banks. It's all
green, even tree trunks sodden with dusky lush lichen. The air is green too,
and even smells green, a scent unknowable except in June and July whispering
verdant prose deep down at its pores, blue-green green vapor hovering. Heavy
with humidity and naiads and fairy wings bustling. Green of summer, panting
with eagerness to make an impression on its neighbor.
We wove upriver, under the bridge, which is especially low since the
water is high. EZ ducked her head as it passed over; motor roared cavernous,
and water-spraying sounds echoed off concrete. Up through Sandy Shallows--a
different place than Sandy Flats which I mentioned last year, where polite
elderly patrons park their pontoons and wade knees and sit down to their waists
on rippled sandy bottoms. Sandy Shallows is a different place, thus has a
different name because, like people with different names, different places
are easier to tell apart by distinct different names.
(If you ever see a sprig of fresh greenery moving up-current along
a riverbank, it'll have a muskrat attached out of sight down below.)
I fought the current for a spell trying to anchor along Grand Sandbank's
steep slope. In July and August when the water is lower there is a flat beach
to pull up on.
But not these days. I'd release the anchor. The water would push it
away so it hung straight down off the bow against friction-less water and
I'd curse and reel it back in, start the motor and try setting it down in
an eddy where the river runs in reverse and a clump of grass should've held
it. I let out some slack but fast water just chuckled and pushed it back at
us. EZ stood to her chest in the water and observed the performance as I,
piqued, got out of the boat and manually tossed the anchor behind a stump.
I buried sunflower seeds above the lip of the cliff, a flat sunny plateau
with low ground cover so the seedlings won't have to struggle four-feet-high
before availing the sun. Stabbed the putty knife into the soil exactly two
wide footsteps apart, and wedged it side-to-side to open a slit. Three striped
seeds were dropped into each hole, increasing the odds that at least one will
germinate. Two will be culled if all three sprout.
(A tree just crashed down on shore, a few feet from our anchorage.
Startled the hell out of EZ, who's now uneasily at attention. Startled hell
out of me too and I am here to confirm the age-old conjecture. Yes, a falling
tree in a forest does make a sound if no one's underneath it to be crushed
by it.)
Thunder rumbled vaguely, alerting me to a darkening sky, so we got
in the boat and drifted under silent trees, and past a house blasting early
Elton John. Have been anchored in a bend in the river where the depth finder
says land is ten feet below. Somber dark secret places down there. It's easy
to forget there's a depth that never gets seen to this open light-of-day place.
Just like a man's soul.
The thunder has quit sounding but the sky is still loaded and low,
but we're ready to dash back to the bridge and hunker beneath it if all hell
breaks loose.
8:00-
Rain began a few minutes ago, just after pulling anchor. Pleasant light
droplets dappled the water and elicited a fond smile. Then big interspersed
drops plopped heavy as rocks, and escalated into downpour crashing the party.
The new umbrella covered me and the briefcase and the sack of sunflower seeds
and the camera bag and the plastic grocery sack of warm clothes packed under
and around my knees. But EZ sat alone in the rain and looked over her shoulder
toward me and stuck out her tongue.
We got under the bridge and the barn swallows let out hoots and broke
their own versions of hell loose at us. The hard current wouldn't hold the
anchor and we kept drifting out into the torrent. We're now securely planted in the shallow section of the bridge and
enjoying swishy rumbles of cars whisking overhead.
8:22-
Another shower is moving through. We're a half-hour from the car. What
to do? Wait another fifteen minutes and expect the system to drain out? Or
is this only the opening act of a tedious nightclub routine?
8:38-
Thunder is growling, drizzle is pattering. I almost made a run for
it a few minutes ago during a long lull. We are safe inside this concrete
bunker and could survive monsoons and tornadoes for a while, if not many pass
through. We could spend the night here, I guess, and, since neither EZ or
I work tomorrow or the day after, could stay here through Tuesday, sustaining
ourselves on a shared can of Mountain Dew and maybe once in a while dash through
rain up to the road and flag down motorists and beg leftover smoked almonds
from the nap in their mats.
8:46-
I'm going to pull anchor and take this break from the rain to drift
out of our grotto and peek at the sky and see what the pinkness is about in
the north.
8:52-
Gracious. Marvelous out here. Bullfrogs chugging and thunder jesting
in the north.
8:53-
Two muffler less cars full of teens skidded up and are now leaping
from the bridge. OOPS, two of the girls are naked and may require watching.
8:54-
A zap of electrical white followed too closely by a great crack of
thunder. Think I'll start motoring and flee.