Messing about in Boats

According to Kenneth Grahame, is the simple, joyful, and aimless pleasure of being on the water.  I love the Ouse in the early morning.  The water ripples gently, the mist lingers still, and rowers slip quietly into the water.  The York City Rowing Club boathouse sits on West Esplanade, keeping watch over it’s own particular stretch of the river.

In the early morning at this time of year the air often carries the damp scent of early autumn, while the sky still bears the pale blue tinge of lingering stardust.  With each stroke of the oar the bow parts the water, scattering small blossoms of spray, the sound both delicate and assured.  Rowing feels to me like a gentle rebirth.  Each dip of the blade, each arc traced across the surface, steadies my heart and brings my breath back into rhythm, into the moment.

As we drift past a tree-lined bank, I saw it; a kingfisher, darting from the undergrowth and pausing on a low branch.  I held my breath involuntarily and time seemed to pause.  Its feathers shimmered with blue and green in the morning light and for a quiet moment it watched the river, and it felt like it watched me.  A silent understanding passed between us, an encounter that needed no words.

Rowing calls me back into the present.  My hands nurse the oar, my body finds its rhythm, my breath rises and falls with the water.  The noise of thought fades away: the book I did not finish, the unanswered emails, they all dissolve. The movement feels like a yoga posture in motion.  Shoulders soften and widen, the spine lengthens, the core steadies.  As yoga has taught me, each inhale brings awareness, each exhale releases tension and unease.

Along the Ouse, the scenery unfolds in gentle turns.  Ancient stone walls, trailing willow branches and still bridges; all welcome the morning light.  Ducks drift across the surface, an oak leaf journeys downstream.  When the sun breaks through a veil of cloud, the river glitters as if dusted with gold, a reminder that simplicity can be enough to stir the soul.

The kingfisher eventually took flight, its slender form lingering in my mind’s eye, then in my memory.  Nature, reminding me that life is not always about striving or rushing.  Often, it is about pausing, and finding our own pace. I often think that if each day held ten minutes like this with the water, with the wind, with the birdsong, and with the morning light; it would be enough to restore a quieter heart to us all.

Messing around in boats can teach us to pause on moving waters, and to find stillness in a hurried world.  If you’re so inclined and are in North Yorkshire, perhaps we might meet one morning on the Ouse…