A Tippy Canoe

On the way to my 6-year-old son’s T-Ball game the other day, we drive by a garage sale. Amid the books and smudgy glassware and cardboard boxes of pilly fleece, my husband somehow spots a small weathered canoe, propped on two folding chairs.

It looks very rustic and cool sitting there, but certainly not seaworthy, and, because it’s so cool, we stop and get out to get a closer look. Admittedly, I know nothing about boats, and this one looks a bit like it’s made of paper mache. You can see where the strips of material meet the wood on the frame.

“I think it’s just for decoration,” I say. “Where would we put such a thing in our tiny house?”

“No,” he says, laughing at me. “It’s a canvas canoe, and it’s sweet! I’ve always wanted one of these things!”

Oh dear. He wants to buy it.

Fortunately, we are running late to this T-Ball game and there’s no time at all to shop or to haggle in a yard sale. I say, with cheer: “Oh, well, would you look at that? I guess if it’s meant to be, that canoe will be there when we get back!” and then I cross my fingers and my toes and my knees and even twist my hair and hope that it gets sold in the next hour or two.

My husband can think of little else during my son’s game, and just as soon as the Capri Suns and orange slices are distributed, we head straight back to that garage sale. My fingers are still crossed, but there it is, though it has been moved to the front. Hundreds of people must have passed it on by. He can’t believe our good fortune!

Also, lucky for us, it is now late morning, which means the proprietor of the garage sale has had a couple of Bloody Marys, and she’s feeling generous. She takes whatever cash he offers her and throws in 5 sad and mopey-looking life vests. It’s truly our lucky day.

So now we have a new canoe. Before we leave, the tipsy lady tells us that it “takes on a little water.”

“Does that mean it leaks?” I ask my husband, once we’re back in the truck.

“Probably just slowly.” Oh phew. Our new boat just leaks slowly.

I’ll take it somewhere safe.” He adds and goes on to describe an area of our local reservoir where it’s shallow. They can stick close to land. And there are those lifevests, of course.

“You mean you’re taking the kids”

“Really, Susanna. It’s a canoe. When I was their age, I was rowing canoes, by myself, all over the place. But, I know, you like your children to stay on land.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t much like the water.”

“Right.”

“And you don’t much like the air, either.”

“Right.” I cringe when we board an airplane. Also, amusement park rides.

“And, when we’re on the land, you’d really prefer us to go quite slowly.”

I correct him. “Slowly and carefully.” He knows this is true, though, really, I do my best to never let the kids in on my secret obsessive fears for them. I know it’s important to let them do things. I know my fear will pass on to them and make them afraid to try things and that’s no good for anyone. I just also know that I have to fret, every now and again. And again and again. Secretly, in private, hushed and alone. I’ve gotten quite good at it.

Anyway, it’s a tiny canoe – really only built for one adult and a small child, so the boys are the first to try it out.

They pack a snack in the small Igloo cooler, and they are off. I trust my husband and I know that the less I know about their plan, the better. I trust my husband, I keep telling myself. He would never put my son in harm’s way. I trust my husband. I trust my husband. I trust my husband. Pointless affirmations are a major part of any good no-public-fretting strategy.

I busy myself with making chocolate chip cookies with my daughters so as not to keep checking the clock- and when they return some time later, my son is wide eyed and wind blown. I feel like it must feel when your son has returned from college, or from another country, or from war. I feel like I’ve missed out on something mythic and important in his young life.

It is clear that they have just shared an adventure of Huckleberry Finn proportions. “Tell me all about it,” I say to my son once his dad has disappeared to make room for our new canoe somewhere, hanging from the rafters in our packed-to-the-gills garage.

This is when my son describes to me how they sang “Down by the Bay” and made up silly rhymes as they rowed and how they went from one island to another.

“First, we went to Cheese Island, which is where we ate the cheese we packed.”

“Okay.”

“And then we went to Orange Cream Soda Island, where we drank the Orange Cream Soda, which was really good. We had to go over the wavy straights, which was fun except the windy water kept getting in my mouth. Daddy said next time we shouldn’t go out on the lake when there’s whitecats.”

“Whitecaps. Okay, then where did you go?”

“Drain Island. That’s where we drained the boat.”

“Oh.”

“Then we rowed back to where we parked. We ate Doritos there. So it was all totally safe, mommy” he says. And then he says maybe next time Daddy could go by himself if he wanted to.

And do you know what? Daddy did.

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