Ten-Finger Exercises

remembering, on an ordinary day

There's nothing worth writing about today. The first patient I went to visit, way out of town, was gone in the truck with his foster dad. The second, way out of town in the other direction, had his next door neighbor there, and she talked continually about her favorite restaurants in New Orleans, while he paced.

So, here's a scene from my past which Bugzy's blog brought to mind.

The first year that I was part of the program staff for senior high summer camp I mentioned that I had never been canoing. A big,tall, male counselor whom I had just met invited me to go with him. It was his habit, he said, to go every morning just before sunrise, and it was harder to paddle without someone in the front of the boat. He joked that if I didn't come with him, he'd have to find a rock to weigh down my seat.

I'm not a morning person. Once I'm up, I really like morning, but that first step is hard to achieve. However, there were a lot of crows that had extensive conversations that just wouldn't wait till the sun was up, and so I was awake anyway.

The campground is a fantastic piece of property on a point in lake Coeur d'Alene, across the bay from the public dock and accessible only by boat. Up from the public dock, at the end of the bay, is a creek that goes a short ways before it gets too shallow to travel.

It was still dark when we met at the boathouse and got our paddles and life jackets. We talked in whispers as he instructed me about what to do next. Dean picked out a canoe, and we carried a canoe to the water and slid it across the pebbles that made up the beach. He motioned for me to climb in, and he pushed off and nimbly hopped in with one fluid movement.

(Interrupted. I'll be back in an hour. Have to watch the opener of Gray's Anatomy. OR CSI? NO, don't tell me they're opposite each other!! Now what will I do?)