Morning Meditation

In the morning, we take our paddleboards out over sleepy Auke Bay, still peaceful in her slumber, before the whale watching boats stir her up. The water is so clear you can see the bottom of the ocean. The gentle sun, low on the horizon, warms the salty air. For a moment I worry I might add another line to my face today, a face that resembles a map of where I’ve been, but then I remember that each one is a token, a souvenir, an adventure.

We glide over to check our friend Rocky, where my four-year-old daughter disembarks, summits the barnacle inhabited crag, and calls out: “I am queen of the mountain!”She insists on swimming out to me on my paddleboard, which floats over the water like a feather on a breath. One small movement can send her spiraling off into the deep or cutting into the rocks. Each slice into the water incites ripples that continue until they break on the shore miles away. 

Paddling like a puppy churning up the placid bay, she arrives at my board and crawls on. A humongous salmon jumps up and plops next to us, clearly enjoying the hushed morning. My son, yellow and gray like a canary in his wetsuit, soaks up the rays on his back while fully submerged in the water. Is he sleeping? 

“Are you alive?!”I call to him. In his blissed out state he does not respond until I holler, “Hey look, there’s No!”

The resident seal always comes when he hears the children’s voices. And look, now he’s playing peekaboo with us, popping his head up, then disappearing into the deep. My yellow canary son chases him on his paddleboard until they are just a few feet apart and engaged in the most epic staring contest.

At this point my daughter has already jumped off the board and is swimming towards the shore, just to prove to herself that she can.

The sun warms my face. Not to worry, I tell myself, I remembered sunblock today, fragrant like honeysuckle under the warming sun’s rays.

Photo: Kelly Renouf Sorensen