A Perfect Moment in Time

My hands instinctively dart to grab the sides of the canoe as I jolt upwards, Pap’s weight settling behind me and catching me unaware.

The day is bright and the sky is cloudless and the air is warm and soft. The spring waters have long since runoff, leaving the brook, while still flowing, seemingly placid. Redwing blackbirds flutter from alder branch to alder branch, singing the anthem of the brook.

I am wearing a bulky orange life-jacket, one of those things that one cannot imagine ever having been new. I am only four and not a good swimmer, but the vest does not offer me nearly the comfort as the man who is now pushing us away from the dock with his paddle. No matter where we are or what we are doing, there is no place safer for me than with my Pap.

The canoe glides over the surface of the brook and a wake gently unfolds away from us. The water itself seems soft and almost beaconing. I am still gripping the sides of the canoe as I peer over the side and into the shallow water. Sunlight refracts off the surface and dances across the bottom of the brook, making the ride almost magical. My brain races with the centuries of sticks and leaves and shipwrecks and sea monsters and countless clues to adventures long past that must be hiding in the muck.

We stop at a bend in the brook and Pap tries to hand me a coffee can of worms and dirt. I respond by handing him the hook end of a fishing pole. He laughs and baits me up as my ears dismiss some words about ‘fishing and baiting my own hook’ and something about ‘just worms’. A plunk and I watch ripples expand across the stillness of the water.

And time simply stops.

Pap and me and the redwing blackbirds and the can of worms and smell of the brook with all its mysteries, all trapped forever in that one perfect moment in time.

I use my paddle and the last remaining post from the old boat dock to steady myself into the canoe, my weight launching us forward. As I settle into place, I notice little hands with white knuckles still gripping the sides of the canoe at the other end. A muskrat swims for safety and a redwing blackbird serenades our passing as we glide out from the shore.

Tiny fingers let go and reach down to break the gentle roll of our wake. I clear my throat in something halfway between a warning and token of affection. In return, big blue eyes glance back at me in amusement. Right now, he is fearless as we are together and this is, after all, the safest place in the world.

Almost seductively, the silence is lightly unwound by a series of questions, the nature of which seems all too familiar to me, yet so many of them I struggle to find answers to. I marvel at the wonder that is wondering these things. And just as subtly, the silence engulfs us and we drift like fog over the water. For no reason, those big blue eyes once again turn to mine and I am caught off guard and overcome. A smile curls my lips.

And then time stops.

As the canoe nuzzles to a stop near an overhang of alders, it occurs to me that trillions of raindrops have fallen as well as tons of snow and ice and leaves with winds from every direction, all witnessed by generations of wildlife, and all in a half a lifetime of days just to bring me to the other side of this perfect moment in time.