On the Water Archives - One Guy Outdoors

May 12, 2021May 12, 2021

I Want to Know What Love Is

Prologue

“I Want to Know What Love Is…I Want You to Show Me…” –Foreigner

Yesterday, I waxed (pun totally intended) poetic about trying to evolve the definition of the word candle. Once again, my journal prompt page gave me a ridiculous assignment that I more or less punted. I’m happy to report that today’s prompt is much more straight forward and easy to complete. They want me to tell you what love is.

If it has to be stuck in my head, it has to be stuck in your head

Yesterday, I stopped and scouted one of the bodies of water that I pass during my morning and afternoon commute to work. Having looked it up, I now know that it is, in fact, neither a pond nor a lake, but a reservoir. I learned that when I looked up public access for another of the bodies of water that I pass (I mistakenly said that I only see two, but there are at least three, which is why I didn’t say the “other” body of water.

The Adventure

This is, in fact, a pond. Looking it up on the map, it is called Pool Pond. As it is a pond instead of a reservoir, it is more developed and I saw no public access from 202. Thanks to the NH Fish and Game, I found the rooftop/boat access off of Mountain Road there. When I pulled up, a truck with a fishing boat was there. I thought about asking the guy if he was entering or exiting, but I chickened out and got in his way to take my pictures because he was entering the lake. Sorry, random guy. I hope you catch all the fish.

Today’s adventure rivals even yesterday’s for being not much of one. Hell, yesterday I found and hiked a bit of a trail along the shoreline. I saw no such trail today other than the road, so I just wandered around the boat access for 5 or 10 minutes to take my pictures. I still haven’t put my tackle box in the car, so no fishing even. However, like the reservoir yesterday, I plan to come back with my kayak and explore further. Stay tuned.

The Prompt

Prompt: We each have many types of love relationships — parents, children, spouses, friends. And they’re not always with people; you may love an animal, or a place. Is there a single idea or definition that runs through all the varieties of “love”?

I said that after the difficulty of the previous few posts, this one will be easy. Five or so years ago, I wouldn’t have said that. That’s not to say I wasn’t surrounded by love then. I had my wife and three kids, my in laws (including a niece who would only calm in my arms some days), my mother and two brothers, my extended family like my cousins, aunt, and grandmother. My aunt and grandmother since passed away. Not sure why I wrote that last part. Damn stream of consciousness.

The Back Story

I–uh–I lost the thread for a little bit there. I worked two and sometimes three jobs, culminating with the two years before I started at my current job. Taught at HCC and then went to Northfield Elementary School and Pearl Rhodes Elementary School to work as a custodian. I woke up and left after everyone left for school and got home after 11:30 most nights. Before that, I tossed around boxes at UPS for a Christmas season. That saw me wake up at 4:30 every morning. I got home at a more reasonable time most days, but was so tired that I often crashed on the couch for several hours in the afternoon/early evening.

It ground me down to an exposed bundle of nerves and caused tension in every aspect of life. I might still be there if not for a few happenings. First, I got laid off from the custodial job. That one hurt. I very much enjoyed that job. 8 hours of listening to audiobooks and not having to interact with people? Where has this job been all my life? Okay, not bad. I still have HCC. Yeah, about that.

I lost a class. As an adjunct professor, I got paid based on the number of credits I taught. And, so, I lost income there, too. Things happen for a reason people, you win this one. I applied at several schools, got three interviews, three call backs, and decided on a school. Why? As I’ve always put it, they offered the most money.

The Journal

That move back to high school after about a decade since my less than illustrious exit from the previous high school I worked at gave me time to reflect on a great many things. I realized that I am highly empathic. I feel things on a grand scale. Good, bad (especially bad, which is dangerous and can present as a spiral of depression), but never indifferent.

I know how that sounds. And, yes, I used to use that as an excuse. However, in my reflection, I have instead used it as a strength again. This time I come into it fully aware that it might blow up in my face. Any time I joke about not showing up or leaving work, a colleague says, “You’re basically saying that you will never teach again.” “Yep.” I reply. I think it unnerves him that I’m so nonchalant and certain about it.

Okay, so what does this all have to do with love? Well, at the beginning of the school year, a student tragically died. I only knew him for a month, but he made a bit of an impression on me. For the rest of the year, I told every one of my classes how much I loved them. A bit awkward for a math teacher to say? Perhaps, but like I said. I feel deeply. And, I do genuinely care about them.

Epilogue

I think I have more to say about what love is. At the very least, I feel like I’m only getting started on the topic. However, it’s creeping up on 9pm and I have some graduation cards to write for my seniors. As much as I’ve said it’s going to be a long 6 weeks, I know in 5 I’m going to be looking forlornly at them and wishing for a few more. So, for now, let’s leave it at that and I’ll see you all tomorrow.

May 10, 2021May 11, 2021

Morphing Candle ?

Prologue

Mighty Morphing Power Rangers? Forgive me for my dated reference. However, one might argue that Power Rangers are timeless. Honestly, though, the only reason I used them was I couldn’t think of another morphing reference. Butterflies? I suppose. I feel like they are even more trite than Power Rangers. It’s the literary equivalent of getting a Chinese symbol that doesn’t translate to what you think.

I think these are literally the characters for “chicken” “noodle” and “soup” from my rudimentary research.

What are we actually morphing? Prompt: Language evolves. The meaning of a word can shift over time as we use it differently — think of “cool,” “heavy,” or even “literally.” Today, give a word an evolutionary push: give a common word a new meaning, explain it to us, and
use it in the title of your post.

This makes me two things. One, the morphing of “literally” makes me angry. We already have a word for what literally morphed into. I suppose, now that I think about it, that it’s kind of cool that we created a contranym out of literally. Still, I’m going to stay mad about it. The other thing is, “Stop trying to make fetch happen.” But, this is the prompt, so let’s try to make “fetch” happen.

The Adventure

The featured image depicts one of the lakes/ponds that I notice during my morning and afternoon commute. As of this writing, I’ve passed it almost 200 times. During the winter, I see huts dragged onto the ice for ice fishing. Though I finally got out on the ice again a couple of times this year, I haven’t fished this body of water. Even today, after wandering along a trail that followed the shore, I went back to the car to grab my rods. This is the part of the story where I say I forgot my rods, right? Wrong! The rods are in the trunk. However, I neglected to put my tackle box in there. So, still no fishing here. Another day, perhaps.

Instead, I stood on the shore and watched a bird of prey (perhaps a hawk) circle above. A momma and poppa couple of geese herded their four goslings across the water. I caught two Pokemon in Pokemon Go (A Karrablast and a Tangela). Overall, while not necessarily an “adventure”, I will be back either to fish or kayak or both. Stay tuned for actual adventures from this lake/pond.

The brief interlude, in spite of the lack of “adventure”, was much needed. It wasn’t a bad day. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, it was a pretty good day. During our lunch time (some students hang out in my room during lunch block each day), a student asked, “How’s everyone’s mental health” or something along those lines. I can confidently say that mine is pretty good right now. I’m in a good place. It has been a long and weird year, but a select group of students has helped to keep me grounded and finding what I love about teaching again. I try to tell them as often as possible what they’ve done, but I know I’m not thanking them nearly enough. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly be able to repay them for what they’ve done for me this year. If you find this, simply thank you.

The Journal

In spite of the good day and overall good state of mind, I needed the time to decompress. Teaching took a lot out of me today. The students were energetic, which is great, but they weren’t focused on school work, so it took a lot of energy to refocus them and keep them focused. I hope my exhaustion wasn’t read as anything negative.

Back to the task at hand. While I enjoyed my time wandering around the shoreline, I got no inspiration for a word to morph. Instead, I drove home and worked out while watching Last Chance U. Neither of those activities brought me much inspiration either. So it is that I ended up at Random Word Generator, pressing the button a few times until it landed on “candle”. I passed on a few like “risk”, “propaganda”, and “breathe”.

Why candle? Honestly, it comes from World of Warcraft and the kobold saying, “You no take candle!” So, I thought I might be able to come up with some sort of alternate definition using that connection. So far, nothing comes to mind. Hey, I genuinely tried with this one. Honestly, though, how the hell am I supposed to answer this one? If anyone comes across this post and has an answer, by all means, give me an idea.

Epilogue

Yesterday, I wrote about success and failure. Today I, once again, failed. But, I honestly tried. Given the weirdness of this particular prompt, I actually succeeded far better than expected. Even so, perhaps the topic of morphing is still relevant. Over the last two years, I morphed in several ways. I started working out and walking and got into better shape. I faced some of the tragedy of my past and came out stronger for it. A few times, I told people at work that they’d not recognize the me from 2 years ago. While I still have some ways to go (and that can be said about just about anyone), I am in much better place than I was. So, hey, I successfully morphed the word “Shawn” and that’s more important than any stupid candle.

October 12, 2017

Celebrating the Eclipse

Prologue

I wouldn’t say that I’m a Groupon professional, or even a semi-pro. We have used it more than once to enjoy a night out at dinner, or to go to the local Barcade for a birthday celebration, or to pretend to be pirates on a cruise through Cape Cod Bay. I also wouldn’t say that I’m a river kayaking pro, semi-pro, or even a well practiced amateur. However, both of these things came together when I noticed a Groupon for a local river kayak trip and, without thinking, pulled the trigger.

Journal

I have wanted a kayak for at least 15 years now. Anytime we go into a sporting goods store, I wander to look at fishing equipment, camping equipment, sometimes hunting, and the kayak aisle. The last few years, I’ve noticed that our Wal*Mart has been carrying kayaks and I drop not so subtle hints to Christine whenever we are in the store and pass by them. I bought her a paddle board a couple of years ago in the hopes that it might inspire her to get me a kayak so that we could spend time alone as a couple on the water while the boys hung out together on the beach. Heck, they are almost getting old enough to paddle themselves in the canoe. Yes, we have a canoe. More on that in a bit.

I have been on a kayak a few times. My brother in law got one a few years ago for his birthday (I know!) and our friends have a couple that they’ve taken us out with them once or twice. Once, I even got to kayak the disappearing island in Crowninshield, which was awesome! But, I still do not have a kayak of my own.

I did sort of compromise about 5 years ago and bought a canoe because the boys were all little. So, we could take them all out on the canoe together with little to no risk of capsizing. Notice that I did leave open the possibility. We were all in the canoe as a family on Emerald Lake. Liam asked if he could jump out of the canoe to swim. Sure, we responded. Well, he decided that the best course of action was literally standing up to jump out. As you can imagine, that ended up with all of us in the lake, swimming to the shore. Unable to flip myself back into it, I dragged the canoe behind me as I swam. That was one of the first phones that I ruined with water. But, at least my wallet only got wet instead of ending up at the bottom of the lake as it did last summer.

What does all of this have to do with Groupon and the eclipse in August? I already mentioned that, without hesitation, I signed us up for a 2 for 1 deal on a local river kayak trip. That was in April or May. I’m not sure. It was definitely at the end of spring/beginning of summer that I bought the deal. It got added to the calendar in June, then July, and forgotten both times. We lucked out and ended up kidless for three days in July, but didn’t go. Admittedly, we both had to work, but that was only in the morning. I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure that we could have still made it to the trip in the afternoon.

Whatever the case, we didn’t go on those three days. Instead, we did what we usually do and put it off until almost the last possible second. Christine insists that it wasn’t intentional, and I believe her for the most part, but she ended up making the reservation for August 21, 2017. That’s right. The day of the (sing it!) “total eclipse of the sun!” As a result, her parents had to watch the kids. While dropping them off, her father made a joke about it going dark while we were out on the water. I replied, as I always do, “Yep, you can have all our debt.” That got a chuckle and off we went.

During the drive, she admitted to being somewhat nervous because she’s never paddled in any kind of moving water. Neither have I, but I’m the sort to just take things as they come. If we end up swept over a waterfall, well at least it happened during the eclipse! Naturally, everyone was talking about it. One family, who obviously better planned for the occasion, brought their glasses to view. Christine and I sneaked peaks at the sun through clouds, doing exactly what we were told not to do.

Luckily, we didn’t damage our eyesight and we can blame our ignorance on the precedent set by our illustrious leader. After the safety speech and check, as we walked to the bus that was going to take us up river, I noticed that you could view the eclipse in the tinted rear windows of some of the vehicles. I didn’t think to take a picture, partly because I had to leave the phone behind in the car just in case of a tip. Initially, I was going to just say “Eff that”. Then, I realized that I was really saying, “Eff me and my expensive phone.” So, my pictures are only from before even getting in the boat.

As we went down the river and I found myself missing the phone because the views were simply awesome, I thought about getting some sort of waterproof camera for just those adventures. We also talked about maybe doing the trip again during the fall for the foliage, but that might get filed away as something that we discuss and then don’t follow through. For my part, though, I’ve brought it up more than once. So, who knows, maybe we will.

Epilogue

We took the time alone to both remark on the beauty around us and to talk. We didn’t talk about work or money. We didn’t talk about kids, but we did both think that they’d get a kick out of the trip. She did mention how we hadn’t been fighting as much, which is a positive step forward from where we were the past two summers.

Even though this write up comes almost a month later, looking back I see that this trip happened the day after we went to the Heath Fair. It was the last week of summer for us and we were trying to squeeze in as much as possible, it would seem. Also, even though this was more of an adventure than our other trips this year, we still stayed close to home, used the time to communicate and show our love for one another. I would say sometimes, that’s all you need. But, it should be all you need always.