North Beach Provincial Park — Still-Lake Side Photo D. Barsotti 2024
It’s not a secret I love paddleboarding — yet another of the things I picked up in my fifties that took.
Having new hobbies to replace the ones that physically hurt too much to continue to do, are a gift as we age. And as much as I miss regular rounds of golf or smashing a tennis ball weekly across a court, I am grateful for this zen, back-to-nature gem of a sport that had become my most recent addiction.
Every summer when my second son, Logan, came home from either being away for Junior Hockey or University, paddleboarding was our thing. He taught me how to maintain my balance on the board and how to paddle properly after all, and the conversations we had between mother and son were priceless.
This summer, I’m paddling alone apart from the odd days when first born, Adam, decides he can squeeze me into his busy schedule and joins me on the lake with his kayak or Logan pops home. This year, he is working for his school and has found his heart twenty minutes from there, in a true inside and out beauty, called Sara. He’s earning money, he’s in love and he is enjoying his youth over there, while juggling the scorching hot hurdles and hiccups of adulting without the luxury of coming home every day of the summer to a comfortable bed and already made meals.
Today, I paddled the circumference of the lake which takes me about forty-five minutes…about an hour and a half today with the waves from the wind and the wake of the speed-boat towing the summer camp kids in tubes. It was hot with a nice breeze — a welcome change from the thick blanket of humidity smothering Ontario and Quebec the past three weeks during what is now an annual heatwave in our country.
My Shadow — D. Barsotti 2024
It was a pleasant day for a paddle and everyone out in their canoes, kayaks and paddleboards were smiling and friendly. I never said hello, or exchanged pleasantries with so many people on the water in my entire five years of paddleboarding.
As I hit the home stretch of my journey, I tucked into the lagoon as I usually do (with Logan) in my search for Mr Turtle, or Carl, as every wild creature is called by the members of our family. I made my way through the weeds and the lilypads looking into the clear water for the ginormous beast. As per usual, I didn’t find him because let’s face it, it was probably a one time sighting but about eight feet away from me on a bed of lilypads, was a turtle about the size of both my hands — so 32 cenitmetres (approximately 14.5 inches) — just looking right at me. I continued to paddle towards it and he just stayed there, staring at me until I was about just over a metre (just over three feet) away. In a flash it dived into the water and swam away. I paddled in the general area of the ripples but didn’t see it but what I did have was a big smile on my face.
Even though I didn’t have anyone to share it with, it was a beautifully perfect moment. As the turtle and I eyeballed each other, I felt so calm and at peace all I could think of was how in that short time, everything in my life was just as it needed to be. I wanted nothing, needed nothing and I was fortunate enough to have a wordless moment with another living creature, sharing the lake with me.
The summer of Logan began when he came home from university in May. He had a successful school year, but the hockey team had a tough season. I saw him shed the load of school and sport the minute he walked through the door. Happy to be home and surrounded by everything mundane and familiar, he took two weeks to unwind, secure a summer job, set up his training program at the gym and the arena and brought the paddle boards down from the loft.
For five years, when the paddle boards descended, summer had officially begun. These boards were the evolution of the boogie boards that were shoved into my car every summer since my boys were five and seven years old. We live near five Provincial Park beaches and having grown up in Trinidad, it was no wonder it was important to me to maintain a connection to the water and make beach-going a part of my boys’ lives.
The first of many photos like thisThe last time we took a photo like this “Mom,” Adam protested “I have armpit hair. Please stop!”
Whether it is one upon which warm, salty waves crash or crisp, cool, fresh-water ones lap onto the shore, there is something calming about the beach. I have always found it easy to think at the beach. It is the place where everything comes together and makes sense and It is the one place I truly relax and find peace.
Adam and Logan growing up on the beach at SandbanksP.P.
In this summer of Logan, the weather was almost perfect. The air smelled cleaner; the sound of the water, the rustling of leaves in the wind and the shrieks of seagulls in flight were louder without being a burden on the senses. Just as in years gone by, I was drawn to the beach this summer. The shush of the waves, the wind in my face that swirled up into my hair, launching my grey curls into the air like kites, soothed me, put a smile on my face and I believe it continues to have a similar effect on my sons. For Adam, the beach is a place where his autism does not collide with the noise and sensory overload of everyday life and for Logan, it is the place where he is able to organize his thoughts and get in-tune with himself.
Tween and teen — Logan and Adam — hockey and snorkelling at the beach
While navigating his way through life has been a daily challenge for Adam, growing up with an autistic brother wasn’t always easy for Logan.
Logan during his collecting driftwood phase
I have always maintained that autism is a family diagnosis — one person in the family may have the signs and symptoms of the neurological condition but in order to be a family, everyone has to learn how to live with it’s challenges. Born second, but the older brother in many ways, Logan accepts and understands Adam in a way I always hoped he would but never demanded or expected of him. At twenty-two, he incorporates Adam into his life by creating Adam-friendly outings Adam can not only tolerate but look forward to and enjoy. There have been many bright and hopeful days surrounding Adam’s autism and there have been just as many dark and dampened ones, but Logan has never dwelled on the latter. Instead, he draws upon the good memories of the childhood he and Adam shared especially the ones of our days spent at the beach.
As a teenager Logan wouldn’t pass up a chance to go to the beach, even when I wasn’t cool.8-year-old Logan
The summer of Logan is in essence my Summer of Logan as it is our fifth year of paddleboarding together, sometimes as early as eight-thirty in the morning. I picked up the activity when I was fifty-two and Logan was seventeen. Older and achier from nagging dance and sport injuries, standing on a board floating even in the stillest of water had been a constant challenge.
My paddle boarding shadow
But I refused to give up. This wasn’t just a fad — an expensive something undertaking that I would eventually chalk up as too difficult to master and cast aside. I bought the board, and I was determined to master riding it.
Having Logan accompany me to the beach when he was a teenager was nice but with him being sure-footed and a natural on the water, I understood it was more fun for him to cross the lake without having to wait on his slow and unsteady mother. So, while he ventured across the lake, diving off the board, doing yoga handstands on it and radiating youth and vitality, I worked on maintaining my nerve and balance, paddling closer to the shore. Over time I made progress and could hold my own paddling beside my son along the shore but dropping to my knees when I joined him in a cross-lake paddle.
Looking (without success) for the resident giant snapping turtle usually out sunning himself at 8 am
Now twenty-two, Logan has turned me into a damn good paddle boarder. I’m not sure if he had an agenda, but he took me from still-wobbly-mediocre-mom on a paddle board to mom-who-stands-on-the-board-like she-was-born-doing-it. Not only did I get onto the board without worrying about my balance this summer, but I also stopped thinking about trying to stay upright. And for the first time in five summers, I was able to stand up on my board, cross the lake with my son and enjoy the natural beauty around me. I wasn’t looking at the weeds below the water but to where swans were teaching their cygnets to fly. The irony of me getting to see birds teaching their young while my son taught me how to stabilize myself on a paddle board was not lost on me.
All their lives, I taught my boys how to do things. I taught them to read, write and to count; how to brush their teeth and tie their shoes. I taught them how to do their laundry, how to manage their money and how to cook. I was the one who led them to the waterfront on their bikes. I took them to the beach and taught them how to ride waves on a boogie board. Now, the tables have turned, and I find myself happy and excited to learn new things from my adult children.
Logan’s approach to instruction is quite Zen. He had far more patience than I would have had trying to teach someone like me to get it together on a paddle board. He calmly let me know that I already mastered balancing on the board and that all I had to do was get out of my head. I had to simply stand on the board, forget about balancing, soften my knees and relax my feet and just look ahead and take in the exquisite view, knowing that my body already knew what to do. I stopped hyper-focusing on balance, and started paddling with longer, faster strokes in order to keep up with my teacher as we crossed the lake. Then, came the tip that took me to the next level — my grip on the oar was wrong. I was working too hard. With a simple adjustment of my hands keeping them shoulder width apart on the oar and a subtly put an earworm of a mantra (bend and straighten, bend and straighten) into my brain to make my arms move much like the push rods on the wheels of a steam train.
The last stumbling block I faced was two-fold. Unlike my son, I do not possess a core of steel and was often betrayed by my wanting mid-section muscles. I could not maintain my balance with the puny wake of a jet-ski, let alone a speed boat and I would either drop to my knees on the board for fear of falling or would plunge into the weedy water and struggle for what seemed like an hour to get my sorry self back onto my board.
So, Logan fixed the issue. And he fixed it in a way that no one in my family has ever tried to do when it came to teaching me how to do things. I was used to my father, rolling his eyes, raising his voice, sucking his teeth and giving up on me. He wasn’t a patient teacher, yet somehow, I learned the basics of riding a bike, swimming and most sports from my father and perfected the skills over time on my own. When I fell into the weediest part of the lake, my son casually paddled back to where I was floundering and exhausted. In his most soothing and encouraging no-fuss voice, Logan talked me through the steps I needed to take to get myself back up and standing on the board. He was so confident in my ability to haul myself out of the deep water, that I started to get my second wind and was determined to free my legs from the icky caress of the weeds and resume paddling back to the beach with him.
An example of the abundant weeds waiting to tickle your arms and legs if you fall in.
In spite of the life jacket that felt like it doubled in size in that moment, I grabbed onto the centre handle with my right hand, steadied the board with my left and whipped my right leg onto the surface and hauled my body onto it. It wasn’t graceful nor was it pretty, but I did it and it was not until I was riding back home with him in the car that I realized he never jumped in the water to help me. He never tried to pull me back onto the board. He simply paddled close by and talked me through what had to be done.
In the days that followed, he instructed me less because I was getting better at this paddle boarding thing. Occasionally, when we paddled through wavier parts of the lake he would remind me to engage my core and relax my legs and put a little umph into my paddling so we could get past the wake from a passing boat. He was always looking out for me, and he complimented me on how far I’d come. I think he’s pretty proud of his momma’s progress this summer and that makes me happy.
The beach was my gift to them every year since we moved to the area seventeen years ago. It was where they could run wild, jump into the waves on windy days or run miles away from shore toward the horizon when the tide was low. At least twice a week, we’d buy fast food and snacks and have lunch on the beach, swim and build sandcastles until seven pm. The most beautiful photographs of my boys were all taken at the beach, and it wasn’t until I realized (even in adolescence) they never missed a chance to come with me to the beach, that I was sure they truly appreciated our time spent there. It was never boring, or too far away — it was, and still is that thing we do together.
This summer, Logan re-gifted the beach to me, and it has been the best present. Mastering paddle boarding allowed me to relax while drifting on the water enjoying the peace of nature with my beautiful boy. As the summer draws to an end and he heads back to school, he is leaving me with memories of a summer I will cherish forever. I am grateful for the conversations we had paddling side by side. I will smile at the jokes we shared and will re-tell the story of the crazy day when we became rescue rangers to the summer-campers stranded in the lake when their boat engine quit.
It will always be the summer I learned more than just paddle boarding from my kid. It was the summer I learned about the man he has become and the man he will evolve into as he pursues his dreams. I don’t know how many more summers he will grace us with his presence but that’s okay. His life will take him wherever he needs to go but I will always have the summer of Logan, held in my heart.
A couple weeks ago, plans with my sister changed due to weather and we decided on a rain check. Looking at the overcast sky and the drizzle sprinkling the back deck, I was about to settle for a day indoors when I realized, it was perfectly still. No wind rustled the leaves of the trees. The air was thick and humid, the smell of the rain soaking into the earth, ripe. Feeling the discontemtment with the possibility of an indoor day, I gave into my urge to be outside and on the water. After all, I was on day two and a half of the eighty two hours I had to myself and I wanted to use this time to unleash myself from my usual routine. There was to be no cooking or cleaning up during this time and knowing that this unusually hot weather (no matter how strange) in Canada should not be taken for granted, I didn’t want to spend all my time at home. The confirmation that I had to get out and do something came from my reflection in the mirror while brushing my teeth. I was checking out the mop of curls atop my head (no hair appointments during covid), and looking at the transformation my hair has been undergoing. In my case, dark strands are turning red and over time, red to yellow before settling into a permanent state of white. Unlike my face, my hair isn’t deceiving when it comes to my age and nothing says get out and utilize your time like graying hair. I got in line with a parade of SUV’s at Starbucks and treated myself to a fancy coffee; went back home, changed and threw my paddle board gear and my stuff (wallet, phone, water bottle, comb, towel and a cotton slip-on dress) in the car and headed for the beach. Listening to lyrics being belted out by Amy Lee and other thought inspiring music streaming via Bluetooth, I was really inside my head, watching the road, of course, but thoughts a million miles away. When I have downtime from work and my family I spend a lot of time thinking deeply about my life, the world and my place in it. Like everything else over the years, in moments like these I recognize how much the deep thinking has changed. I remember times of solitude whether I was driving or just sitting on the deck, my thoughts would would classify more as worry or concern …concern over my autistic child’s future, concern for my other child, my husband, my parents, my marriage, my ever changing ways of making a living…it was all based on concern and problem solving. Now, at 54, I’m in the roller coaster carriage going up the last couple not-so-steep inclines of the ride of life and my deep thoughts bring a smile to my face and peace to my soul. This is the we’ve-made-it-through-the-toughest-times incline and it is the one where we get to experience and truly appreciate the things that make us feel love, happiness and gratitude and although everything that goes up must come down and I know there will be loss and sadness to bear, the ride will plateau and eventually come to an end. If it ends with me feeling the way I feel now, then I would have succeeded in truly living.
As I drove through the county’s winding road to my destination, I appreciated the gift this region was to me and my family. I have never warmed to the town we settled in after having lived in some of Canada’s most fabulous cities. I have never understood or accepted the cliquish and rather frivolous nature of the people who were born and bred here but I’ve learned to live my life in this small place while keeping the small minded at arm’s length. The county is home to some of the best vineyards in the country and best stretches of beach front, cosy coves, inlets of Lake Ontario. Being from the Caribbean, the Provincial Parks in my area draw me to their shallow clear waters and white sands. It feeds my passion to play in the water and hear the shushing of waves as I’d done in mychildhood, albeit without that briny taste of the ocean so dear to me. This piece of perfect real estate is one of the reasons I am able to continue living here.
In spite of the grey skies and spotty showers, the colours of the vegetation along the way were vibrant and lush and I could see that there was no turbulance on the water in spite of the rain. The water was flat and almost motionless like a sheet of glass and the beaches were not crowded but they weren’t deserted either. It seemed, like me, people were intent on having their day at the beach in spite of the weather. Some people took shelter from the rain grilling their food under pop up tents or canopies while others were enjoying being in the warm water, being baptised by the rain.
I inflated my board and paddled out into serenity, my oar slicing through the water, the sound of tiny ripples overiding the ambiance of music, people chatting and kids playing. It didn’t matter that the drizzle had turned into a shower. It was peaceful and where I needed to be. Not having much experience as a paddle boarder, the initial tense legs and overly engaged core were now relaxed and I was looking ahead at the scenery and not at the water. I thought about the last seventeen months of this global pandemic and what it had done to the world. I thought of all the suffering and death it caused and while I recognize and acknowledge our privilege and good luck, I thought of what it did to my sons. I thought of how their goals screeched to a halt, shattering everything they were planning to do post high school. My sons are on the brink of independent adulthood and 2020 was supposed to be the year that bore the fruits of their labour. But, instead, like everyone,they had to wait and wait and wait some more. They had to find ways to stay motivated and positive and the toll it took on both their mental well-being was overwhelming, especially for my autistic son. And then came change. Some much needed relief in the form of vaccines. Now fully vaccinated, we can do a bit more. We can gather with a select few and we can be outdoors and we can get a taste of the daily life we took for greanted. Two strokes to the left, two to the right I’d covered a decent distance from my spot on the beach. “We did it,” I thought and a smile came to my face. We made it through the toughest sixteen months of our lifetime; especially my sons, especially Adam. We followed the protocol, we kept our distance from everyone outside our family and we found a way to make the lockdowns worthwhile. Those were the good days. I taught the boys how to cook, their father showed them their way around power tools and home renos, they studied, they trained and we all stayed healthy. And then there were the difficult days, especially for Adam. After all those the days when his inability to communicate what was bothering him resulted in destruction and pain, just like the rest of us, he made it through. One stroke on the right, one on the left, I kept paddling and I felt my shoulders drop and the tightness disappear and in that instant I realized that we’re all okay and everything with everyone I love was as it should be.
The pandemic is not over and it will be a while before we have a handle on Covid 19. There is a lot going on in the world along with Covid 19 and it’s repercussions. The climate has changed and the west of our country is burning, while tornados touch down in South West Ontario and Northern Ontario is on fire too. Greece is burning. Germany is flooding. California is burning again and it is easy to think that our planet is just going to turn to ash one day, but in that moment, as I paddled, I was able to unleash it all and let it go. And I felt it leave me too. You see, I might not be able to change the world, but I can do my part; I can do my best to not add to the problems that plague our world. There is still a lot of good and a lot of beauty to behold and therefore, there is hope in spite of all our problems.
One stroke to the right, one to the left, over and over and over until I felt like I was floating on a cloud rather than on water. I thought of the love of my life and our love that has deepened over the years and how much more I love him each and every day in ways I never knew existed. Paddle left. Paddle right. Love, like life,has evolved. Love is easy, always available and is uncomplicated at my age. Marriage, like me on my board, floats, bobbing over ripples easily. Marriage, is friendship, comfort and well…its home, welcoming me with open arms everytime and it’s where I want to be. Children are grown and starting their adult lives and we are starting a new chapter together that still includes and cares about our boys, but is mainly focused on us and the time we will spend together until one of us leaves this life.
Like a loud noise, or a flash of lightening, a jet ski’s motor and heavy wake disrupted my peaceful thoughts. My board bobbed and wobbled on the waves and I lost my balance and plunged into the water as did two screaming little girls from a paddle board about 80 metres away. Beginners all, the sudden waves made it difficult to pull ourselves back onto our boards. The more I tried, the more my legs bobbed and kicked the more tangled my leash became in the tall weeds. A strong swimmer, even with a life jacket, I grew tired. I stopped. I took a breath. What was the plan? Looking into the water, I could barely see my foot. Reaching down I tried to remove the velcro ankle cuff. What a bitch that was! Who knew weeds were that thick and strong? Third time was the charm. With my foot free, I tried to mount the board again, but when I pushed my weight onto it, the tail of the board would sink because the leash tethered it so strongly onto the weeds. I was tired. I was done with this shit. I reached up and unhooked the leash from the board and glided towards the shore. I glanced over at the kids whose father had come into the water to detangle their leash from the weeds and bring them to shore. They left their leash behind too but they were safe. I hoisted myself onto the board and lay face up. A big breath released the tiredness and frustration of dealing with the weeds. I was unleashed. I was free. So, I lost a thirty dollar leash. Whatever. It was holding me back. Binding me to disgusting, prickly, slimy, octopus- arm-like weeds. Weighing me down. I remember my cousin Nicole would say, “just free it, Danie. Free it” and I did and everything was so much better.
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