Skipping Stones

Not sure who came up with the saying ‘roll with the flow’, but I am guessing it is part of the instruction manual you get with a canoe.  And, as we know, canoeing is perfectly fun and games until someone tips the canoe.   I have gone canoeing three times in my life.  

Another saying; ‘three times the charm’ is a lie and I am letting you know this ahead of time in case you hadn’t heard it before.  The first time I went canoeing with a husband and my daughter.  She was eight at the time, and eight year old girls would rather die than live through the embarrassment of their parents.  Except me, I was never embarrassed by my parents until I was well into my forties, but that is an entirely different subject.  So, back to my first canoe trip, it was twenty three years ago, and we were tagging along with a brothers’ annual work event.  

I was not too excited about the idea of a canoe trip, but I wanted to roll with the flow – so that is what you do.  You go along with everybody else.  If I knew ahead of time my husband was not a canoe guy, I would NOT have went along.  But for the sake of looking good, and rolling with the flow, I went.  And though we never tipped over, which was my biggest fear, we missed our ‘get off here to catch your bus ride back’ stop.  Yep, that was us.  And about one mile down river, it dawned on us.  Rather than get off at the next stop point, we panicked and jumped out of the canoe and proceeded with the upstream battle of pulling the canoe on foot, for over a mile, in the muck and slippery rocks to the stop point we originally missed.  My daughter laid down flat in the canoe – she was mortified by us.  And of course, we were mortified too. 

Canoe trip number two was with the other husband.  He knew how afraid I was of tipping over in a moving river.  He was privy to the first canoe trip fiasco and promised to take good care of me if I went on the trip with his family.  So of course I believed him.  He really thought my story was funny so he shared it, and was then talked into pulling the funny prank of tipping me over on purpose.  And he did.  I lost my glasses in the river, had a panic attack, found my bent up glasses, and got mad and cried.  Here, here for rolling with the flow.  

This brings me to canoe trip number three with my boyfriend at the time.  We went with our card club.  Simply put, he is good at navigating any type of watercraft.  So I trusted him, completely.  We never tipped.  Though a bit short on charm along with sun burnt thighs, it was a successful roll with the flow day.

As I walked the shoreline of a Lake Michigan beach recently I found several flat pieces of stone that had washed to shore.  I thought about how they got their shape after being tossed around in the water, perhaps for years, grinding with the sand and other rocks; floating and tossing about, then washing up to shore. The flat rocks nestled into the beach shore are almost like an invitation to be picked up and tossed back in.  So I tossed a few, and as I watched them dance across the water before making the plunge back in, I realized how I am more of a ‘skipping stone’ than a ‘go with the flow’ person.  .   

The circumstances and experiences in our lives are what shape us into who we are, much like the water and sand shape the stones.  Always uniquely and beautifully shaped, dancing across the water, plunging in, and rolling in with the surf to greet our new opportunities, learning what works for us, and what doesn't, never apologizing for who we are, but just being.