Found Poetry: Taking Risks

It's amazing what you can find out when you take a chance and do something completely out of your realm.

Life has been incredibly busy lately. It's my own fault. I know this time of year is busy with my son and his school stuff, performances and the like, but still I signed myself up for not one, but two night school classes. Well, technically, only one is school, as the other one is held outside. On the water. In a kayak.

I'm not what one would call athletic. But my husband is. His current obsession is training for a
triathlon. Every morning he gets up before dawn and spends a couple hours either running or cycling or both. Every week he's out to the local pool a couple times, and weather permitting, swimming in Lake Ontario (there's actually a group that gets together and swims in the lake. Considering the temperature, and I'm sure that water has only just thawed, I think they're a little bit crazy). The only reason for me to put my butt in a kayak is that I don't want him to go out into the lake alone. I will get into that tippy little boat and paddle around within sight, so he has some kind of help should he run into difficulty. And there is no way in hell I'm swimming in the lake.

My starting point at the canoe club on the Credit River.

I'm 4 weeks into my class and I have discovered something interesting. I like it. Not just a little, I really like it. We go out onto the credit river and head north... it's incredible how quiet it is out there, considering it's in the middle of a fairly large city. The class is small and we are all going at different speeds, so there are moments when I look around and am more or less alone out there. There are birds and other wildlife (saw a groundhog this week, and two weeks ago I was attacked by nesting red-winged blackbirds), and I have gotten to see the sun set every week so far. Wish I had my camera with me so I could get a photo... but every time I get in I'm certain this will be the week I end up in the river, so I make sure I'm electronics free. That in itself is kind of nice.

Being as busy as I've been I haven't had a lot of time to get into my studio. I have to do something or I'll go a little nutty, so I've gotten out my art journals and my sketchbook. My found poetry journal still has a couple empty pages, so that's always a good place to start. This entry just kind of presented itself, the way these things tend to do. I think the message holds for me in my creative life as well as my day to day... I need to try different things and stretch myself, and I can just never tell what I might discover.