Sunset summer sessions

(NB - this is not so much a poem as just a bit of a stream-of-consciousness ramble)

Leave the office. Leave the car. Leave the city. Leave mobile reception.Leave the shirt and tie. Leave one world. Enter the thermals. Enter the drysuit. Enter the BA, spraydeck and helmet. Enter the boat. Enter the river. Enter another world.

Suspend so-called 'normality' for a couple of hours. Reboot into normal-normality for a couple of hours.
Get away from it all. Get away from the politics, from the emails, phone calls, meeting requests.
Get away from the steady drone of information and misinformation that we call 'life'.

Focus down to what's important now: There isn't enough room in this eddy for your emotional baggage:
The important things here are the current, the rock, the eddy; body, boat and blade; rhythm, rate and flurry; the subconscious and the instinctive.

It would be the same were this biking. It would be the same were this running. It would be the same were this climbing. But tonight, it's kayaking. Tonight, it's me and the river and a few select friends. Tonight it's just us, and this, and now.

The sun starts to sink. We're not invoking the 'one more go' fairies but it's one more go then we're out of light
One more go then we're out of water. One more go then we're out of normality and back to 'normality'.
One season is nearly finished, one season is nearly starting - make the most of this.
Make the eddy, current, eddy, current, wave, eddy, wave, drop, eddy - and relish this.

These nights of working on the small stuff will make the bigger stuff easier.
These nights of working on the big stuff have made the big stuff smaller.
These nights of working haven't been working at all, they've been playing.
But this playing is working, and the fact that there is playing at all means that this working/playing has worked.

Sooner or later it's over. But the last run is the best run and the important things come easily and the easy things become the most important. The light fades and we laugh. The light fades and we load the cars. The light fades and we head home. The new season starts soon, and these nights will have been valuable, more valuable than the fuel to get us here, more valuable than the access fee, more valuable than the cost of the rushed supper before falling into bed. These off-season escapes and snatched evenings of messing around are what will make the early season more enjoyable, more easy, more fun.

And really, that's all we're here for.

Take it easy

Pyro

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