Last Memorial Day we went kayaking with 5 other friends, it was a beautiful day. We went somewhere up in New Hampshire, near Rye? and paddled around, went to sit and walk on a beach - all in all it was a wonderful paddle. Coming back we had to go under a bridge - and most of us didn't know that the tide was coming in and just surging REALLY hard under that bridge. 4 people got thru before the tide got strong and didn't realize that the other three slowpokes might hit some strong water. Linda and I were two of those slowpokes and when we started to go thru it was like paddling against a storm. It was all I could do to keep going straight, and paddle like crazy to get to the other side of the bridge. Just as I was coming thru I heard Linda yell, turned my head to look back at her and got swept back under the bridge. Her Kayak had overturned and she was in the cold New England water. I went paddling back to her as quickly as I could, worried that she would develop hypothermia in the cold water. Luckily, a large yacht was close by and the guys plucked Linda out of the water (they picked her up like she was a herring) and deposited her on a pier nearby. My hubby was close by and paddled over to help and then went back to the kayak place to report this upset, by this time the surge under the bridge had calmed down.
Linda and I sat on the pier, she was dripping wet, but we were both pretty happy. Tony reported our plight to our friends, including Lindas hubby who went into shock and "I'm calm in the face of danger" mode - which means he was panicked inside. We got picked up and brought back to the kayak store, Linda changed and we had a wonderful picnic dinner overlooking the water.
I wanted to make a memorial piece for that day, and have been working on it since then. First I took a background paper from Claudine Hellmuths collection and tried to work in a 12x12 format. I ruined the paper and had to start over. I used alot of Claudine's ideas, such as the pants - but the 12 x 12 format just wasn't working for me. Finally I threw out that format and went for a 12 X 16 format and using my own paper, recreated the beach scene and showed Linda floating away on a boat with poor Michael looking on from the shore. I finally gave them the piece last weekend as a memory of an infamous Memorial Day. I want to show it to Karen also, she'll understand and get a kick out of it. Here is a picture of the piece that I took, not such a great picture but you get the idea!
Here's to my friends and the fun that we have. May our adventures continue!
No comments:
Post a Comment