“The Water’s Edge” by Jane Donaghey

There is nothing more enticing than the water’s edge. Looking back to our childhood homes, and there were many, we always seemed to be not far from water. 

I lived in Arva, just north of London, Ontario until I was seven. Down the hill out back of our rural home was a path to Medway creek. Following my dad past the friendly, old tree stump and the scratching raspberry bushes, we’d come to the flats of grass before it turned into the sloping river bank. He kept it short with his red and white riding mower. It was a cool and breezy setting for our family picnics. Our aunt played games with me and my siblings, and all my cousins, while the other adults visited and set out food on the shady picnic tables.

 Dad won his fight with the neighbour and the township to build a dam across the water-way so that we could access and cut our field on the other side. He designed it to allow the water to move through it but not to hinder its flow. It was wide enough to drive the mower across. I remember it being quite marshy there with the spring thaw but by summer it stayed dry.  One tree on that side had a large horizontal branch and we’d pretend we were riding our horse, galloping magically on its wooden back.

We had an old brown rowboat. Sitting upon the dam, dangling my feet over the edge dad carefully lowered me into its haul. He taught me to take the oars in my own small hands. I would steer us up stream, just a little ways to him but for my early years, a journey. That was our summer.

Jane

In the deepest winter it was skating on the thick, white ice in my snowsuit zippered up tight to my chin. My rosy cheeks tucked from the wind inside my hood. You could glide in the open length of the frozen river like my dad, or practice with a hockey stick and puck like my brother. Mom held my younger sister’s mittened hands guiding her along and keeping her from landing hard again on her snowy bottom. 

What I loved was to take route around the old willow tree, on the far bank. The ice would form at the base of its trunk creating an incline on one side and a decline on the other. Without much struggle I could skate up and effortlessly down and around the other side. I would play this way until my toes were numb with the small joy of it.

When we lived at Gramma’s, while the details on our new farm were being finalized, we swam in her country pool. She had worked hard to afford that lovely oasis amongst the pines that lined her property in Birr, another small town north of London. Perhaps it was to fill a void. Each peaceful morning’s swim an homage. She grew up in Muskoka, spending every summer there, first as a child then with her own children. She would pack them up in the car and land at the cottage on Clear Lake, staying from June till November. They’d attend the local school till the autumn chill drove them back home.

Once we made our new home on the farm we christened the creek with the dock my dad and brother built, an old oil drum fastened under the end to create buoyancy for diving. Spending hours perfecting our back flips, our muddy old sneakers protecting us from the muck and rocks of the dug out creek-bed. If we held on tight and were careful to avoid his claws, our black lab Jake would pull us through the water on his back. He would cough and spit with his efforts to entertain us. He was a great dog. That dog would catch anything, from sticks to snowballs, to river splashes, and even rocks. Crazy ol’ Jake, but he was game and he had a few broken teeth to show for his fun. 

We lost the farm to my parents’ un-amicable divorce years later. Mom bought herself and us kids a house in the suburbs in north London. There was a cement pool in our backyard. Every spring, the water would emerge from winter thick with green algae. We could only guess if it would metamorphose into a sparkling paradise in time for summer break.

Crazy ol’ Jake

The pool’s ancient pump was always needing repair. Mom, not a swimmer herself, wasn’t keenly on top of that task. But though she found it daunting, she never failed us and we’d be splashing about once the June heat hit. We would dash from the air-conditioned rec room, through the sliding patio doors, cross the hot pavement and jump in feet first. It wasn’t a great pool like my gramma’s with the diving board, never really deep enough for one, but during those scorching heat waves it served us well.

Over my adult years it’s been beaches I’ve longed for during the depths of winter, and sought out in summer’s excursions. There was never one too far from home. Be it the gentle waves of the Great Lakes Huron or Erie, that quenched my soul, or Ontario, during a stint of life in the “big smoke” of Toronto in my early 20s. 

Then there was the gasp-worthy chill of Georgian Bay, camping at then known as Cape Croker, with my husband. Its rocky shoreline and stunning escarpment for backdrop, our babies catching tiny green frogs on the clay flats one dry summer. The water-line was so shallow they could walk for miles with no fear of them drowning.

I’ve tried my strokes in the Florida ocean where the white sand glowed, as I spied my first glimpse of a dolphin’s leap on the horizon. I’ve braved hand-in-hand with my sister the crisp, sharp sting of the Adriatic Sea in Italy. Tasting the salt on our lips, and cool Mediterranean breeze on our skin, we felt like youngsters. The only few to even seek out an ocean swim from our bus tour that late September, passing the rainbow of surfboards, tethered and retired by the shuttered kiosk. We were Canadians and not miffed over our desire for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We’ve surfed in Tofino, BC, and waded in Margaree Harbour, Nova Scotia. Making memories with our grown sons, the water almost always a point on our map.

The only time I had a swimming lesson was at five but I was too shy to join my brother for any real instruction. My father always proclaimed that he could swim before he could walk, and I believed, hearing about his extended stays in Muskoka. I was never timid near water so trusted my limited, graceless breast-stroke or side-stroke to get me from A to B.

Perhaps being born under the fish sign, I have always felt right or righted once I got closer to the shore. Whether the cooling effect of fresh water or the cleansing one of salt I am renewed once immersed. Sandy, or rocky, or silty no matter my toes always steady me. When I have gazed out as far as I can see, I know I’m ready to turn back to life and its lessons on land, calm and centred for a time until the next pull guides me like divining rods towards the water’s edge.

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Jane Donaghey lives in Lucan, Ontario with her husband of 40 years. Their four grown sons are out in the world pursuing their dreams. When she is not working at the public library, she is enjoying teaching yoga, being creative, reading, long walks, and of course writing.

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