Paddling on Lake Louise

Once, I imagined mum and I, drifting on a clear, blue lake at the will of the currents and the winds. I imagined that we would be surrounded by lofty mountain, white clouds and a clear blue sky. I imagined mum smiling, she does not say anything, but I can see that she is quiet with content.

That imagination of my mind became reality today when together we boarded a canoe and paddled on Lake Louise. It was just as I imagined it, but real. It was just as I imagined it, but more breathtaking, more memorable.

Early morning, just after breakfast, we donned on life vests and paddled away. Left, right, left, right, slowly our canoe channeled a course, parted the clear, blue glacial water of the lake. All around us, the mountains stood tall, but not intimidating. They were gentle in the rays of the rising sun. They appeared soft with occasional strings of clouds that adorned the tops of their necks like fluffy white scarves.

I could not stop smiling, and though mum was at the front of the canoe with her back against me, I imagined she was smiling too. She too paddled with me, pushing the oar in the water with heavy strokes in synch with me sitting at the back. In between us, two soft animal friends I had brought with me on the trip, and their faces too were plastered with smiles (even though occasionally I drenched them with the lake water whenever I had to switch sides paddling…)

“I think this will be one of the most memorable experiences of my life,” I said. The tranquility, the shared moments, the beauty all around us. No amount of money can buy this memory, nothing can close compare to the joy I felt of giving my mum the simple joy of paddling on a calm little lake in the middle of the Rockies, in my new adopted home of Canada. The pine trees bowed in awe, the half moon looked down at us as if with a small smile. The birds sang gloriously, and the waves gently, gently caressed the sides of our little canoe.

“I guess this is like life,” mum said, “Sometimes you have to paddle hard to get somewhere, but you can never know where exactly.” She was happy, but also nostalgic in that one hour we shared on the canoe. She used to paddle a lot before, when she was young, when a host of admirers chased after her. But she chose dad, she got a stable job in the direst of times (just after the 1970s oil crisis), and the rest is history. She raised a family, she had me, and who could have imagined twenty odd years later we would be here paddling in a foreign land as beautiful and welcoming as this?