Tina Messler

Kayaking

Theres a calmness to kayaking, the way the sun feels on your skin, its hot but it’s a good heat, the kind that warms your soul and makes you feel like you are burning off all the negative energy from the days before. You can taste the salt on your lips, smell it in the slight breeze of the air. The paddle going through the water is an antidote for what your soul needs to heal. It is taking back all the stress you deal with every day and letting you surrender to nature. You can be yourself, alone, no one to answer to, no one to impress. No constant worrying about if you are doing everything right you can just breath, stroke, glide over the water and know it is not judging you. It did not notice if your stroke was off, if it could have been harder, better, stronger, it does not care, it still propelled you forward. The sound of the waves, the breeze brushing through the mangroves, the blue herons and pelicans that is the music to your soul and it calms you. There is an inner peace that washes over your whole body, just as the waves wash over the shore. The waves crashing into the shore are changing the erosion of the land with every smash into the sand and bringing new shells to the surface while taking others back out to sea. The same happens to your soul every time you go out on your kayak, whatever body of water you are on takes a part of your old self with it and emerges with new pieces for you to put forward.