Reclaiming My Spirit in the 'Hoopee Swamp
a tribute to my cousin.
This post is dedicated to my cousin Misty who passed away suddenly this week. She had just commented on one of my pictures on Facebook from this trip. I know she would’ve enjoyed this story. She’s one of a handful of people I know, who shares the same love I have for the ‘Hoopee. It’s in our soul from generations back. When we were younger, Misty and her sister, Wendy, always lived nearby. They were our best friends. Misty and my little brother, Michael, were storm troopers from Star Wars with fat lighter guns they would find in the longleaf forest. We lived for spend-the-nights when we’d gather to watch The Dukes of Hazzard on a Friday evening. We played all over the sand ridge above my swamp and on many a hot summer day, we swam at the landing where I put my kayak in for this trip. I’m still processing this loss. My heart aches for her siblings.
Saturday 7.20.24
Solo-kayaking seemed like an impossible dream. Ken, my husband, can no longer go with me because his shoulders are bad. Since starting this Journey in Place, the hardest part has been learning to allow my place to see me and take care of me. I knew I wanted to get IN my river, not just observe it from the bank. Summer and fall are the best times to kayak in the Little Ohoopee river. Never try kayaking when it’s out of the banks. You can get lost and the current, especially the under current, is swift and deadly. I’ve been waiting until I felt the depth was just right. Not too shallow where I’d have to drag over things but not too deep either. I gathered all my necessary supplies. A life jacket, a dry bag, and some water shoes. Then I couldn’t get up the nerve to do it alone. What if I flip the kayak and can’t drag it and myself back to shore? What if a snake falls in the kayak? What if I run into a red wasp nest? What if there are alligators? What if I’m not physically able to get in and out of the kayak? Every day there seemed to be another thing to be afraid of.
What happened to that fearless eight-year-old girl, who fancied herself an explorer, dragging her five-year-old little brother all through the branch behind their small tin can mobile home with the red shag carpet? She was brave and full of adventure and was once found along with her little brother in an old canoe out in the pond paddling around much to the chagrin of her Granny and great aunt. She would look across the fields near home as she rode on the yellow school bus on the wash board dirt road and see the trees undulating in the distance and imagine they were some far off mountains she needed to climb and survey. Now as a woman in midlife, everything causes her fear, worry, and anxiety. Perhaps all the loss she’s experienced in the last twenty years has worn her adventurous spirit away…or has it just been lulled into the mundane.
The air draped around me like a wet shawl as I dragged the blue kayak down the sandy lane to my launching place. I switched arms about half way there to balance the work out. “I was too out of shape for this,” I thought to myself as I looked down at the sweat glistening on my forearms.
Easing around the corner of Grandpas’s old river house, it turned shady and cooler and the mosquitoes began to whine in my ear. I could hear the cicadas buzzing high in the trees. A red shouldered hawk was calling with its high pitched shriek somewhere up river. My feet sank in the black muck along the river’s edge and a strong swampy organic smell filled my nostrils. This was the smell of my beloved ‘hoopee river. I was happy to be wearing water shoes as the feel of the mud squishing between my toes isn’t my favorite.
I put my arms through my life jacket, zipped it up, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to gracefully get my abundant body down into the kayak, when I realized a cypress knee was holding it in place. It was like the swamp was saying, “It’s ok, I’ve got you.” Once I was down in the vessel, I used my paddle to gently push out into the slow, flowing river. Just a few weeks ago, you could’ve stepped across it, but the afternoon thunderstorms over the past few days have allowed her to swell nicely. All my fears and anxieties dissipated in the cool water of the river as I floated along with the current, using my paddle to keep myself moving forward.
This river swamp has held me and healed me in so many ways through the years. Every time I float along her current, memories flood over me. I remember how daddy could navigate a boat and motor through her meandering waters in the dark so that we could fish for catfish by the light of the moon. There is nothing more awe inspiring than a moonlit river ride. Watching the moon shimmer off the water is an ethereal experience. I remember the boat ride we took with my husband and son and our little beagle, Buster, that turned into a nightmare when we lost the run of the river and it started getting dark. That was a big lesson for us to stay on land when she’s full because the water spreads out into all the swamps and sloughs and it’s easy to get off course, not to mention how deadly that fast and swift current can be. I remember stories told of lives lost in these tannic waters. Drownings at fishing holes and during logging expeditions. The Ohoopee is full of pleasures and dangers.
I passed the newly remodeled block house that had been built into the hill decades ago. It has a nice deck overlooking the river now. As I eased around the first narrow bend to the right, the current became swifter and I had to navigate between two old logs. This was a cut out fallen log from years gone by. The nose of my vessel was trying to go hard to the right while my back end was coming around to the left. I paddled hard and fast on my right side to get the nose to turn back left and go through the gap. In my harried rush of paddling, I almost turned myself over. I’ll have to remember to be prepared for this spot on the way back. Then the river opened out into an oxbow lake and a high sand hill, the Upper Lake. There was a fork in the river beyond and my memory or instincts told me to keep left through another narrow thickly wooded area. The current slowed and I remembered fishing from the bank here with Granny. This was one of her favorite fishing spots, the Middle Lake.
The sun was high overhead and it was hot in the open lakes. The water was cool and refreshing as I paddled through it gently to stay straight and it dripped onto my legs. Dragonflies skimmed the water and butterflies fluttered along the bank. Fish roiled the water around old stumps and under the hanging limbs of the mayhaw trees. On my left, two majestic water oaks reached to the heavens and I wondered how many people they had watched go by on this sacred river.
On my right was a tan block house with a white cast iron sink out front and a rusty red hand pump. Across from it used to be an old swimming hole where we were always told someone drowned. I could see beyond the block house that the trees had been clear cut. It was very open and looked like a wound. The loggers are supposed to keep a fifty foot buffer but who measures? Why is it only fifty feet? Did anyone ask the river how much of a buffer it needs to remain pristine, and mud free, to not feel naked and exposed? To provide refuge for the deer, squirrels, birds, raccoons, possums, owls, snakes, turtles, frogs, and countless other creatures. Three hundred feet isn’t enough.
Further down I’m coming up on the trio of tupelo trees standing like antebellum ladies in hoop skirts with the foliage as their parasol. This was my Grandpa’s favorite fishing spot and he didn’t care if there was already someone tied off and fishing there. He would pull up beside them in his boat, drop his own line, and ask them, “Fish biting today?”. Debris and sticks are piled in amongst the trees reminding me of a beaver dam, but I know this was from the current of the swollen winter river.
Ahead there’s a huge open lake of water, the Lower Lake. The menfolk in my family had so many other names of places in the river such as, Coon’s Eddy, the Sucker Hole, the Wash Hole. I failed to take note of them because my experience of this place was from the bank. Most of my fishing trips were with my Granny and she didn’t need a boat to catch all the fish she wanted. She had an old Subaru station wagon with all-wheel drive that took her through sand traps and mud holes to get to the best spots. (Big thanks to my little brother, Michael, for helping me with the names of spots he could remember in the river!)
Looking up at the gathering clouds, I decided I better turn around and get back to my landing. It’s amazing how the river looks completely different when you’re paddling back up. You get an entirely different perspective when the sun is at your back. The light hits the trees and water differently. The sun going in and out of the clouds causes areas of the swamp to glow. You can see all the snags of old dead trees covered in algae just below the surface of the water as you paddle by reaching up hauntingly from the depths.
What had I been so afraid of? I feel more comfortable, more calm, more capable, more resilient, more ME in this kayak gliding through the swamp than I do anywhere else on earth. The feeling is hard to describe and explain, but people who know it…KNOW IT. I didn’t feel lonely, worried, or afraid. I felt taken care of in the presence of something bigger than me and any worries I may have. There is a reverence in that swamp that makes it a sacred place for me and I swear I feel the presence of my ancestors around every bend.
I paddled up past my landing and was trying to get to the bridge but the river was blocked from several downed trees, most likely from the same hurricane in late August of last year, that took so many trees down in the swamp behind my sanctuary.
I turned around and let myself drift back to the landing, paddled hard once it was within sight, so I could cut across and land against the cypress knee I had started at. I used that cypress knee to push myself up and out of the kayak. Wow, I did it. I pulled the vessel up onto land, then waded back out into the run of the river, dropped to my knees in the sand, and gave thanks to a river that has renewed my soul once again.
On the way to work yesterday, the song Purple Rain played on the radio and tears streamed down my face as I thought of my cousin. When we were growing up we made Saturday trips to a fundamentalist church in Macon with my cousins, my aunt, and my Granny (who was their aunt). This church lost me when the preacher droned on and on about Prince being satan incarnate. We would laugh about this all the way home and play Prince anytime we could in secret. My cousins are both amazing musicians and singers. Talent that I have always been envious of. Today, I found a video of Misty on YouTube that I did not know existed. Second verse of this song by America is: Wishing on a falling star Waiting for the early train Sorry boy, but I've been hit by purple rain Aw, come on, Joe, you can always Change your name Thanks a lot, son, just the same
Blessings,
💜B💜
🙏❤️
This is beautiful, Becki <3 My condolences to you.