Paddling In The Time Of COVID-19
It was inevitable: the scent of the Bay always reminded him of the fate of crabs during this season. As the nation locked down and sheltered, the explorer took to the sea, paddling towards an uncertain future, alone with the seals and sea lions as his protectors. Smoke-filled orange skies and orange-skinned despots were foreboding, but never forbidding. It felt like God was punishing the world with a litany of plagues at the same time. He paddled on. The rate of infections grew – he dug his paddle into the heaving sea, day after day, as the pandemic raged on – month after month.
Occasionally, rarely, there would be another lone traveler upon a board or sunken into the hull of a shell, paddling to nowhere, distant as a vision, occupied by their own story. They would break from their meditation and nod in passing, understanding that they alone possessed the key to the sea. The vast wilderness of deep water, sea life, urban ruins, relics from an industrial past, floating beneath and around for no one else’s eyes for decades. A pod of dolphins jump, and a whale breaches, with a similar nod and understanding.
Beyond the coves lie battleships and shipping vessels as grand as a skyscraper lain on its’ side. We make a pact with grandeur: I am to admire you with respect and awe. You will reward me with humility and scale. In the shadow of a giant, the paddler feels a mere drop in the sea, a spec of cosmic dust dancing across the astral plane. It is there where you can only just be. Our only fate in life is to exist. And then not.
So many people were dying across the globe that he felt guilty for his freedom. The virus cannot touch me here. Days of deep San Francisco fog would present a new movie, a Heart of Darkness moment – a post-Apocalypse Now, now. Could it be possible to be more alone, enshrouded in the dense soup of legend and myth? One stroke, glide, two strokes, glide. But there is a the seal, the sea lion to remind that this is always their home.
Days of sunshine feel sinful in this Bay. We’re not accustomed to the decadence of summer. Yet, year after year is seems we’re gaining more dog-days. Or is it the Dogpatch? Looking West, you can always rely on the white wall of Karl - slowly creeping upon the hills. Today he will not touch us, today he is at bay from the Bay. Day after day, he hangs high as the city sighs and I gaze with my eyes upon his size, while to my surprise, although he tries and tries, perhaps under the guise of blue skies, I must emphasize, he can’t quite disenfranchise the sunrise.
The Park opened in September of 2020 and the crowds immediately came. People were starved for community and connection. This gave them a ‘safe space’ to be outdoors, remain distanced and dip their toes in the lapping Bay. From our isolation emerged a new world. In some validation of our self defeating, we long for the sorrow of our imprisonment. But humans must emerge. Here they were, masses masked making merriment for a moment. It was unsettling to the calm, the quiet. But was it time to emerge? The apocalypse was now at-bay, on the Bay.
They came at once. The paddler found a bounty of fellow seafarers, so many, offering nods. They flocked, unknowingly, into the treacherous sea as he sought to show them they way, to teach them the Dao of the Dogpatch. Paddle Club became the rally cry to share the key to the sea.