I emphasize to young rowers that pushing for boat speed balances with competitive rowing’s long-term benefit in developing us as human beings.

Beings. Immersion in this sport tends to prioritize doing rather than being. In our chase for excellent “measurables” – good grades, top test scores, seat in the 1V, strong career, and the like – we may lose sight of the beauty inherent in simply being. Pushing and being go hand-in-hand, in my book.

These days, I am satisfied in solitude of long steady-state pieces at medium heart rate at a lake so silent that the only sounds are my breathing, the blades entering and leaving the water, and the squawks and toots of the birds.

At the turnaround, I take a drink of water and sit quietly in the stillness. I just am for some long moments. Soon enough, I’ll be at it again, chugging back toward the dock. Now and then, a talisman, a great blue heron crossing my wake, low and near.

Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain on the drive out and Van Morrison’s paeans to peace bookend this reverie, this balance for the intense day ahead.

5 thoughts on “In Haunts of Ancient Peace”

  2. I couldn’t agree more. Maybe this is something we learn to appreciate as we age. I have been told that my boat is made for racing and I should be racing it. I have also been told “you are not a rower if not racing”. I would rather be one with my beautiful wooden boat, just enjoying it, than be racing, and judged solely on how I can or can not dominate others.

    Only we with wooden boats may experience that silence, where we just hear our breathing, the blades, and the bubbles under the hull. When a composite boat goes by, I hear a lot of clunking of the oars in the oarlocks, amplified by the boat. But the wooden boats really give you that serenity . I am so grateful that you introduced me to the wooden boats.

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    1. That means a lot to me, hearing that, Diana. Others introduced these beautiful wood shells to me back when, and you now are passing it along. This autumn, the G. King that sojourned in Breilands’ boathouse is my daily shell. And, not that you need to prove anything to the skeptics, but anybody (like you) who rows at HOCR is indeed a racer. Best, Don

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