First Paddle

I plunge my paddle in the water and draw it behind me with all my left bicep, trapezius and deltoid muscles can give. My confidence about my paddling abilities have sunk to the bottom of the river. This is hard work, but I can't frown. I'm on the water again, in an over-sized canoe and the sun is lazily sinking below the trees. I'll hurt tomorrow, that is a certainty, but it's the good pain, the kind that's part of the perfect picture on a postcard from a wicked trip with a mix of old friends and new. The soreness and the high feelings will fade and be impossible to have back again in the same way, because you'll never have another first paddle in a dragon boat.