A fine Summer’s day

A Fine Summer’s day and a Lake

Summers are always fun-filled, and there is nothing better than going to the lake on a perfect summer day. However, the best part of my summer was spent working and sleeping. Occasionally, I went out with friends and cruised between Mankato and the twin cities. To sum it up it was rhythmic and tedious. I remember one day during this past summer that threatened to change my life drastically, and stood head and shoulders above the rest as one of the most terrifying days in my life. It was perhaps the second or third Saturday of July. I was sleeping in my sofa half-watching the television and half sleeping, in other words, my natural habitat. It was around noon, when my friend came knocking my door. It was Yonis, a junior here at MSU that I met at the start of the spring semester, through my friend. Yoni was a typical Somali, out-going and dangerously as spontaneous as they come. After chatting few minutes, he asked me if I wanted to go the Cities and chill there for awhile. I didn’t have any particular plans for the day, so I eagerly agreed. So I got ready, grabbed a Chipotle and we hit the road. I asked him if he wanted to canoe. The first question he asked me was, and I remember vividly, “do you know how to swim.” I said no, and quickly changed subjects. I wasn’t in the mood for convincing any-one at that particular moment in time, and I quickly assured him that I was master canoer. The funny thing I was being honest when I told him that. I picked up canoeing when I was down in Portland, Maine, and I soon fell in love with the whole thing. The first time I went in a canoe was when we were on school trip, and I remember pairing up with this one girl who was a novice quite like me. We quickly learned the basics and were soon on our own. Every-thing seemed going quite smoothly, till few seals congregated around our canoe. I was fascinated by them and started teasing them and throwing water at them. However, my partner was quite freighted and started screaming, which frankly scared me. I was trying to hold my frustration at her, till she started jumping on the canoe-literally, which started to destabilize the canoe’s balance. I was scared to death, because I wasn’t even a swimmer, and I had a bad-shoulder, so I wasn’t really interested in falling into the water and drowning. Thankfully, our instructors came in time, and cooled every thing down.

Anyways, as we were driving to Minneapolis, I kept having flashbacks of that day. After arriving Minneapolis, our mutual friend joined us, and we all went to Lake Calhoun. We headed to the boat rental place. It was a small hut and had huge poster that had numerous pockets they used to hold identification cards. At the beginning we were not sure if we could fit in one boat, but after talking to the representatives, they assured us that we would be fine in one big canoe.

The first of many mistakes we made that day was letting our friend sit on the back of the canoe, which is usually reserved for people who know how to canoe. Anyways, we finally got the basic understanding and were soon on our way. Our friend, Mohamed was the most adventurous of us all. He kept pushing the envelope and soon we found ourselves going from end of the lake to the other, and zik-zaking our way around the lake, much to my frustration. What-ever happened before what was about to happen was locked in obscurity. The rest I remember so vividly that it even scares me now. We came across this one huge building across the road, and we were all awed at its magnificence. We stopped canoeing and started commenting about it, and soon got into a long conversation, as the canoe froze on the lake- not moving at all. Time too froze by and serenity and calmness ensued like I had ever seen before. We seemed to be having a great time, and we were all happy that we came. Nevertheless, what we failed to take into account was that even though it was clam on the surface, the currents underneath were getting very violent. Our canoe capsized, and soon we were all in the water. Luckily, we all managed to hang on to the boat, and we started laughing at how fast every thing changed. As we watched the canoe get filled with water, we started running out of ideas. Then my friend Yonis, who is a marine veteran, told me that he would give me a ride to the shore on his back! I agreed since I was not interested into wrestling with the canoe.

Unfortunately, I hugged so badly, and I let go the canoe, I became increasingly frightened and panicked so horrible, that I scared the living crap out of him. We both went down few inches underneath the water, which scared him terribly; he quickly pushed me away, which loosened my life jacket. I popped up to the surface and soon started drowning. I went on a free-fall, and I watched hopelessly as I went dangerously down. I remember it being very peaceful, and I lost control of my body, I became numb. After going down for almost 40-60 seconds, I started feeling scared and was soon wrestling with the water, I remembered Yonis telling me as he gave me ride “to move your feet,” so I started doing that, and luckily was soon on the surface. I saw about dozen people on the shore taking pictures of us their cell-phones, as they watched in horror what was happening to me. No sooner had came on the surface, did I started going down again. But I wasn’t terribly frightened this time around. I was quite sure that if I survived the last ordeal, that I would most likely survive this one too. I soon came on the surface again, but the water was taking its toil on me. I was half-conscious, I grabbed hard onto my lifejacket, and watched as a canoe manned by a woman and girl in her early twenties approached me.

The old lady lifted my head up and grabbed my hand and as she placed it on the canoe, I understood what she was trying to do. I grabbed the canoe and as she canoed the canoe, I felt a huge relieve, and a sudden realization that I will survive the whole nightmare downed on me, much to my satisfaction. As we approached the shore, people started to applause and cheered us. The cops and the ambulances came in few minutes later. By the time the cops came, I was shivering so badly that I had to be taken into the police car to get some heat. I didn’t know what happened to my friends, till they came over to me and asked me how I was doing. We came to our cars, and as I checked my phone, I had almost twenty calls from my mom. When I came home to say hi to her, she was already frustrated at me for not picking up the phone. I dared not tell her, what had just happened to me. I took a quick shower, and drove back to Mankato. As I drove, I couldn’t help but wonder what if I knew how to swim, would this day have been so disturbing and unfortunate. I felt embarrassed about myself. I began to appreciate the importance of knowing how to swim, and made a commitment to learn how to swim.