A Woman Fell Into the Water and I Froze
My experience at a Women Writers’ retreat turned out much more exciting than I planned
My finger grips the air horn but it makes no sound.
From dry land, I keep my eyes on the water, where she clings to the dock at the rural mountain resort hosting a weekend of writers and musicians.
“Help! Help!” she cries, fear punctuating the urgency of her words.
I am frozen in my actions, despite listening to the water safety training the evening before, not even 12 hours from this moment.
I am standing on the dock hearing a woman cry out because she has tipped over trying to get into a canoe. Just moments before I joked about me falling in the water as she helped me board a kayak from the dock.
She held one side of the kayak steady for me, while I gently placed one leg and then the other into the boat, before gently lowering my bottom into the seat. I watched her from the water as she made her way to a canoe.
She quipped that someone had vomited on the dock and it was right where she needed to place her foot in order to enter the canoe.
“Must be the musicians!” I suggested, “They seem more like partiers than the writers.”
