“In myths, people turn into all kinds of things. Birds, animals, trees, flowers, rivers.” (Richard Powers, The Overstory)

I’ve been here off and on for four years now, and I’m not sure I know Long Island as a home yet. Thus, I decided to take part of this summer to ask why and begin to find some answer.

This past year, I’ve sold my home in Texas and bought a house nestled into the Pine Barrens near Riverhead. However, the distance between place of residence and home is resonant and palpable thing. It certainly requires getting to know the place (neighbors, local shops and stores, the right restaurant and pub), and for me, getting to know the other neighbors (all the array of critters and plants–native and exotic). This distance between place and home must also be spanned by some notion of myth, some narrative tug at one’s being that “places” you in your home. Learning stories of a place is a beginning–who’s been writing, who’s been singing, who’s been storytelling and finding the common themes, interactions and connections with this place. By the way, we should include ALL who have been writing, singing and telling stories of a place, not just since 1492 (with all the violence and difficulty that includes) and not just since the arrival of humans (with all the violence and difficulty that includes). The glacial erratics in my yard have told me stories about why Long Island is here, just as the horseshoe crabs have taught me about the red knots’ late spring return. However, at some point you have to place yourself in the story to make a myth of home.

I’d been sorting through how to do this for over a year–time in the woods and wetlands, time paddling the four major rivers (Carmans Connetquot, Nissequogue and Peconic), a bit of time in the Sound and the Bay. Check, check, and check. Each of these have been and will continue to be brief excursions about learning from knowledgeable folks and learning the stories, but I hadn’t had to invest myself in these, other than some afternoons and evenings. What I needed was to take up an event which would demand something of me in place. Something that my 57-year-old body through aches and pains would remind me … “yep, you’re here.” Also, through, the trip had to be about being and contextualizing here, this loooong island.

It came to me … how about paddling around Long Island? It’s been done a few times in the past 20 years (more on this later), and the distance is around 260-280 miles–manageable enough if I took on day trips taking out and putting in, and sorting out drop-offs and pick ups with dear friends. Mostly, it seemed a chance to learn more about this place, the expanse of it and in the process give myself a small, myth-making experience–one that after enough days of paddling, enough time of sore shoulders, kayak mishaps, and the unplanned oddities that always happen on long trips, maybe I’d turn into something else, more intimately connected to place … and find myself at home here.

Here are the parameters:

1. put in at the Peconic Lake dam not far from my house and make day trips of 10-14 miles. Thus, 28-30 days total paddling.
2. generally I wanted to return home each night, but if I can impose on some friends keeping me closer to the next leg, kindly ask/beg.
3. not expect this is contiguous–day after day. I have work to do at my university and other writing to complete. I’ve got the whole summer.
4. have fun, but sweat and engage.
5. have friends with me for some days and paddle alone for others.
6. try to read a bit about the places I pass through and by.
7. keep some kind of log. This blog isn’t going to be a how-to guide to paddle around the island. There are better sources (please refer to Mike Bottini’s Exploring East End Waters: A Natural History and Paddling Guide & Kevin Steigelmaier’s Paddling Long Island and New York City). Also, the best way to put it is that’s it’s a search for home by circumnavigating where I live, and hopefully ending where I begin.

(Scott Schram and I loading kayaks)

Powers, Richard. The Overstory: A Novel. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2018.