The Luck of Winds and Waters
Luck seems to follow in the wake of the boat. Occasionally, I glance over my shoulder – I know, eyes in the boat – and see her smirk. Like a trickster, she plants seeds of change, alters her appearance to suit the context of the event and watches it unfold. Nine years of dragon boating and I’ve yet to see us escape her, seemingly, self-absorbed idiosyncrasies.
She has her ways of bending the outcome. Sometimes, I’d rather she were occupied with something else when others attribute our race to her. As if skill, strength, team synchronicity and months of training had nothing to do with it.
Some call her by her full name – Luck of Winds and Waters.
In Chinese, wind and water translates into feng-shui, the divination of the landscape. Masters of feng-shui use special tools to read the configuration of landforms in their search for good fortune in the midst of auspicious places. I use it for making gardens.
Fortunately, as it is said, her vagaries have taken me to races some distance from Toronto, with opportunities to run up ‘Rocky’s Steps’ in Philadelphia, kayak with pods of orcas off Vancouver Island and feast in the Piazza Navonna of Rome.
One time, she rolled up her sleeves for a master performance. Emerging from the boat after practice, I told my teammates I wasn’t going to the dragon boat party afterwards. A good cause for ten dollars apiece, I didn’t need yet another chance at a raffle, waiting endlessly for all the pizza and beer I could eat and drink.
I began biking home, a forty-minute ride against the wind. After ten minutes and a setting sun I had second thoughts about having to cook and eating late. I began to think maybe pizza, and a salad at home afterwards, would be a good compromise. I turned around, bound for the party at Sunnyside, bought my lucky ticket from a friend and reappeared to the surprise of my teammates, chasing and devouring trays of beer and slices of pizza the moment servers emerged from the kitchen.
Great music. To the DJ’s reggae, I gyrated with my home team, Sinai Lighting. Line dancing and rock and roll moved me to my Canada Masters team. After an hour or so the music stopped. We pulled out our tickets for the draw. The winning number was picked. It was mine.
Astonishing. I had left, only to return – and I had won a round-trip ticket to Hong Kong.
Running to the stage I turned to face the three hundred dragon boaters screaming and shouting. There in the back of the crowd she stood, Luck of Winds and Waters, a huge smirk wrapped around her face. She had her way once again.
Apparently it was my trip to make, a rare opportunity to travel to Chinese sacred mountains, inspiration for landscape painting – karst topography of the Li River near Guilin, and Huang Shan, where the legendary Yellow Emperor discovered the Elixir of Immortality.
A Buddhist monk would say – karma very profound.
How lucky.
Perspective 1:2003 originally appeared in Dragon Boat World Magazine Winter 2003.
1:2003