by Linda Campbell Rehmann

Created on: January 05, 2009

When I die, I want my ashes to be scattered over the water of the Big Rideau Lake in southeastern Ontario. There is a long, wide channel coming into the town of Portland from the east. That's the spot.

I sit with my legs hanging over the bow of the boat, hands reaching upward to hold on to the railing. We're cruising slowly, my feet dangling a couple of feet above the water's surface. The sun is just beginning to go down, taking its time as it seems to on an early summer evening. We're heading almost directly into it, and I close my eyes to feel it on my face. No sunglasses, no sunscreen, nothing between me and the water and the sky, the wind and the warmth.

"I'm gonna open her up," Dad calls down from the bridge. "Hang on!"

The back of my neck prickles, my hands grip more tightly to the railing. The rising roar of the engines pushes the front end of the boat, and me upon it, several feet higher in the air. There is a surge in noise and energy until we reach a plane and the boat levels off to skim along the top of the water, barely touching it at all. The whole thing vibrates from the power of the propellers spinning the water away behind us, and I rest the top of my head against the shaking rail. The force of the wind now pushes my hair straight back from my face. I look down to see the frothy waves, the white tip of the hull cutting through them effortlessly.

Looking back up above me seems like the sun has dropped somewhat, spreading pink and yellow and mauve through the sky. I begin to sing into the wind, calling out the words I listen to over and over and over again as I wear out my mixed tapes. I don't have a pulse, or a heartbeat, I'm just there.

*

There are country roads where I live now, and seemingly wide-open spaces and acres of forest. It's the middle of the Pinelands Reserve in southern New Jersey, but to me we are always only a cell tower away from a major highway and millions of people. Even alone in the woods at night, thousands of stars are missing.

I spent my summers boating on the Big Rideau. I can close my eyes and see the sunlight reflecting off the water, the vast deep blue slick dotted with islands. I can hear the hum of distant boats and in the evenings the loons calling. I can smell the pine trees that, along with the spruce, maple, birch and oak, form the mass of green lining the shores. The water's edge is dotted with cottages: older, two-room shacks with a bathroom tacked on the back on a postage-stamp sized lot, and larger, four-season

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