A River Wild, A River Rogue

A river wild, a river rogue. A summer day long ago, a day of rushing water, a summer on the edge of adulthood.

I remember it as an unusually hot day for the land we lived in. We were itching to cool off, to break away from the confines of starched clothing and rigid rules around the house, one last good swim before school started up again. Time to run off, to the water, to the ledges overlooking a mountain pool. This area had been a spot for years. We knew where the rocks were that would ruin your day with a good C 6 or 7 fracture. We knew where the current would gently propel you to the shore when you started to go numb with the cold that stole into the pale rigidity of the rest of your bones.

We didn't have a mall, we hung around the water, near bridges that could be jumped off of, near streams in which you could paddle around like a pre-school kiddie pool. The older kids, the braver ones, would jump off the rocks or grab an inner tube and then propel down through some rushing water to a pool further down. Not I, for I was still too shy, too fearful of the rush of ice cold water, the rocks.


There was a boy there that I'd had a crush on since about 4th grade, one of my older brother's friends. He was friendly to me when he was at my family home but not so much around the popular kids. I was younger. I was a band geek. I had braces. It did not stop me from having the feelings that a person thinks only exist for the young. I paddled around, hoping he'd notice me, hesitant to grab a inner tube and hit the faster water, cursed by my shyness, but emboldened by something I couldn't even name yet. I was the youngest person there. I was immensely out of my place yet in my element, outdoors. But I saw the other girls, they of the tight clothing and disdainful eyes, gathered around him. I figured it was now or never. With a deep breath of courage I went up to him and asked. "Do you want to go to the dance with me?" It was one of those Sadie Hawkins things where the girls ask the boys.

He looked at me as the girls giggled, standing straight and rigid, the curiously formal angle of his arms gleaming in the sunlight, immaculate and empty but for my heart which he now held.

He looked at me and said "God no."

The words that struck were no louder than the striking of a flint against rock, a short, sharp sound that spoke with profound finality. In that moment I truly saw him, not the romantic version I'd created in my girlish head, but the real person, there underneath, the eyes cold, the mouth hard and open like a dark, empty cave.

I retreated to the sound of the girls laughter. Tears stung my eyes, but I wasn't going to let them see how deeply I was hurt. I turned and grabbed an inner tube, and head held high, dived right in. My tears mixed with the water as I rode the rushing flood of water that came sluicing down, the water moving fast, grabbing my baggy little kids shorts and pulling me on, hurry, hurry. down and forward.

The water was not so deep and fast to as to be overly dangerous for a good swimmer, but enough, so that for this moment, this little band nerd was part of something wild, wet and unstoppable, something so much bigger than this single day in a life. As I came rushing down the sluice way in that torrent of water, something as well spilled out of me, was released in me, and and I rode it until the water ran still.

We've all had that experience in one form or another, in deep water or clear sky. The one that scares the stuffing out of you, or rips open a wound in a place that would know an endless capacity to hurt. Those moments, bringing out instincts ingrained in your breath, making you reticent to get back anywhere near what caused the situation in the first place. "Getting back on the horse" as they call it. Sometimes it's a near fatal accident, a misadventure, more often it's just a badly broken heart. You'll get through it, even as the reality of it clamps down hard with sharp weasel teeth that leave scars no one else can see. But eventually the teeth will pull free, perhaps taking small bits of flesh, exposing nerve endings to the cold, but you are alive and you're learned something. That in itself is something to be thankful for, even if your heart, as they say, won't "buff out".


Talk to people who've had a near death experience on a mountain top or some other loss and some say I'm not going back. I'm not going to climb again, I'm not going to get another dog again. I'm not going to trust again. A few don't. But only a few.

The rest look at the such events not as a failure, but a measure of that which they have proven they can handle. The event may fade in time, but that which it brought to you can never be destroyed, it's cataloged back in memory to be retrieved in later years, when it can and will save you again. It's that moment when you know what you are made of, and what you are capable of.

Years later, I'm back, kayaking the same area with a couple of friends when we come across the same stretch of water, the pools milling around like restless teens, hoping to be left alone, while desperately wanting to be noticed. There's been some rain, just enough to raise up the water level to the level of our spirits. We grab our kayaks and go in, the water yanking at the edge of that last bit of fear, pulling us down, water fast and huge and furious. Once we picked up the paddle, there was no going back, we had to be there, to see if to the end or die trying, water in a place that's inside of us, water in a place that's somehow holy.

The fear of my youth was gone, replaced by a world much bigger than a small clickish school. My heart was strong, built up by being broken down, bad choices and healed wounds, one defined moment of sacrifice as a teen that became my biggest act of courage. The water lifted us, and we were part of it, strong, fast, so much bigger than ourselves. Water flew up around me and licked my skin, turning parts of me hard, and parts of me liquid, water rushing on, rushing in.

That first step is always the hardest, whether it's walking away with your head held high, or embracing something you've yearned for with a longing you didn't know was in you. Tiny leaps upward propelled by desire and only held back by the gravity of restraint. Why do we hesitate? It's the hesitation born of fear. Fear is not conceived in one quick fumbling in the dark, but repeated sweaty couplings in the arms of that which raises your heart rate and the hairs on your arms. But you also know you can handle the fear. You have learned life's lessons, lost on the youth. You have the capabilities. It's only fear of the what you don't know that holds you back, while upward a huge unknown, your future, beckons. Awaits in a rush of roaring water, awaits in a still pool in the evening, where past hurt is left lying upon a drifting and imponderable shore, washed clean in the yellow afternoon.


At the end of the run, as we got the kayaks to shore, I saw a man in jeans with dark hair, a man who resembled someone at this very spot so very many years ago. It wasn't of course, but for just a moment I hoped it was, so he could see what he'd passed up and I could validate why things can make us stronger, if we only dare.

For now, it's time to head on down river to the cars and soon a place to camp. Time for a warm fire and the laughter of friends, releasing our day with the stories we tell. We paddle gently down into a calm pool, floating down streams, like veins, that let the forest bleed.