end of story

The desire to know what happens next is why we have sequels. Also, the Aeneid. They were already onto it, and into it, back then, people heading out on the long journey, coming home to tell the tale. First there is the leaving: no story without a departure point or a moment when it all changed, the shoe suddenly on the other foot or dropping, the threshold stumbled over, the house sucked up and spun cattywampus and to somewhere else. Next the story line where we settle with the popcorn and whatever we left in the down! stay! position on the perimeter stays put until (and this is the olden days of course) the curtain rises and the lights come back on and we had no idea the old man beside us with the hacking (and in one scene annoying) cough was in fact a young lady of about twenty. And we all stand, begin shuffling for the paper cups and sometimes a last attempt at wiping our eyes so nobody will know we cried, actually cried, as if it was real life and truly, really, a sad thing and not just because Meg Ryan has had work done and whatever happened to that charming girl next door who got mail (and Tom Hanks on more than one occasion), who now looks like a poster child for heroin addiction. 


And I am a sucker for stories, truly, in every sense of the word, a sucker. As in, I believe them. As in, later I will think whatever happened between them after the wedding and maybe kids, oh yeah, probably kids, a small cottage in Maine and scrapbooks covered with dust because certainly, there would be many. I can walk in Trader Joe's and think oh Katniss at the sight of so much food, walk into the barn and look for the spiderweb that must certainly be in the corner and with some word I need to see. A story for me is real. Could have happened, maybe did, maybe will again, maybe even now as I write, maybe when I am sleeping five children are clambering onto a carpet with the phoenix and making sure they stay in the middle for the long ride. A story is not virga, falling from the sky long enough to think here comes the rain! or, it's snowing! yet never making it to the ground; to puddle up or thunder through the dry canyon, to settle onto the cedar branches or sift through a forest just beyond the wardrobe and a single lamp post. 


There is much debate over the book versus the movie and yes, a movie is never the book or the whole story, but then, neither is a book. Characters, the real characters, creep silently off the pages and if there is an opposite of virga, from the nothingness of the word on the page they magically distill into the somethingness of the person and the life, in my mind. 


Which is the reason for sequels. We want to know what happened next, more, did they ever and when she finally what did they all say. There is an innate desire I think to lift the lid and flip to the last page, vicariously see down the road and crane our necks over the edge, maybe row quicker to the next bend. We do want to know what and when and if we made the right, if the path leads where we thunk it would or hoped it might, despite. The sage, the bard, the soothsayer, palm reader, tarot deck shuffler, astrologer of freewill or not-so-free-will, the intuitive, and the crystal ball consultant are willing to help us. And we do go there, to the free horoscopes online and the nice old lady with the big hand painted on the plywood sign, the you have many powerful friends in the cookie. And you might be thinking oh here she goes I see where this is headed, life is an unfolding, no way around the bend, some clever river or water metaphor and how not until we go there for ourselves, and even then. 


Uh, maybe not. So maybe there is no going to see, no looking back upstream (okay I'll give you that one), no Illiad to show here it all is, muses mapped and gods and goddesses dutifully noted for the generations, that ever truly tells us what happened then, once and for all, The End, or in the old movie version, Fade to Black (nowadays just Fade Out, maybe too many film schools are in California, all that far out and way out and just being out there that somebody felt the need to groove up even the last dying thought on the reel.) 


But think of this, and not to get all Rod Serling here, but just a thought: a place where the characters just go on floating on the river atop that raft, Harry and his new epilogue family have Sunday lunch with Ron and Hermione, maybe Buckbeak in the backyard to entertain the kids, maybe Sisyphus let the ball just roll on down and stepped out of the way in the nick of time, maybe Forrest has a taco stand and serves it up. Which would also mean the creepy guys are still out there, the ones that got away thank god and we were happy to see go, relieved when the one hundred twenty running minutes crossed the finish line, when we could put it down and shove it through the little metal return slot at the library, Netflicks it right on out of our sight. 


So maybe what we want is not the endless loop or the reel that never ends, or Ground Hog day to be the way, or to see the scary ending and read how they never made it. Maybe we really want, not the sequel but a bit more, just enough and then the once and for all ending whambam thank you final curtain, a way to sum it up and let us decide for ourselves, maybe they did make it, maybe she figured it out a few pages later.


Which would mean certainly in our daily walking out the door the chapter is the thing, enough to know a life is its story and that as it plays out we aren't the only ones in the club, skipping ahead and maybe having to re-read the last few pages, maybe hoping no one will notice that embarrassing night page thirty-four, hoping by page forty a bit more is clearer, also by then Mr. or Mrs. Right, and somewhere around fifty the plot not only thickens but gets really really good and we want to do nothing else but be there, despite the what was she thinking and couldn't they see? and maybe when the last chapter begins there will be a small blurb, Nancy Pearl hinting, another on the way and we can relax and take in every last word knowing (and hoping, after all, job security for the author), maybe a few more.

the up and over

The up and over took a bit of planning. Rock-paper-scissors to decide which guides to lead the hike, which guides to take some of the boats downstream to Deer Creek and then hike back to Tapeats where it all started. We could, of course, have taken the straight shot downriver, pointed out the mouth of Tapeats Creek as we floated past or even pretended to the clients there was nothing there worth stopping for, and a few miles later pulled in at Deer Creek. Which was not a bad way to spend the day and sometimes, that was what we did. The up and over took more time and also, the planning. It also meant a nine mile walk for the folks who wanted to give it a go, along the creek and across it and in Spring easier said than done and a guide to wade across and set up a rope and haul it back over, so factor in numb feet. Then the tricky scramble, one very thin and crumbly ledge of siltstones, lots of tromping through sand and prickly pear forests (okay, knee-high but still, they are called prickly for a very good reason), and if time a side trip to Shaman's Gallery to see the wattle-and-daub door on the ancient granary; this only for brave free-climbers in the group (no thank you very much, one morning of sewing machine leg and looking down a two hundred foot free-fall and that last one hand and one toehold stretch as far as you can and whatever you do don't f-up move was enough for this river gal). Then the hard climbing. Up a steep, winding scree slope and just when the complaints begin to outnumber the oohs and ahhs a very big ooh and ahh at the first sighting of Tapeats Creek plunging from the limestone cliff. Maybe we can make it and onward, a dip in the creek and the odd coldness of mist at the base of the falls, the wet green smell of monkey flowers and watercress, looking out from a verdant, lush creekside surrounded by desert. Not a bad place to eat a salami and rye.


And that is the first half of the day, because by now the boats should be downriver and only one way: keep going. My favorite part, Surprise Valley, the surprise halfway across when a chain reaction of thoughts: hot as heck if it is the wrong time of year to be undertaking this expedition (anytime between spring and fall so most of the river season), dry, hot, never-ending trek, friggin really hot so this better be worth it, surprise! no water or shade and one long, winding trail, no end in sight.


Now if you spend anytime around a nine year-old you will know that the word surprise is synonymous with something good, which can be candy, slurpee, or trip to the neighborhood pool and on a really great full of surprises day, a spongebob ice cream afterward. But somewhere between the early days of hoping and believing is the expanse of ain't gonna happen, and that valley is where most of us adults spend our time trudging. And toiling. Back and forth, hoping, no surprises today or pleading, for godsakes, no more surprises! we, of the no news is good news.


But I loved Surprise Valley, more than the creek and more than what came at the end when the trail descended yet another mumbo-jumbo slope of rocks to yet another waterfall cascading out of the limestone, and the prettiest little valley of cottonwoods, to what we called the Deer Creek patio: a small basin of water big enough for five of your friends, fringed with pink willow roots and maidenhair fern, flowing out of that a sinuous curving grey creekbed, dippers flitting back and forth, and one last one-foot-at-a-time walk through a narrow slot canyon, above the unseen but loudly rushing water and the next (yet another) mouth-gaping waterfall. Oh, and the ancient handprints,  stenciled in limonite pigment onto the red stained limestone,  something so perfect it would have to be a set for a National Geo shoot.


Only it wasn't, but real, and something you would never forget, would go home and when the small square screen that is every day and the same thing always playing, a life stuck on re-wind, something you would think about. Despite the toe stubbing and a lost water bottle and the MIA shade, the toil, the looking ahead and wondering why and when. Somewhere midway across you stopped thinking better be worth it or what if it's not worth it or wrong choice, easier would have been better. Because of course just past midway there is that surprise of the not what you were expecting, not what you think you are wanting, and that is when it gets good; just after it seems never good again. But only if you look up and realize whoa I am a long long way and who knew it would be like this, or that there was anything like this, and isn't this why we came here in the first place, to have the same old same old replaced by something, even for a single moment, a different view, maybe not the view you'd expected, and not even there yet: a place just somewhere along the way, nothing special about it except your choice to go there, maybe even, a really tough place. Which is the surprising part, to be somewhere you never thought you might be and to see everything beautiful right then and there, on the long haul to getting somewhere. 

the first time to the deep end

When you are teaching someone to swim the thought is not drown; maybe a little treading water when it is the deep end, maybe how to push off the bottom and make it to the surface. I always loved diving for the pennies, but then, swimming was my thing pretty much from the get-go. Once you get the pool thing wired you realize how handy and also, lots of options. I never minded the ocean, the taste or the stinging in my eyes, not even the sand that would fill my bathing suit bottom after one too many tumble along the bottom. Where I grew up the water was warm, in the Gulf like a bath tub so that was a bit ick but on the Atlantic side better than sitting in the glaze of the sun coated in slime, slowly cooking. That was for the big girls and the old ladies straddled down in the beach chairs, their husbands asleep with their mouths open to the white sky, or pretending to read the newspaper while they looked out over the top of their sunglasses.


It would thrill me when my dad would swim, it was unexpected and as far as I can remember lasted until I was about seven. After that I don't remember either of my parents in the water or even my grandfather, who took me to the beach and would sit there watching while I tumbled or dug or hauled pailfuls of water to the dry, the smoke from his pipe curling up from under his straw hat.


We did the lake thing, in the mountains with the pebbly bottoms and the water suddenly breath-sucking cold, layers of warm and cold like a big clear, very dark cake. The lakes weirded me out, not knowing how deep or what's down there or what if I made it to the middle but no dock and then what. The ocean had that unknown something might get me thing too but there was enough to do on shore or if I wanted to go deep the waves made me feel safe.


Which might have something to do with how I ended up in that last career and big waves, waves that could crush a seven year-old or the seven year-old's playhouse, sweep her away and under and across the rocks, suck her through or hold her down. Moving water makes sense in my swimming-mind, my water-mind, whatever that may be, even water that in any other place on another day would have mothers screaming and dragging children to shore, surfers fist-punching the air and high five'ing and news cameras with something for the 6 o'clock. 


But that is just whitewater and specifically, the big ass type of whitewater I learned to row a boat on and swim through, when plan A got knocked on its keister and Plan B meant pretend you are Mark Spitz (no Michael Phelps yet) and swim for your life. There was no floating in the correct whitewater pose feet up and hands behind your head I'm just enjoying myself on this merry day in the month of May, the directions the customers had all heard somewhere or seen in a red cross safety film. Which would come as a surprise even after our pre-trip spiel and five days, that fifth wave in Hermit, the blinding flash was that my life I just saw in Granite, if the flag dropped and suddenly, Plan B.


Not that anybody drowned. Not when I was a guide there; the drownings happened somewhere else and once, to a guy I liked a great deal who was kayaking and another time, to a dear friend because of ego and stupidity and wrong place with the wrong people, and one of them my first husband. Which is the thing you know, somebody says they know or maybe, know better, they talk a good story, lots of pointing and waving of hands, maybe an offering to the river god, maybe they have been down before, maybe they will lead and you are supposed to follow. Which can be fine and sometimes the best way and sometimes, really the only way if you've never been there or are just learning: and haven't learned yet that the voice on shore is not the voice that you will hear, small in the back of your mind then maybe screaming, maybe quiet in that way that says I mean business and listen to me, louder than a shout. 


But it is what you think about, a thought tucked into the back of your mind when the water looks so nice and come on in and the current is just a small sweep, the tide is still edging out, and the child says come swim with me and there they are: heading for the deep because they are nine now and had all those YMCA swim instructors to toss them up and push them under, not you; oh, so not you, somebody else would get that job. And there they go not even looking back; like they know what they are doing, know what they are headed for and not even worried what might be down there. They can't see what you see, sitting there in the beach chair and worried if your stomach is too or maybe just for a while then back to the book. You see every one of the waves, the time in Jawbone and no ropes, the time in Lava and no hope whatsoever, how hard you had to and how long it seemed, how many strokes and all those mornings in high school back and forth, back and forth, the smell of chlorine in the shower, the look on their face when you opened your eyes, the look on their face the first time perfect strokes and breaths to the side; the first time to the deep end all alone.

a cup of texas tea

Do not quote me on this but I am pretty sure there is a law of physics that states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If that is not the case then by all means, disregard the rest of this post because that is where I am headed. My thought is this: for every Water World (sorry Mr. Costner) there is a The River (1938 FSA funded documentary written and directed by Pare Lorentz, the script went on to be nominated for a Pultizer prize in poetry). For every Monsanto there is a Wendell Berry, and if we are lucky (and we are) a Farmer John. For every Goldman Sachs a Beverley Hillsbilly who has no clue yet. For every Brookings Institute think tank big brain there is a child somewhere asking a question. For every Aimee Bender iron-headed boy with pumpkin-headed parents there is an Olive, a Katniss, a Lisbeth, and a real person looking for a character she can connect to. For every Fox news viewer there is a video gamer who only ever watches a computer screen and not to see what's happening over at the BBC newsdesk. For every Hutu there is a Hopi. For every plastic bottle filled from a tap and marketed as better or smarter water there is a cancer cell stretching its legs, spreading its wings; for every marketing smirk someone who doesn't buy it or a slum where it stacks up. 


Reactions yes. Predictable, I think that depends on where you stand; the oil platform out at sea has its viewpoint, but so does the ancient granary tucked in the cliff up Tapeat's Creek, the sleek marble hallway leading to the sleek and equally cold boardroom, the tiny handful of willow tendrils cupped into a nest, yet another. 


Our culture spends a lot of time trying to predict. We want to know in what sector and when the next bubble will rise and how to be closest in line to get on board. We want to be assured if we kneel and pray and pay the tithe then what, and forever. We want to know how high the water will rise (Fox news viewers exempt from this) and how fast we can sell the beach condo. We want to be able to mark our dayplanner with the precise and can-count-on-it to the minute date our child will be born and if that requires a chemical jumpstart called Pitocin, so be it; planning via prediction trumps one of the highest infant mortality rates of any developed nation and highest C-section rate of all nations. We want to know dammit and now and not just how many more miles.


Which is why analysts were invented. So they can tell us what next and how many to buy or sell or how big a bundle, all the seismically important things. 


Of course, when things are for show then what is the reaction: is it stronger because of the falsehood, will the bird flying over the movie backdrop find her way home or does she need the real canyon migration marker to find her way? Which brings another law to mind, making sow's purses out of pig's ears, but that would be the commodities market and in that case, holding one's pinky just so whilst one sips the tea (or drinks the kool-aid) might make people think oh yes and look what they are doing to fix but the compass on that one has gone all whicky-whacky and who knows which direction it really points.


If, as quantum physics asserts, we are creating the present reality, that energy is endless and boundless and both the sum of its parts as well as the mind counting the sheep, then all we need is a few good minds (and by good minds I do not mean university funded minds or think tank finger drummers, or agency oriented thinkers) and maybe a kindergarten class or two to set things straight and maybe keep the spinning happening on the axis; I don't think anybody on Wall street or down the road at the Hill has a friggin clue: please tell me why Dow Jones and the S & P, the Nasdaq can trump the nesting grebe, the spotted sandpiper, the kingfisher minding its kingfisher business?


The good news. According to the aforementioned law of physics then all these short-sighted thoughts must certainly be creating a much longer-ranged view. So thank you Mr. Newton for pointing out the way it is, thank you tea party-downers, thank you BP f-ups, muchos gracias to the global policy makers behind the curtain (where I am pretty sure the wicked witch's big sister has been hiding all along) and praise the lord to all the religions of the world that preach our way or the highway. Thanks for the fuel to get us somewhere else, the drive to change gears, the shift in the currents that is surely coming our way. 

water rolling underground

This is the story of a river. Many words ago I thought if I could write about it I would be there. Which of course is not true, and it did not work that way. Which I can see now, a few miles downriver and many pages under and beyond the bridge that brought me to be here waving from shore. When I was first on the river and young and had no idea really what I wanted, aside from a few easy goals (boyfriend, summer job anywhere but back home, a pair of those funky pre-Teva plastic fisherman's sandals the river guides wore and were called jellies) being there was not where I wanted either. But I had no clue or a where else or what else, and the guides were cute in a shaggy seventies cut-off blue jeans kind of way. Which was not my way at all. Which might have been part of the appeal, and definitely fit the blank wide open yonder anywhere but home.


Nobody tells you that first night when the ground is your bed. Nobody says someday you will look back, someday you will wish you had written down every word, remembered everything. Not even after a year or two and scaring the bejesus and one untimely and very long swim, and the guy who keeled over just at the top of Corksrew which was so not your best rapid and in those days two breaths and a zillion compressions, did jack shit to re-start his heart. There on the wet and slippery granite of a river and you would think why me and then with each breath you gave him why him and later that night, maybe this isn't the life for me. But it was and you did, and you went there into that life again and again, and with some wonderful and amazing people, and saw some wonderful and amazing things. And it is only now that you think was that my life and in the next breath-thought, because you can't think back then and also think here and now, when did it end?


But that was really a long time ago. I am tempted to write long long time ago but no sense rubbing salt into my own wound; the eternal (and best sung by David Byrne) question how did I get here is one thing. Realizing uh, I might want to look up and see old man river is rolling right on past, another. If I squint I can just catch the tail-end of a small boat as it rounds the bend, then gone. Somebody else's life now: the day beginning with birds (now that's a catchy title) as the day must (such prose!) it seems, because each day does (Hallmark aside, this is the stuff  of someone who might be looking a tad too far downriver). Another way to look at it I suppose is I have come full circle and am now critiquing my own writing. No sense waiting for that Book Review, they seem to be slow on the draw these days anyway.


Which makes sense, having sat down at my computer day three after returning from the hospital, baby in his burrito so he could not flail himself to bits and me sitting there wondering how the hell I would keep from flailing myself to bits. What I saw first was that I had gone from a gal who would bike for four hours to her favorite emerald green pool for a, yes, though at the time I did not think so (oh sad pitiful hindsight) skinny dip to becoming a mother. Whatever the heck that meant. A word that did not conjure hip yoga clothes and proud tanned belly or a strategically and artfully arranged cover pose, not yet. 


Evidently part of my escape route had much to do with my own mother, and despite a happy childhood or strike that, I was happy and a child and also, suffered, as children do. Even nice parents suck; ask their teenaged sons and daughters. So despite said childhood (and you should know if you must that I am all for putting one's inner child in a time out for an undetermined length of time, as in forever) maybe I suffered from a longstanding bout of arrested development. Not that I am a collector of dolls or beanie babies at age (not your beeswax) but for crying out loud, how long is this woman going to whine waa waa waa that she is no longer drifting down the stream? 


Note to self: buy some cute stickies when I have the extra cash and then write this down and stick it on my forehead. MUST MOVE ON.


Well dang, I sort of huh, maybe once, there was that time, and now we are ten. Or he is, the little bambino burrito is a whole enchilada kid now and what have I got to show for it? Maybe one too many helpings of cheese on those nachos and a serious need to row the days and weeks and a jiggly belly away (sooo not doing the walking-through-the-mall strollercize thing sohelpmegod.) But you know that is someone else's story, how hard life is chasing a toddler through Barney's in shoes no mother but (aside to agent if I had one: can I say this?) only a man would design. Which might be why wedges are back in style, now that motherhood is hip. Or was, like yesterday and I am not sure where Angelina is these days, recovering from one too many et al, just do not tell me on a river, she and Madonna, and Sarah Jessica telling tall tales of baby poo in various hues and getting their groove back.


Which oh yes I would so be there, only I did not. And you know if I had to do it again; well, let's just suppose. I would tell that gal it is going to be different, but (and here she would interrupt, after all I know myself better than anybody) that is okay. The river was different and look where it took you. Yes it is one thing to be in the spotlight Miss Canyon Guide and that ego immunity idol around your neck as if you, by virtue of sleeping on the ground and knowing a tricky knot or two, also, pretty good at keeping the tribe with plenty of fish, have somehow outwitted all the poor shmucks who had to pay to go down the river. Well baby the tribe has spoken and you are now and have been, an observer. A reminiscer, a recaller of the good ol days and way back when, and also, a looking back upstreamer. Which you know or should know by now, has a limited sight distance. 


Now where was I? Oh yes, ahem. Now hear this, in response to the aforementioned question, posed hypothetically and also, after having mentioned the unfortunate tummy situation, my answer is hereby known as: yes. I would if I had to do it again, every last looking-out-the-window moment of it, also, looking over at my son's mound of legos lying in wait for me to step on in the middle of the night when he needs a drink of water, and speaking of water, which of course reminds me where I came from and how I did get here, such a beautiful beautiful thing it was and is, and all the ways I keep managing to find it. Or maybe it was destiny (that last name thing after all) but either way, what a long strange trip it's been.

read it and reap

This is not a post about silver linings, despite the cloud picture. It was a rough week and I wish I could say because we missed our flight and had to wait and no good magazines or traffic or they were out of my favorite whatever, or even and this is a biggee, the cleaners ruined my favorite baby blue. Another way to look at it is no chemo scheduled no tow truck in the drive, no day of reaping, and the last I checked no masks dropping down and parents place around your nose first.


But you know I am only human and I did not inherit the eyes in the back of my head gene. Maybe all that rowing downstream, stern first and looking where I'd just been. But that's the best, strongest, and most efficient way to get somewhere, and when the wind is blowing or a big rig bearing down and one camp left, no other choice. A good old fashioned windy canyon day sounds good about now, come to think of it: despite the no way to say for how much longer and the encumbrance of hauling people along with you in the same boat. And no way they can really do anything to help, it is a fine line between gut-busting heave ho and finessing the current line.


Which you know is not all that apparent at 20 knots, plus that looking back upstream thing so what you see is what you've left behind; in a long flat stretch this view can seem to never end. And so it is feeling my way forward, and pretty much in the dark because pulling hard and craning your neck around just doesn't work. Not at this age, anyway.


There was always a steadiness about it I liked. Not going to say enjoyed because that is just a weird thought, anybody enjoying hefting a raft through flatwater when the whole idea of a whitewater adventure is movement. Maybe it was a martyr thing, gal me and those big guys, heck, even the scrawny ones had the advantage of testosterone. Maybe it was a this is my job thing and sir yes sir, because I am a worker and there is a certain comfort in knowing what is expected, and in doing it.


Then again maybe, and this is just me throwing one out there, maybe it was hard but in the back of my mind I knew we would get there some way, and eventually. The dread of not making it to the take-out on time was the impetus for some extra long days and no time for hiking when only so much daylight and the numbers added up and not in our favor. 


There is no good way to describe the squirrel in the road state and let me just say this, when it rains it does seem to go for broke and seeing what's coming, dodging the tires, wondering this way or thataway gets trickier. At book club everyone was very excited abut the pick and how thrilling, the idea of innocents fighting innocents and those well-fed careers, everyone watching and then the idea that people just really, truly enjoy seeing that sort of thing; flat panels just another and easier to transport form of coliseum. And I understood that, I am no dummy and I did teach high school once and there is definitely a surge to see the fight when it happens, people yelling fight fight and some flying to Vegas to see firsthand when pay-per-view does not cut the mustard, others circling the fringe to get a better view or the first taste. Maybe misery does not love company; maybe misery is looking for an alliance and a leg up into the tree and then, maybe two heads better than one, more eyes on the pack circling at the bottom. Maybe misery is more than she is cracked up to be.


And of course how a few good men and it is really a need, a human need to fight to the death or at least see other people try to, and we don't get to do that anymore besides road rage or maybe with a joystick in our hands. Which does not seem all that smart to me, the last man standing and he with the biggest or best seat wins. And somebody said how they really got into it and were hoping, a yeah! fist punch and shout out into the sky when somebody went down and lots of nodding and don't say you didn't like it too when one of the competitors got what they had coming. Which would be a child because those are children in the book in that death match. And these are people with children in my little pony pjs.


Which seems scary to think how things have not changed, some folks in the arena and others flagging down the guy with the peanuts, maybe the sandals have better traction now. But also, enlightening, which is one purpose in looking back upstream or down from the tree: how it is sometimes easier to talk about a place you have never been or only imagined or read about or maybe, your neighbor went there, and those myths that inform us if we switch the channel to PBS. These places are exciting or perhaps, in comparison to the day in day out, nuking the hot pockets and sitting in the dentist's chair, the thought of them shows us there is something else we need to see.

And my question is which are truly the oppressed? Because at least the act of scrambling and fighting tooth and nail, setting your mind to it, or on the river, coming up kicking and screaming, is one thing. And what can anyone do really from seat thirty row fifteen level C besides take it all in,  aside from think thank god not me or if they have learned anything, I could be next.

Which might be the chink in the armor I am thinking, the truth that watching the games is one thing but really, you have to be there, looking for the details the gamemakers hopefully overlooked, seeing where you came from and how far you've come, stacking that up against how much further to go. 

making waves

I do consider myself lucky for having lived a life that meant many days sitting in a boat and going downriver. For one, the scenery was always changing. For another, and this just might be me, I am not inclined to sit on the sidelines very long, and spectator sports bore me. So a river life, the 24/7 part, yes the never coming in from the rain (or heat or cold or wind) part, too, was just the ticket for a gal who could sit still as long as she felt like she was getting somewhere. 


Repetitous, yes. Also, circling the drain, and I'll give you this: nothing all that special about it. Meaning, there was nothing special about me and my abilities, other than maybe an odd tolerance for discomfort. But it was a life and more so, living; a day to day must-make-it-happen kind of living with no sleeping in or on it, or maybe I'll take this one off. I couldn't take a back seat or sit this one out or head to the dugout and dig in, because other people depended on me to get them downstream. They wouldn't make it without me, those nice folks from Des Moines with the Nikon that bounced over the cliff day two or the three sisters from Jersey who thought a wilderness adventure would be the picture they saw in the back of Sunset. And that life, despite the lack of sick leave or paid vacation days and also, retirement fund and a benefits package somehow felt better to me than a cubicle on the 44th floor and talking about Survivor over paper cups at the office cooler. 


Maybe it was in my genes or maybe the synapses just stuck on that relay; again, again, firing row your boat, row your boat, head downriver and look what happens when you just do your life the way it feels most right: you get somewhere and on the way you make a few waves. Which get quite the bad rap, still waters run deep and that whole line of thought, also, don't rock the dang boat. 

Did I mention I was not always the obedient point A to point B child and when I announced I was foregoing grad school for a jolly life on the river my father was so mad he could barely speak, and when he did speak it was not to say have a nice life.


A life or even a day these days, feeling like you are getting somewhere is hard to come by, so like said, I feel very lucky to have trained my muscles to understand the feeling of that: and maybe if I pick up the oars again they will just go about their business, start heading somewhere and taking the necessary strokes. Because it is not always easy, destinations and departure points do not always line up like we think they will. Oh and don't get me started on the journey is the thing thing, I have been there and down that road, rowed a few strokes thataway and also, to that watering trough and it is no longer enough. The train is coming into the station, the horse she is a'coming round the bend, and standing there spinning in the road is simply the whirling dervish behavior it is. The crazy dude you walk past every day on your way to the nine-to-five might very well be speaking glimmers of truth but he is wearing the wrong clothes and if nobody stops to listen he might as well give it up and head back to the shelter, those soundwaves he is casting simply evaporating at the intersection of Cushy Life and Too Busy street. Where people are too busy and also, it just feels good and fine the way it is, thank you very much.

I have been taking notes on the crazy person talking to herself mode of action and this is what I have learned. Al Gore blew it for being too serious and thus too earnest and that was a problem: nobody wants to have Mr. Smarty Pants tell them they are not as smart or as right, or get one-upped in the righteous parade. If you smile even if you are a snake people will at least look in your direction, and if you are attractive and wearing a bikini, more peoples will look in your direction (thank you Parvati from Survivor for this lesson) but really they aren't listening to you or reading your lips it is just a diversion so you might as well be speaking parseltongue. If you simply head into the water and make a ruckus some people will notice but that does not mean they like it, it means they will dry themselves off and move to a cabana closer to the pool boy next time. If you shout brace! brace! brace! or hold on or shit is about to hit the fan then the plane had better be headed for the water, the boat about to do the perfect ender, the tsunami about to suck out then come rolling back in, or else next time nobody will batten down the hatches or bother to even pretend they heard you, and the media will be ticked off because you blew the perfect headline. If you line up the data and point out the facts then you obviously have an agenda or a side and nowadays that might mean an inside, and also, a special interest. Which might be special over there but not necessarily over here and then there is a big ball of yarn to untangle and the knitting crafty thing is so yesterday, who has the time. Not with the (backyard) chicken craze happening.


I have said this before and I will say it again. The math is simple, and lo, despite that degree in English and the minor in Art History I have also learned ahem, life is all about math, a numbers game; and if twenty-seven baby elephants are at station A and thirty more are at station B and the train has seventeen stops blah blah blah, just tell the f-ing baby elephants to get on the train and go. Period. 


I'm just saying, you might wanna cancel that order for stocks in the lifeboat company, same for lifejackets, flotation devices and by all means, when the flight attendant starts his spiel about cushions under the seat, please pay no attention. 

In case you haven't noticed (roll anything Inconvenient here please, graphs, pictures of glaciers calving, SUEZ corporation's latest acquisitions dossier, etc) that odd lull just when the water ebbs and the sound stops and you think maybe the projectionist has fallen asleep or gone for a big gulp refill, is now. And if we don't make some waves (breathe, say this with a smile and if I had a bikini maybe, for the right cause) now (please everybody turn to page one of The Hunger Games) then later (back away from the kool-aid! back away from the kool-aid!) well then, just where and how and who will make waves later, and in what?