LEAVING MY RIVER AND HAVING IT TOO

Ed and I are considering hitting the road in an R.V. for months at a time, renting out our house while we’re gone. When we’ve taken our two-week vacations in the past, I’ve done fine. But, when I hear “months”, my insides scrunch up. Though I dearly love gorgeous, unexplored terrain, I’m a homebody. I love my little town. And I adore my river.

My river is the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River, and it flows by my back door. It’s a freestone river, with magnificent rocks scattered in perfect disarray as water swirls around them. It is background music to the comedic, dramatic, ordinariness of my life. I feel bombarded by political and cultural horror these days, but when I sit with the river, the horrors subside, and I’m less prone to obsess or worry. The river makes me smile and cry and wonder in ways that feel real and deep.

Though Ed loves the river and describes its sound as “effervescent,” it took him a month to habituate to it. To me, the river’s sound is a soft roar, and I don’t remember a transition. It’s as if the river was always part of me. As if its water is part of my blood. As if moving here was coming home.

And I’m afraid to leave it. Afraid I won’t find anything that suits me more than light-dazzled copper rocks or osprey diving for trout or those red dragonflies that flit so fast and so red, they mesmerize me. Afraid I’ll forget the river sound, muffled when the house is closed, bold and full when I open the windows and doors.

But I want both. I want my river and retirement trips too.

I am aware that this is a first world problem, that many would covet my dilemma, having to choose between hanging on my deck, soothed by the river’s music, or rolling across the countryside, watching beauty unfold. Basking in firelight at our pit by the river, or in a campsite at Taos or Colorado Springs or Portland, Maine.

Fortunate or not, I am prone to fret over things that loom unsettling, and I can be quite testy when they’re unresolved. So, I’ve given a lot of thought as to what to do.

It strikes me that leaving the river is like being away from a lover. It’s like being without Ed. A piece of my soul will lie fallow. When I attach, I attach, and I’m way attached to that stretch of water that foams and splashes and glitters in my backyard.

So, what would I do if it were Ed I was leaving?

I’d take reminders. Photos. Videos. Songs. I’d listen to or look at them every day. I’d tell myself our parting is not forever, that he’s waiting for me, and that he’ll be exactly the same when I see him. And then I’d let myself enjoy what’s in front of me, knowing that’s what he’d want.

So I’ll take reminders of the river. Like this photo:

Like this song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp7iz2RZ80o

It’s not exactly a happy song, because the river is not just “happy”. It’s complex and rich and stirring. I’ll miss it, but, oh, what grand reunions we’ll have when I return.

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