The oars were frozen in my hands. My world was turning vertical. We slowed, time slowed, my heart sank as the two large bodies of my customers were thrown past my widening blue eyes, and into the faded green waters of the Salmon River. The bright gay orange tubes suddenly blocked out the weak and overcast midday sun. The last beam of glorious light was suffocated as the raft completed its natural corkscrew, my foot still attached painfully inside. Of course this is how this trip would end. It only seemed right that while I was nearing the brink of the horizon, the sun would decide to set, not rise.
My world was spinning as I opened one eye to see the scurried movements of the other guides inside the aging double wide trailer. My stomach churned, ached, boiled, throbbed, flipped and lurched like a sickening foreshadowing. The past three days blurred into one horrid mistake. Today was the start of five days. Five days on the Main Salmon. Five days in a canyon, suffocating and cold. Not cold as in the sense of goose bumps on a crisp fall morning, but cold as in a rejection via typed letters in the dawning days of young love. I rose and shoved my handful of items in to a old, beaten, and traveled navy blue dry bag. My hand grasped the cold green handle of my graffitied ammo can, I stumbled onto the warm back deck, and toward a failing white suburban. The suburban much like my life was a sad mess of breaking parts and a slow will to continue on, with each passing day hoping the brakes would slow the collision.
I passed out in the back, my face stuck to the seat, only moving for a short stop to stare at biscuits and gravy I knew I should eat, but could not summon the courage to do so. The drive passed in a mixing of reality with the turmoil in my brain. Dreams cause me to shake, my brow to furrow, and my face move to a permanent grimace as I battled the explosion of chemicals that were at war in my body.
I sat up to see the sun set.
It was like a deflating basket ball, slowly and sadly rolling behind the ever steepening hills. I mumbled my sloppy words, I stared glumly out the window. I wished I was crammed securely into my freeing creek boat. If only to feel the wonderful sensation of a fiberglass blade grasp rock, sending my being into the air, over the aeration and turmoil of a ledge and into the moving water toward the next hazard.
If only.
Nights passed, but my heart was blackening. It turned cold, it turned weak, it turned toward the match to burn the bridge. The self destruct phase was beginning, and I felt powerless to stop it. I was heading for the end in the most glorious explosion of dancing flames.
Morning came, the routine started, the afternoon burned, and night soon followed.
He sat across from me at the edge of the lawn in the dim light, surrounded by the healthy un-kept forest. His discerning brown eyes were fixated on my string of worried words along with a quiet frown. His button up shirt and kaki shorts hardly represented the river guide he was by day. I was unhappy. Everyone felt it, they could feel the discontent. I could no longer keep it in, it poured like a spring waterfall from my worried lips. Worries, hopes, and hatreds I never had expressed before were now flying into the midnight air, sucked away into the canyon. I lamented my position in life, the pointlessness of everything, and the horrid feeling of feeling stuck. I never liked being stuck. Stuck in Sieves, a bus in Peru, or my job it was all the same. It chipped away at the cushion on my heart. It eroded my sense of purpose. Being stuck forced me to realize my reality. A reality which was disappointing and unwanted.
My nervous tirade ended. He waited. The world seemed to breath deeply before he spoke, "Sounds to me like you need to chill out."
I waited. Thinking there was something more.
He continued in a long explanation of adolescence, the period of growth, life in general. "You are a good dude, people gravitate toward you, don't go out of your way to be a dick.....be content with where you are. I don't want to be that old guy that says 'I felt the same way when I was your age' but its true, this period of life is the most interesting. That is why coming of age movies are so fascinating. Don't waste it being worried or unhappy"
The frozen pensive look on my face allowed for another moment of silence to be heard in the quiet night. "I am glad you told about all this stuff going on in your head man."
The vice grip on my heart loosened, the cold winter cloud that frequented the inside of my chest dissipated, and I opened my eyes again. The canyon no longer felt cold, but humid, hot, and peaceful. My jaw relaxed from a clench, and my entire body sighed for just a moment. We talked for a few minutes more, then he walked to bed. I stayed seated in the lawn, the forest creeping up upon my back. I shrugged it off and found my sleeping bag a few minutes later.
Peace found the next few days. It was a labored peace at that.
Oxygen rushed from my lungs, my foot now holding me under the overturned raft. I tugged violently at my entrapped foot. It came free, flip flop still attached. I surfaced in a atmosphere of orange. I took another breath and escaped the clutches in my new found enemy. My hand clutched the underside of the raft and I slithered like a oil soaked seal onto the floor. I came to my feet to look back up stream at the torrent that had knocked me down. "Float away" a voice said, "Quit" it continued. At that moment I felt like a dam was about to burst, I could feel the cracks spreading like a poisonous spider web across my chest. I blinked my eyes quickly and resumed dealing with the pieces of my mistake. "This boat is a perfect metaphor to my life" came a sudden self deprecating thought " 78.6 miles perfectly fine, to flip only a mile and a half from the take out. It does not matter how well you do for the majority of your life, it is the last mile everyone will remember. It is the crash and burn. The self inflicted wound."
When the boat was righted, customers replaced back in the front of the raft, and the last mile finished. When the trailer was loaded, the boats were rolled, and the oars were stowed neatly next to the paddles. When all the work was done and we crept away from the boat ramp, I was left with a weak feeling in my heart. I was left with the worries of the first day, the worries from when I was 12, 16, 17, 18, and now. I was left with a sudden stunt in the growth I was hoping to make. I was left once again at war with myself.
I was left alone.
