Stories

I've been going over to the river on my lunch hour. I walk the path and stop in places to stare at the water. When the water is clear, I look for trout. The area I've been going to is in the middle of Ogden. It's a place the city has spent time and money revitalizing. It looks to be cleaner. It looks to be a place of contemplation. Just last week there was a group of students ( middle school age) who were sitting on the rocks near the river. All of them had notebooks and pens. Some were in close groups while others had spread out to find their own spot. I heard the teacher explaining to them that they could write whatever came to them--whatever they were feeling. I didn't find it all that surprising that they were at a river to do a writing assignment. Rivers can say a lot, but sometimes, they just listen.

I've been reading David Duncan's book, "My Story as Told by Water." Here is an interesting quote:

"At the age of twenty-five or so, I consciously chose a life of rivers, words, and contemplation over, among other things, any real possibility of a large income, instead making it my habit to walk in water as often as I could. I used to call such walks "fishing trips." For diplomatic purposes among those sacred of pagans--or, worse, mystics--I still do. But I've spent thousands of days now, in the waders I call my "portable sweat lodge," simply strolling, or standing in, running water. I possess no deed to any creek or river I traipse--because I need no deed. I bring almost nothing, in the way of food or memento, home afterword--because the rivers are home. I possess no friend or family member, not even the closest, with whom I've spent more time than I have with rivers. And I daresay that--in their hard-to-describe way--rivers have befriended me in return. They're very serious and cool in their friendships, incapable of sentimentality or preferred treatment, and would always as soon  drown as coddle you. Yet if you touch a river's skin with  the least tip of your finger, it visibly reconfigures what it was doing in instantaneous response. Is there a better name than friend for something this ceaselessly vigilant, this ready to respond to your most nuanced touch?"

Like I mentioned earlier, I didn't find it surprising that students were at the river learning to write. I did wonder, however, about the teacher. I saw her walking from each small group and to each individual repeatedly giving her instructions, "You can write whatever comes to you--whatever you are feeling." It occurred to me that this river was the teachers friend. Somehow, in the past, it had talked to her and she to it. Maybe she had placed the tip of her finger on its skin and watched the instantaneous response as the river reconfigured. Maybe that simple touch had reconfigured the teacher. It had to have affected her. She was changed and wanted to share that change with her students. Maybe the teacher could sense that our world teaches that success is measured in what we have (large incomes and material possessions), and that we are bombarded with electronic media to the point of losing our ability to really communicate, that in someway, by taking these students to the river, she could add to some one's list of friendships. Even if only a few of the students came away reconfigured and with a new friend, then this teacher has done her job.

Some Place

My favorite trout is the Bonneville cutthroat. It has always been my favorite. It was my favorite long before I even knew that the little native trout, in the little creek (which seemed like a big creek when I was three), was a Bonneville.

What I've come to discover with age, is, I'm not that different from my beloved trout. The particular strain of Bonneville lives in a large natural lake of turquoise. It can grow large and in its large size likes to eat a couple of forage fishes--whitefish and cisco. When mature, the Bonneville will migrate to their birth place, the small creeks that feed the lake of turquoise. They will enter the creeks and swim to suitable "places" for spawning quite similar to Atlantic and Pacific Salmon. The stress of this endeavor will weaken some fish to the point of death, but for the most part, after spawning, the trout will migrate back to the lake. The fry will stay in the creek and as they get larger, some will migrate to the lake also. Some will remain in the stream and become stream residents. The fish that live in the lake take on a silver and blue color and are called blue-nosed trout by some. The stream trout are typically more colorful with green, red, and orange hues. Biologist say the color difference is due to diet and maybe to the availability of light or the difference of light in the different environments--natures way of providing camouflage.

I can remember back only so far--sometime in the range of age three. I remember standing on the banks of a creek in Southeast Idaho and looking into the creek's water. I remember its clearness, the color of the rocks, and the sound it made. The color orange stands out in my mind. I remember the reflected light glaring. I remember squinting.

I don't remember falling in. I don't remember fighting the current, or even being wet. I don't remember being cold. I don't remember floating face down. I don't remember being pulled out by my grandfather.

As I think back, and try to remember, I get the feeling that I didn't fall in by accident. Maybe I jumped in. Maybe I slowly walked in. Maybe I died in that creek and that I'm living in some alternate world. Sometimes, I hear the sounds of the river in my left ear. The constant sound of moving water. Sometimes, I get a spinning sensation in my head--a lightheadedness like I'm twisting and turning with the force of water. When this happens, I lay down and I close my eyes, I see the glare. With eyes closed, I float, I spin, I'm not here, I'm some place.

For the past 30 plus years, I have felt the need to see that same creek water, to look at it, to see orange, to hear it gurgle, to hear it churn, to blend the noise in my left ear with its voice, to realize that it is my voice-- my own voice calling my name. I go every year.