Of the River
The River Within Me
The leaves fell early that autumn, as my father loaded his canoe for our annual trip through the mountain to the river. Summertime had passed, and trout streams would be the landing places for the migration of winged ants, the time when nearly every trout in the river would feed on the surface with abandon. My grandmother lived in a wood cabin on that river, and visiting her was as good an excuse as any for a fishing trip.
Our truck took us: father, son, and canoe, up the mountain and back down into the meander. Dad then parked in the driveway. When I got out, I could hear among the trees my grandmother’s wild-baying hound dog. She had bought the dog a year before, brought him home, flung open the car door a little too wide, to watch him leap from the car, find a scent, and track it into the mountain forest where he forever would roam.
My father lept like that dog from our truck, and went out with his rod and canoe. My grandmother said the water in him seemed to be seeking the quickest way to return to the river.
She let me leave too, to roam a bit, and to find my favorite haunt: the place where the river bent and a large, flat stone jutted from the middle of its course. For me that was a holy spot. You remember holy spots; they etch their places within you with their ways. For me it was the way the river-water glistened, the way the sun seemed like it didn’t move when I was there, the way the trout brushed my hand as it dangled in the water. They knew why I was there, and wanted to tell me they knew too.
In that place, with my head facing the sky and my eyes tracking clouds, I could tell that everything was going to be alright, and that when I rose all would pretty much be the same as before I had laid down. I think it was the sensation that I wanted, and to have it given to me; to be in the middle of the act, between the world and its living.
Late that afternoon, my father returned as victor, his catch from the day a laurel crown upon his shoulders. I looked at him, approaching from the other side of the tarred road, and he looked at me. We watched silently, both returning, both seeing, both living as if without years between, and as we drew closer, my eyes felt the water. Vision-blurred, I didn’t know on which end of the road I was standing upon.
We had a good four nights at the cabin: peace and goodness and grandmother’s pies. We were tired that last night, before leaving early for the long-haul home. Sleep came easy, but before I drifted away, my father whispered to me about when he was a boy. How he had played in the woods with his two cousins chasing down flying squirrels and fishing rivers. And how that first day we arrived, when he was looking down the lane, he couldn’t tell if it was me or if I was an apparition of himself from then. In me he saw himself, walking in the present. Then, after one still pause of silence, my eyes closed, his eyes closed, and we slept.
You know, funny thing about dying ants, for some unknown reason they are attracted to water, and there is no predicting the time for them to do so either. But experienced fly fishers can feel it in the air, usually on warm, still, moist September afternoons. On those days, I often leave my office, smell the air, and know that when I reach my truck the hood will be covered with two or three different types of flying ants. It’s then I feel the water within me, seeking its return.
