Skip to main content

River Walk

Through clear water you see the first leaves of early fall lying scattered on the smooth river stones on the bottom. The slick rock reflect glints of sunlight in the shallows. Everything takes on the hues of russet and amber and somewhere in there are flecks of gold and flashes of silver swirling in the eddies and riffles, gliding down into the deep pockets along steep banks rife with ferns and alder trees and jewelweed.

As far as you can see up the river, trees form a canopy over the water, all bending toward the other side, all lacing their branches together to form a tunnel for an occasional cool breeze to flow through, loosening dead leaves and pieces of dried branches that fall into the current and end up gathering around your legs as you make your way upstream.

A river birch growing right on the bank is canted over at an angle across your path, it's root ball pulling out of the soil and rock near the water. At the base of this tree, the river has deposited fallen limbs and floating pieces of rotten tree trunks, creating an obstacle, causing you to wade out deeper to go around. The water is now up to mid- thigh, and you realize that you had forgotten just how cold this mountain water really is. A hand is placed on the mossy bark of the river birch to steady yourself, and after a few stumbling steps against the strong current, you are able to find the shallow bottom once again and move on.

Though the temperature today is not what you would consider to be hot, some sweat has built up on your forehead and the back of your neck. You remove the waxed canvas hat and wipe your brow. Standing in the middle of the river, you survey your surroundings and listen intently to every rustling leaf, the water rushing around the edges of large rocks, and the sound of a red- tailed hawk crying out somewhere upriver.

You realize that you haven't been this far up in quite some time-- years, perhaps. Not all that long ago, you thought you'd never see this river again, but now you're standing here in it. The current that is trying to push you back is also pulling you further upstream, deeper into the forest, deeper within yourself. For a long time, you were afraid that you were lost, but now you realize that you have found what you were looking for all along.

Comments

  1. Henry MitchellSeptember 30, 2018 at 5:56 AM

    Thanks for this, Josh. A snapshot that captures a whole life. We are all of us bending to the other side.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Josh LanierSeptember 30, 2018 at 6:00 AM

      So very true. We must bend to keep from breaking.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Promise: A Fly Angler's Long Journey Home By Paul A. Cañada

My favorite stories are the ones that give the author depth and serve as a window of insight into a writer's mind. Within the first few pages, it is important for me to develop a connection with the author, less I will quickly lose interest. I don't mean to sound like some type of literary elitist by any stretch– it's just me being honest.  Reading the first chapter in Paul Cañada's new book, The Promise , I felt that connection immediately. Paul tells of his childhood growing up in a military family, having a father in the Air Force, and the moves and re-adjustments that had to be made each time his father received new orders to relocate. I did not grow up in a military family, nor did my family move from place to place, but the relationship between Paul and his dad gripped me from the beginning. For me, this laid the groundwork for what was to come.  As his bio states, Paul Cañada is an award-winning writer and photographer with bylines in dozens of magazi...
2 comments
Read more

Hunting the Hard Way

Early morning sun catches my eye as it peeks over the horizon. It seems I am at odds with the world this morning. Already a crow has found my hideout in the tree branches, and pointed me out to his comrades as a spy for the human kind among the oaks. Only minutes later, the squirrel that emerged from the ball of dried leaves in a high fork betrays my location with a series of shrill barks, and I’m sure that every deer within twelve miles knows of my plan and will steer clear of this patch of woods from now until two hours after sunset this evening.  Once the alarm calls fade, all is quiet again, too quiet. It is always coldest after daylight, and I sit shivering, without so much as a wren or finch scratching around in the leaves, or hopping from branch to branch to entertain me. For two hours I sit with nothing but thoughts of a warm bed to occupy my time. Forlorn and desperate for some sort of action, I lower my bow to the ground and climb down from the tree. I need to...
3 comments
Read more

Falling

Standing midstream, I peer down at the rocky bottom through strands of broken light, calculating my next step across the slick stones toward a deep run of swift water in the bend flowing around a gravel bar downstream. A six foot length of stranded log, at knee-height, is obstructing my path, so I choose my route accordingly, navigating my way through water barely shin-deep.  The juxtaposition of light and shadow, early morning sun beaming through the trees, glinting off water and stone alike, and the dark pockets where current seams merge, gives a false sense of assuredness of a path laid out before me. Allowing my feet to feel their way as they carry me along, I take my eyes off the bottom for a moment and examine the edge of the run, just as I reach the head of the captured log.  Before I have the chance to retrain my line of sight to the riverbed beneath my soles, my foot finds no hold on an oblong stone, sloped just enough to let my shoe slide the length of it...
3 comments
Read more