Down By The River Side.

Yesterday I laid down my troubles.  I decided I was tired of carrying them while on a tromp through a thick forest full off overgrown underbrush and fallen trees.  Brushing spiderwebs off my glasses, and running my fingers through my hair to check for spiders, I forged my own path towards the sound of a rushing river that I couldn't see.  With all the determination of someone who knows she's about to win a race, I plodded onward, scratching my cheek on a limb that seemed to reach out and grab me as I made my way to a clearing I could faintly make out just ahead.

It seemed, as I walked, that every problem, every seemingly insurmountable obstacle that for the last few months became my obsessional focus started to settle into perspective.  With every crush of limbs and crackle of sticks under my heavy hiking boot-step, I began to feel lighter.

Finally I came to a driveway cut through the middle of the woods, a small cottage around the bend at the far end.  At first, I considered turning back, but I could hear the crashing sound of the river, ever louder before me, and I decided to press onward.  My backpack was heavy.  I was sweating, my hair sticking to the back of my neck.  I stopped for a second, took off my backpack and shed the long-sleeved shirt I had worn to protect my arms from scratches.  Examining the forest ahead, no discernable trail in sight, I knew I still risked exposure to brambles and branches, but the thought of freedom from the oppressive heat of that shirt outweighed my fear of getting hurt.  I shed it, crammed it into my backpack and set back on my trek to find the water.

I was right, my arms got scratched, I found a couple of ticks crawling on my shoulder.  My backpack got hung in the twisting limbs of a Mountain Laurel bush and yanked me backwards.  It took a minute or two to get myself untangled.  But I persevered and in a few more minutes I could see the rocky banks of the river up ahead.

I made my way down the steep rocky bank, wobbly rocks threatening to upset my equilibrium, and thanked myself for investing in good hiking boots, for once.  There I was, facing the white-capped rapids, taking n the kind of cool breeze one only gets to experience when standing by a river.  The smell of dark river-mud, distant honeysuckle and my own sweat brought me back to another day, a day when I was younger, lighter and less consumed by things over which I had no power to change.

I found a nice flat rock and sat down, took off my boots, my socks.  I rolled up my pant legs and stuck my toes in the cold water.  At first, it seemed like enough, but the longer I sat there staring at the rocks beneath the crystal clear water, thinking how refreshing it felt rushing over my feet, the more I wanted to immerse my whole body in it.  In my rush to pack for the trip, I had forgotten my swimsuit.  I worried about some microbial infection from the water getting into the exit site for my dialysis catheter.  I tried to talk myself out of what I was considering, but I was in no mood to listen to reason--especially my own, which seemed so flawed and untrustworthy anyway.

I spent a few minutes looking around nervously, the thought I was entertaining seeming to risky but too tempting to pass up.

A few minutes later, there I was, up to my neck in the chilly mountain stream, head tilted back, looking up at the clouds with the slippery river-stones beneath my feet.  I felt alive.  I felt my cares, the ones I have carried for so long, like that heavy backpack weighing me down, slip away.  I imagined them floating down the river without me, I let them go, if only for that brief moment, without even trying to reach for them.

Standing there with the water rushing around my body,my mind drifted back to the time my dad and I fished for two days in the Broad River.  We tied our string of catfish on a stringer and secured them to the side of our green canoe.  In a moment of inattention, the stringer somehow came untied and we stood there and watched as the rapids swept them away.  I remembered how my dad shook his head as we watched our supper tumble through the rocks and out of sight.  He didn't try to chase after them, didn't get angry that they escaped.  He just baited another hook and told me to keep casting my line. We kept fishing until we caught another supper.

We never forgot about those fish that got away.  We still talk about it all the time, but we didn't go hungry either, because our determination paid off.  We landed our canoe on the riverside that night so long ago, and I watched my daddy clean fish into the twilight hours, watched him fry them up on our camp-stove, and we filled our bellies until we were satisfied before we stretched out beneath the stars and let the sound of crickets lull us off to sleep.

And there I stood, imagining my troubles tied to a string like a bunch of caught-fish, tumbling down the rocky river, knowing that this time, I was the one making a great escape.

I slept in a cabin last night, the faint sound of frogs and crickets outside my window, a light snore in my right ear.  The evening breeze caressed my shoulders as I snuggled down beneath the covers and a smile I haven't known for some time stretched across my lips.  I know now what it's like, to truly lay down my troubles.

Down by the riverside.