Mackenzie River
Edmonton airport is purgatory
with bad food
A place of waiting
And so I wait
wait 7 hours---
I feel like I am on hold...waiting
waiting for the adventure to begin
Am I?
or did it begin this morning
when I left home
or when I started planning
or simply when the idea was born?
There are those who call me
courageous and brave
others
fool hearty and crazy
But it’s not really
one extreme or the other
somewhere in between
depending on the moment
how hard the wind blows
and
how dark the night.
There are times
when I am so afraid---
I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt
who said....
“Do something every day
that scares you...”
But to admit
that I’m afraid
is to give substance
to the arguments
of those who say
I shouldn’t go
And so I laugh
about being eaten by bears
drowning in the river
being lost
being hurt
and being alone.
Never admitting
that I’m afraid
that I have doubts
except to Bill
who always counters....
“You’ll be fine.”
So why do I go?
I’ve said before
that only on the river
do I find the peace
the deep sense of peace
that seems to elude me
everywhere else.
That’s part of the answer.......
I have always been
a gypsy
a wanderer
Finding it easy to talk with strangers...
Amazed and intrigued
as they tell me
their life stories
their hopes and fears
their dreams
all of the things
so easily said to a stranger
that they probably find difficult
to tell
those they love most.
And always fascinated
by the appearance
of “river angels”
who seem to show up
mysteriously
magically
when I need them most.
I love the stories I bring home
The stories I tell
again and again
finding humor and humanity
in the moments
I would never know
if I simply stayed home.
Yet all the while
always wondering
---am I defined
by my river journeys
or
do I use their framework
to define myself?
Probably both
to a greater
or lesser degree
depending
depending on
how hard the wind blows
and
how dark the night.
Begun on my way to solo kayak the Mackenzie
6-26-06
Scallop Songs 