In the Beginning

At the river crossing, the bridge is out. Aspen and maple leaves are floating down over smooth stones and swirling in eddies like a kaleidoscope of yellow and red. My wife and I scout around for a place to cross without having to take our shoes off and wade across. On the inside bank the water is shallow and we pick our way out over rocks slippery with algae and wet leaves. Things are looking easy enough, but on the outside bank the water is deeper and churns up white foam as it rushes over boulders. We eye a fallen tree that crosses the entire expanse and would make a fine bridge with limbs to hold onto for balance. Normally this would be the way to go, but today we’re toting our two month old daughter with us. Neither of us have had much sleep in the last eight weeks and a sense of balance is not a given. I’m especially wary of my own footing with an infant swinging in a sling across my belly.

We ditch the idea of a dry crossing and look for a shallow place to wade across. It’s mid October, but today is in the low seventies and sunny. We walk downriver where the terrain levels off and find a place that looks suitable to cross. Here the water gurgles over smaller rocks and stones. From experience though, we know the stones are slippery. I tell my wife we could just go back the way we came, forget crossing the river today. After reminding me that the return trip on the trail we’d taken would be mostly uphill and that the one across the river is flat and gentle, she takes her shoes and socks off ready to cross. I bend down on one knee balancing our daughter in the sling so her body stays against mine. She gives a slight squeal and moves an arm but doesn’t wake up. My wife and I both laugh and comment on the complete but apparently misguided trust she places in us. She’s comfortably asleep in her hammock, oblivious that at any moment now she could have her first swimming lesson.

     

My wife starts her way across taking a few even steps before slipping on a rock, swaying back and forth, circling her arms and finally regaining her balance. She gets even footing and stands very still with her arms out. She’s carrying her shoes in one hand and I’m just about to tell her to toss them over to the other side so she has extra balance when I realize the ramifications of such action. I have my own shoes in one hand and a very small baby rocking gently with each step. The day is getting late, we both realize our priorities, and decide to bag the river crossing and return the way we came.

We climb back up the river bank and stand barefoot on the forest floor of autumn leaves, which make a cohesive pattern of varying shape, size and color. Even in their fallen leaves the interrelationship of the trees is evident. Our daughter gives a little squeak as I bend to put my shoes and socks on and I wonder if it’s her thanks to us for not attempting to cross a wet cold river in autumn with her in my arms.

The return trail is not as steep as we’d thought, and we quickly rise out of the drainage where the sun is still high enough to warm us. Against the backdrop of massive gray talus mountain slopes, we move through intervals of flaming and then paler yellow stands of aspens, our feet noisily crunching and shuffling through leaves. We pass over a beaver dam, the world above shimmering in the ripples and the rattle of leaves in light breeze.

Back at the car, we’re both exhausted. Normally, the river crossing would have been as easy as jumping over a mud puddle in the trail, but with our infant daughter and sleep deprived heads, the attempt felt on par with crossing a raging torrent of spring runoff. We sit in the car and feed our daughter, glad to be sitting down. I read aloud from Desert Solitaire thinking that everything is relative.

-written by Andrew almost three years ago.