Edgy Mama

For this month’s Blogging for Books, write a blog entry about one of three things:
1. A memorable trip or “mini-vacation”; 2. A time you did something spontaneously, in order to shake up your life; 3. A time you metaphorically took “the road less traveled”, and made an unpopular or uncommon decision. If you don’t already know about B4B or want to know more, visit The Zero Boss.

My post, below, definitely fits into category one, and, to some extent, into category two, and, stretching it a bit, perhaps into category three (at least from one person’s perspective).

February 1994, White Water Canyon, Utah

I sat in the front of the raft drinking a Budweiser. Behind me, rowing the oar boat down flat water, he sang, “Celia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily.” The striated canyon walls blocked the afternoon sun as he steered the raft towards our campsite on the river’s left bank.

“Big water tomorrow,” he said.

After everyone else had gone to sleep, we sat on the sand next to the river telling each other stories until late at night. Imagine, for instance, that a crazy ax murderer was hiding in one of the caves we passed alongside the river. He could have followed our rafts to our campsite. Now, while we sat talking, away from the tents, he could come down and brutally murder our friends as they slept. We wouldn’t know that anything was wrong until we woke up tomorrow morning and saw the tattered tents and splattered blood.

May 1994, Canyonlands and The Green River, Utah

As I drove up, I saw him sitting against a tree reading a book.

“Hi,” I said.

“You’re here,” he said.

He smiled, stood up, and hugged me. He held me for just a second too long.

We spent the next few hours helping to organize food and sleeping arrangements for eighteen eight and nine-year-olds.

After the kids were asleep, or at least, in their tents, we talked until late, ignoring the other teachers and parents chaperoning the trip. He told me that he was going to try to work things out with his girlfriend. I said that I was disappointed, but I respected his decision.

“Give me a squeeze,” he said.

We hugged–hard. He didn’t feel like he really meant what he had said. He felt electric with desire.

We spent three days and nights in the desert, teaching and leading, tending and shepherding. In the evenings, we sat next to the fire and told ghost stories to the kids. After they were asleep, we would walk around the campsite in the dark, bumping shoulders every few feet like drunken sailors. I thought, “Because of who I am and who I think he is, this has to be his decision.”

On the last night, he said, “Hey, my inflatable kayak is in my car. Do you want to stay tomorrow and go rafting?”

“Just the two of us?” I asked. He didn’t reply.

“I have a date tomorrow night.” I paused. “I’ll call and cancel.”

We said good-bye to the children, the parents, the teachers. Suddenly, it was quiet. We looked at each other and smiled.

“The river,” he said.

We set up his two-man kayak, bought a 12-pack of Budweiser, rubbed sunscreen on each other’s shoulders, and floated down the Green River.

Twice we saw death on the river. A mama magpie protecting her nest from a tree-climbing snake—hectoring the snake until the long length of it splashed down into the water. A golden eagle swooped down to pinion his dinner, a soft bunny that should have been camouflaged by the barren brown rocks.

It started raining as we neared his car. By the time we pulled off the river, an afternoon storm had begun to dump buckets of rain on us. We had to climb the hill to the car through thick, sucking clay. He took my hand and pulled me up the hill. Wet and covered with clay, we sat in his car drinking beers and dipping tortilla chips in salsa. Again, he told me of his decision to stick with his girlfriend.

“If it wasn’t for her, I would be trying to kiss you right now,” he said.

At this point, I was tired of hearing about it.

“What am I doing here? I should have just gone home,” I thought.

I think he sensed my frustration. Maybe it was the glare I gave him every time he brought up his girlfriend’s name.

I told him I’d follow him back to the Roaring Fork Valley. We drove along, two beat-up cars separated by more than distance, along the flat road through the desert, heading towards the tiny town of Dinosaur, Colorado, where we planned to stop for dinner.

“Why prolong the agony?” I thought. “I should just pass him, wave, and keep driving.”

I was listening to Kevin Montgomery singing: “Which way is it gonna be? Will you give up what you had so you can have something with me?”

He suddenly turned sharply down a rutted road that led to a wooden shack containing what sounded like a generator (although I didn’t notice the reverberating noise until later). He stopped his car and got out. I stopped mine and got out. He walked towards me, a look of determination on his face.

“What’s wrong,” I asked.

He said nothing, but took my shoulders firmly in his hands, bent towards me, and kissed me.

We kissed there, leaning against my car–wet, dirty, disheveled–for two hours. People would drive by, blow their horns and whistle. We would laugh and keep kissing.

June 2005, Asheville, North Carolina

My daughter and son giggle as their Daddy chases them around the house, growling.

“A monster! A monster!”

They squeal and scream as he catches them and wrestles them to the ground. Eventually, one of them escapes, rescues the other, and the chase resumes.

I watch as I prepare dinner and think about river trips far from home—and about a first kiss that led to forever.